Kitabı oku: «Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905», sayfa 11

Mrs. Paget, it is true, takes due rank in the same category, and both these women have all the truly American tastes for featuring their entertainments most delightfully. To continue in the commonplace round of quite conventional functions, as approved by society, is not to be borne by these energetic and novelty-loving ladies, and a dinner, a supper party or a dance at Mrs. Paget’s is sure to develop some unexpected and charming phase.

It is to Mrs. Paget, for example, that we are indebted for the introduction of that purely American festivity, “The Ladies’ Luncheon.” “The Ladies’ Luncheon” is now quite acclimatized here; we have accepted it as we have also accepted “The Ladies’ Dinner-party,” which was wholly unknown previous to the American invasion. Whether Mrs. Paget was instrumental or not in making for the last-mentioned form of entertainment a place among our conservative hostesses is not quite proven, but it is safe to say that this tall, vivacious, energetic lady, who skates as well as she dances, golfs and drives a motor car, carries almost more social power in her small right hand than any other untitled woman in London.

She is heartily admired by our present king and queen, who find in her sparkling talk very much the same mental stimulus that one derives from the Duchess Consuelo’s gay epigrams, and, above everything else, the court and its circle of society reverence the charms of the woman whose brain bubbles over with ideas.

If a dance, a dinner, a bazaar or a picnic is on foot, Mrs. Paget can map out and put through the enterprise with amazing skill and readiness, and she shows all the American’s shrewd business instinct for profitably pleasing a ticket-purchasing public when a charity fund must be swelled or a hospital assisted.

With her vigor, high spirits and infinite variety of charm, she is enormously sought after and courted and fêted, but it is noticeable, and none the less admirable, in English eyes, that the American woman established in a foreign land rarely or never fails in either her admiration or her affection for her country across the sea.

At the time of the Spanish-American War, this extreme loyalty to their native home and the land of their birth was made evident in not one but a dozen ways that never escaped the notice of English eyes. Expatriated though in a measure she is, the Anglicized American woman scarcely ever loses her sense of pride and profound satisfaction in being an American, after all, and so strong is this feeling in these delightful women that it is accepted quite as a matter of course, both by them and by their English friends, that their sons should frequently go back to the mothers’ land in order to find their wives.

Two notable instances of the son’s love for his mother’s country and his instinctive interest in her countrywomen have been supplied in the marriages of the young Duke of Manchester and the son of Sir William and Lady Vernon-Harcourt.

It seems scarcely more than natural that Mr. Lewis Vernon-Harcourt should marry pretty Miss Burns, of New York, though, through his mother as well as his father, all his interests and sympathies are naturally centered in England.

Yet it is safe to say that when the average Englishman marries an American he does not feel in the least as though he was marrying, so to speak, outside the family circle.

The marvelous adaptability of the American woman robs the situation of any difficulty, and in no way, so far, has the American wife of the Englishman showed more astonishing adaptability than in the cordial interest with which she often identifies herself with her husband’s political interests, if he is in Parliament.

Three of the keenest politicians in petticoats that England possesses are American women by birth; and the first and leading spirit among them is the American wife of Mr. Chamberlain.

Mrs. Chamberlain cares little or nothing for society, and beyond the obligatory functions at which she has been obliged to preside or attend, she shows small taste for the frivolities of that special world of men and women where the main task and occupation of every day is to amuse one’s self. But in the affairs of state she feels a very burning interest indeed.

She is one of the two women in the British empire who are admitted by men to understand the mysterious and, to the average feminine mind, inexplicable fiscal problem; she knows all about tariff reform; she is her husband’s first secretary, confidante and adviser; she is said to be the most discreet lady in speech, where her husband’s political interests are concerned, and when he speaks in public Mrs. Chamberlain sits so near to him that, in case of a lapse of memory, she can play the part of stage prompter.

Every one of his speeches she commits to memory, and can, therefore, give him any missing word at any critical moment, and in this way she is even more helpful than the capable and intellectual Lady Vernon-Harcourt was to her distinguished husband.

There is still a third American woman to whose abilities her English husband is deeply indebted. This is Lady Curzon, who has very clearly defined diplomatic gifts, who is naturally highly ambitious, and who has, in her zeal to help her husband, learned to speak more East Indian dialects and Oriental tongues than any white woman in India.

Fourth, perhaps, of this list should be mentioned Lady Cheylesmore, who was in her girlhood, spent at Newport and New York, so well known and admired, especially for her wonderful red hair, which Whistler loved to paint.

Lady Cheylesmore was Miss Elizabeth French in those days, and now she is proud to be known as the wife of the mayor of Westminster, for her husband has lately been chosen for that very dignified position. As one of London’s lady mayoresses, she will dispense delightful hospitality in her handsome house in Upper Grosvenor Street, which is famous for its three wonderful drawing rooms, decorated by the Brothers Adam, and regarded by connoisseurs as one of the most perfect examples of their art and taste.

At her dinner parties Lady Cheylesmore entertains many politicians of note, and in one way or another, by her infinite tact and good sense, does much to aid and abet her husband’s well-known aspirations to a brilliant parliamentary place.

She is one of the ardently ambitious American women of whose very real and deserved triumphs we hear so much artistically as well as socially, these days. And let it be said here and now, to London’s credit, that there is no city in the world that gives to its resident daughters of Uncle Sam a heartier measure of praise and encouragement in all their accomplishments.

We may, some of us, cherish high tariff principles and believe in restricting the immigration. None of us, however, is ready to vote for any measures that will bar out or discourage one class of fair and accomplished aliens who cross the ocean bent on conquering London, and who in the end are so often conquered in turn by London’s charm, and who settle down to form an element in our society that is fast becoming as familiar and as welcome as it is admirable and indispensable.

THE BLOOD OF BLINK BONNY

By Martha McCulloch-Williams

Miss Allys Rhett stood upon the clubhouse lawn, a vision in filmy white, smiling her softest, most enchanting smile. There was a reason for the smile – a reason strictly feminine, yet doubly masculine. She had walked down the steps that led from the piazza betwixt Rich Hilary and Jack Adair, the catches of the season, in full view of the Hammond girl, who was left to waste her sweetness upon prosy old Van Ammerer.

The Hammond girl had been rather nasty all summer – she was, moreover, well known to be in hot pursuit of Rich Hilary. Until Allys came on the scene it had seemed the pursuit must be successful. They had gone abroad on the same steamer the year before, dawdled through a London season, and come home simultaneously – he rather bored and languid, she of a demure and downcast, but withal possessive, air. She had said they were not engaged – “oh, dear no, only excellent friends,” but looking all the while a contradiction of the words. Then unwisely she had taken Hilary to that tiresome tea for the little Rhett girl – and behold! the mischief was done.

The little Rhett girl was not little; instead, she was divinely tall, and lithe as a young ash. No child, either. What with inclination and mother-wisdom, her coming out had waited for her to find herself. At nineteen she had found herself – a woman, well poised and charming as she was beautiful. Notwithstanding Hilary had not instantly surrendered – horse, foot and dragoons. Rather he had held out for terms – the full honors of war, as became a man rising thirty, and prospective heir to more millions than he well knew what to do with.

Two or three of the millions had taken shape in the Bay Park, the newest and finest of metropolitan courses. Hilary’s father, a power alike on the turf and in the street, had built it, and controlled it absolutely – of course through the figment of an obedient jockey club. A trace of sentiment, conjoined to a deal of pride, had made him revive an old-time stake – the Far and Near. It dated back to that limbo of racing things – “before the war.” Banker Hilary’s grandfather, a leader among gentlemen horsemen of that good day, had been of those who instituted it – a fact upon which no turf scribe had failed to dilate when telling the glories of the course. The event was, of course, set down a classic – as well it might be, all things considered. The founders had framed it so liberally as to admit the best in training – hence the name. The refounders made conditions something narrower, but offset that by quadrupling the value.

This was Far and Near day – with a record crowd, and hot, bright summer weather. The track was well known to be lightning fast, and the entry list was so big and puzzling that the Far and Near might well prove anybody’s race. There were favorites, of course, also rank outsiders. One heard their names everywhere in the massed throng that had overflowed the big stand, the lawn, the free field, and broken in human waves upon the green velvet of the infield. This by President Hilary’s own order. He had come to the track early, and looked to everything – with a result that there was no trouble anywhere.

The crowd had been gayly demonstrative through the first two races. It had watched the third in tense silence – except that moiety of it ebbing and flowing through the clubhouse. It was the silence of edged patience. Albeit the early races were fair betting propositions, the most of those who watched them had come to lay wagers on some Far and Near candidate – and the Far and Near candidates had been getting their preliminaries.

They numbered just nineteen. Seventeen had been out when Allys and her squires stopped under the shade of a tree. Notwithstanding the shadow, she put up her white parasol, tilting it at just the angle to make it throw her head and shoulders in high relief. Adair glanced at her, caught a hard breath, nipped it, then looked steadily down the course a minute.

Hilary smiled – a smile that got no further than the corners of his red lips – his eyes, indeed, gloomed the more for it – then turned upon Allys with: “Pick the winner for us, won’t you? You are so delightful feminine you know nothing of horses, therefore ought to bring us luck. Say, now, what shall we back?”

“It depends,” Allys said, twirling her parasol ever so lightly. “Do you want to lose? Or do you really care to win?”

“To win, please, O oracle, if it’s all the same to you,” Hilary said, supplication in his voice, although his eyes danced.

Allys gave him a long look. “Then you must take Heathflower,” she said. “I have the Wickliffe boy’s word for it – he wrote me only yesterday: ‘Miss Allys, if you want to get wealthy, bet all your real money on that Heathflower thing.’”

“H’m! Who is the Wickliffe boy? Tell us that before we play his tip,” Adair demanded. Hilary could not speak for laughing.

Allys smiled entrancingly. “The Wickliffe boy – is a knight-errant born out of time,” she said. “I’m wondering if it will last. We came to know him last summer – mother and I – down at Hollymount, my uncle’s place in Virginia. The Wickliffe boy, Billy by name, lives at Lyonesse, which is Hollymount’s next neighbor. It belongs to Billy’s uncle, the dearest old bachelor – maybe that is the reason the boy has such reverence for womankind. I don’t know which he comes nearest worshiping – women or horses. Whenever we rode out – he was my steadfast gallant – he managed somehow to pass through or by or around Haw Bush, where the Heathflower thing was bred. Old Major Mediwether, her owner, is Billy’s best chum. They match beautifully – though the major is nearly eighty, and Billy just my age – rising nineteen.”

“They must have made it interesting for you. I’m sure you couldn’t tell half so much about either of us,” Adair said, with a deeply injured air.

Allys shook her head at him. “They are dears,” she said, emphatically. “And they taught me a lot I should never have known – about horses and men.”

“Anything specific – as about the Heathflower thing?” Hilary asked, affecting to speak with awe.

Allys nodded. “A heap,” she said. “I can hear Billy now, as we watched her on the training track, saying: ‘She hasn’t got any looks – but legs are better for winnin’. And she must win; she’s bound to – whenever she feels like it, and the track and the weights suit her. She can’t help it – she’s got eight full crosses of Blink Bonny blood.’”

“Blink Bonny! H’m! Who was he? What did he do?” Hilary asked.

Allys looked at him severely. “‘He’ happens to have been ‘she,’” she said. “As for the doing, it was only winning the Derby, with the Oaks right on top of it. Mighty few mares have ever done that – as you would know if you had grown up in Virginia, with time to know everything. Billy does know everything about pedigrees – he can reel them off at least a hundred years back. Remember, now, I’m strictly quoting him: ‘Blink Bonny is really ancient history – she won the year poor old Dick Ten Broek tried so hard to have his American-bred ones carry off the blue ribbon of the turf. He didn’t win it – no American did – until one of them had luck enough to try for it with something of Blink Bonny’s blood. Iroquois went back to her through his sire, Bonnie Scotland-Iroquois, who wasn’t really a great horse, but a good one that happened on a great chance.’”

“Why, Allys darling, I can hardly believe my ears! Here you are talking horse like a veteran, when I always thought you didn’t know a fetlock from a wishbone,” the Hammond girl cooed, swimming up behind them on old Van Ammerer’s arm. They were headed for the paddock, although it was not quite time for the saddling bell. The Heathflower thing was still invisible – Allys searched the course for her through Hilary’s glass, saying the while over her shoulder, with her most infantine smile: “You thought right, Camilla dear. I don’t really know anything – have only a parrot faculty of repeating what I hear.”

The Hammond girl flushed – that was what she had said of Allys when people laughed over the Rhett mots. But before she could counter, Allys cried joyously: “At last! The Heathflower thing! Really, she hasn’t any looks – but see her run, will you?”

“She does move like a winner – but it’s impossible she can stay,” Hilary said, almost arrogantly. “Pedigree is all very well – until it runs up against performance – ”

“Right you are! Quite mighty right, Rich, me boy,” old Van Ammerer interrupted. “But I didn’t know they let dark horses run in the Far and Near – ”

“Lucky you are young, Van – you have such a lot to learn,” Adair said, brusquely, as they went toward the paddock. It was thronged, but somehow at sight of Hilary the human masses fell respectfully apart – albeit the men and women there had forgotten themselves, even forgotten each other for the time being, in their poignant eagerness over the big race.

They were hardly through the gate and well established in an eddy when the bell brought the racers pacing or scurrying in. The Heathflower thing came straight off the course, and stood spiritlessly, drooping her head and blinking her eyes. Clear eyes, matching the loose, satiny skin, beneath which whipcord muscles stood out, or played at each least motion, they told the eye initiate that she was in the pink of condition. Like her so-famous ancestors, a bay with black points, neither under nor over size, with a fine, lean head, a long neck, and four splendid legs, it was a marvel that she could so utterly lack any trace of equine comeliness. Her chest was noticeably narrow, her barrel out of proportion to shoulders and quarters. Still, against those patent blemishes, a judge of conformation would have set the splendid sloping shoulders, the reaching forearm, the bunches of massy muscle in the long loin, the quarters well let down into perfect houghs, the fine, clean bone of knees and ankles, the firm, close-grained hoofs spreading faintly from coronet to base.

Clean-limbed throughout, with ears that, if they drooped, had no trace of coarseness and were set wide apart above a basin face, the mare showed race indisputably, notwithstanding the white in her forehead was too smudgy to be called a star, or that, though her muzzle tapered finely, the lower lip habitually protruded a bit. A four-year-old, she was still a maiden – consequently had but a feather on her back in the Far and Near. The handicapper had laughed, half wearily, half compassionately as he allotted it, muttering something about the jockey club robbing the cradle and the grave – that poor old Major Meriwether, it was well known, hadn’t any money to spare; what he did have was the gambler’s instinct to sit into any game where the stakes were big.

The race was open to three-year-olds and upward, and run over a distance – two miles and a half. The distance kept out the sprinters – it also, now and again, played hob with racing idols. To win a horse must be able to go – also to stay. With twenty thousand of added money, there was sure to be always a long list of entries. The conditions held one curious survival from the original fixture – namely, that, horses brought over three hundred miles to run in it got a three-pound allowance if they reached the course less than a week before the day of the race.

Major Meriwether had chuckled whenever he thought of that. He knew “the weight of a stable key may win or lose a race.” And the Heathflower thing was a splendid traveler, coming out of her padded stall as ready to run as when she went into it. She had got to the Bay Park only two days back, in charge of her rubber, Amos, and Black Tim, her jockey. Tim stood at her head, Amos was giving her lank sides their last polish, as Allys and her train swept down upon them.

Allys nodded to them gayly, as she asked: “Tim, have you come up to break New York? I hear your stable will need a special car to take home its money – after the Far and Near.”

“Yessum, dat’s so!” Tim said.

Amos scowled at him, but said to Allys, respectfully: “Please’um, don’t ax dat dar fool boy no mo’ ’bout de Flower – hit’s mighty bad luck sayin’ whut you gwine do, ontwel you is done done it.”

“Dar come Marse Billy Wickliffe – you kin ax him all you wanter.” Tim giggled, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Tim was lathy – long-legged, long-armed, with an ashy-black complexion and very big eyes. As he stood fondling the Flower’s nose, he glared disdain of all the other candidates, or, rather, of the knots of folk gathered admiringly about them.

Allys turned half about – for two breaths at least she had a snobbish impulse to overlook Billy and hurry away. Billy was tall, with a face like a young Greek god – but how greet him there with the Hammond girl to see, in a checked suit, patently ready-made, with the noisiest of shirts, a flowing bright red tie, and a sunburned straw hat? If it were only Adair, she would not mind – Hilary was, she knew, very much more critical. She might have run away, but that she caught the Hammond girl’s look – amusement and satisfaction struggled through it, although the young lady tried hard to mask them.

Allys turned wholly, holding out both hands, and saying: “Billy, by all that’s delightful! I’ve just been telling these people about you. Come, show them I kept well within the truth.”

Billy caught the outstretched hands, his heart so openly in his eyes Hilary wanted to strangle him on the spot. The Hammond girl laughed, and turned to whisper in Van Ammerer’s ear. Adair, alone of the group, shook hands. Although the others gave him civil, if formal, greeting, Billy felt their hostility intuitively, and flung up his head like a stag at bay.

“You got my note – have you done it yet?” he asked, bending over Allys in a fashion that made Hilary’s teeth set hard.

She laughed back at him: “Have you done it yet? Bet your whole fortune on the Heathflower thing at a hundred to one?”

Billy nodded confidently. “That’s just what I have done. Unc’ Robert was willin’ – he thought as I did, such a little bit o’ money was better risked than kept.”

“H’m! I hope you kept the price of a return ticket,” Hilary said, trying to speak jocularly. “Really, Mr. Wickliffe, you can’t think that ugly brute has a chance to be even in the money.”

“My money’s talkin’ for me,” Billy said, facing Hilary. “’Tain’t much – only a thousand. Lordy! if I could, wouldn’t I burn up these ringsters! You ought to a-heard ’em, Miss Allys, when I went at ’em. ‘The Heathflower thing, did you say?’ the first one asked me. ‘Oh, say! do you want to rob us poor fellows? Couldn’t think of layin’ you less’n a thousand to one on that proposition.’ But he cut it mighty quick to a hundred to one when I said: ‘I’d take you for a hundred, only I know you couldn’t pay.’ Tell you he rubbed his slate in a hurry after I got down fifty. The next one tried to be smart as he was – sang out to some o’ the rest: ‘Here’s the wild man from Borneo, come to skin us alive!’ Then made out he was skeered to death when I offered him one little pitiful rag of a ten. But when they saw me keep on right down the line, some of ’em shut up and looked a little anxious, some cut the price, and some got sassier than ever. They called me Rube, and Johnny-on-the-spot-of-wealth, and Shekels, and a heap of other things. But I didn’t mind. Still, next time I’ll send my money by one of those commissioner fellows. To-day I couldn’t risk it.”

“What makes you so suddenly avaricious, Billy?” Allys asked. “Last summer you cared less for money than anything. There must be a reason – tell me, does it wear frocks?”

“Not the special reason,” Billy said, with an adoring look; then in her ear: “I know you don’t care for money any more’n I do. But I’m bound to have some – if there’s any chance – it’s – it’s because of the major. I’ll tell you all about it, after the race.”

The parade was nearly over when Allys and her three swains came again to the lawn. By some odd chance, the long shots had been well toward the head of it, leaving the two favorites and the three second choices to bring up the rear. The Heathflower thing was immediately in front of them. She had moved so soberly, plodding with low head and sleepy eyes, the watchers had given her an ironic cheer, mingled with cat calls. All the others had got a welcome more or less enthusiastic, but it was only when Aramis, even-money favorite, came through the paddock gate that the crowd got to its feet.

All up and down, and round about, roaring cheers greeted him, followed him – men flung up their hats for him, women in shrill falsetto cried his name. Nobody could fail to understand that he carried the hopes and the fortunes of a great multitude. Nobody could fail to understand either that Aldegonde, who followed right on his heels, would win or lose for as many. The pair were blood-brothers, sons of the great Hamburg, but one out of an imported dam, the other from a mare tracing to Lexington, and richly inbred to that great sire.

Still the line of cleavage was not patriotic nor even international. Folk had picked one or the other to win freakishly – on hunches of all sorts, tips of all manners, pure fancy, or “inside information” of the hollowest sort. As to looks, pedigree, or performance, there was hardly a pin to choose between the pair. Both were three-year-olds, tried in the fire of spring racing; both held able to go the distance and stay the route, in that they had won from everything except from each other.

By some curious chance they had not met before that season – in their two-year-old form they had won and lost to each other.

Thus to many onlookers the Far and Near held out a promise of such an equine duel as would make it the race of the century. And certainly two handsomer or gallanter beasts than the pair of raking chestnuts, long-striding, racelike, with white-starred faces and single white hind feet, never looked through a bridle.

Notwithstanding, the second choices were far from friendless, albeit their greatest support was for the place or to show. The greeting they got was tame compared to that of the favorites, but still a volleying cheer, rising and falling along the quarter-mile of humanity banked and massed either side the course. Shrewd form players and the plainer sort had taken liberal fliers on them – that was evident by the way the shouting mounted in the free field, and the jam in front of the betting ring.

Not a few of the professional layers had turned their slates and were out on watch for the event that would mean thousands in or out of their pockets. Among the second choices Artillery, the black Meddler mare, was held a shade the best. Next to her came Tay Ho, a son of Hastings, five years old, who might have divided honors with the favorites but for being an arrant rogue. To-day he ran in blinkers, and nodded the least bit in his stride, whereas his stable mate, Petrel, the last of the second choices, went as free as ever water ran.

Billy watched the parade, scarcely conscious that Allys clung to his arm. Hilary stood at her other hand, frowning blackly. The finish line was almost in front of them.

Hilary moved back a pace. “We can see better here,” he said, trying to draw Allys along with him. She shook her head obstinately, but said nothing; in her heart she was resolved that Billy should have the comfort of her presence in his hour of defeat.

Since she was very far from being a model young person, Hilary’s manifest anger was not displeasing. She was going to marry him – but only at her own time, and upon her own conditions. So far, there was no engagement – she had fenced and played with him beautifully all through the last three months. He had no right whatever to be nasty about Billy; of course, if it were some grown-up body, Adair for example, there might be a color of reason for his wrath. He ought to understand that Billy was, in a way, her guest – also a person to whom she owed something in the way of hospitality. What provoked her most was knowing that Hilary was less jealous than ashamed – ashamed to have her thus openly countenance anybody who wore Billy’s clothes. She was all the angrier for her own moment of snobbishness – men ought to be above such paltry things, she reasoned; anyway, she was bound to stand by Billy to the inevitably bitter end.

The start was tedious. Again and again the line of rainbow jackets drew taut across the course, only to break and tangle, and at last dissolve into its original gaudy units. Billy sighed as he watched it, then smiled shyly, and drew a long breath, saying in Allys’ ear: “I hate to win except right square out.”

“I don’t understand,” Allys returned.

Billy looked at her in surprise.

“Don’t you see – the favorites have got so much on their backs, the longer they wheel and turn, the more they take out of themselves?” he asked. “I’ll bet they are frettin’ like everything, too. See there! One of them chestnut-sorrels – can’t tell whether it’s Aramis or Aldegonde – is cuttin’ up high didoes. And the Heathflower thing standin’ like a little lamb – ”

“She may be standing there when the race is over,” Hilary interrupted.

Billy did not put down his glass, but said over his shoulder: “Oh, I reckon Tim can stop her before she gets that far around. Don’t know, though – if she feels like runnin’ she’s a handful. And this is one of the days – I know, because she looks as though she couldn’t beat a funeral.”

Allys pressed Billy’s arm – it was all she could do to show her enjoyment of the way he had turned things. Hilary bent toward her, saying, with a hard smile: “You seem to be on Mr. Wickliffe’s side – I wonder will you back his judgment?”

“Maybe so,” Allys said, without turning her head. “That is, if you care to make it anything worth while. I’m not quite sure which I’d like best – a winter in Paris or a pearl necklace – and I know I shan’t ever get them at bridge – I have no luck at all.”

“Give you millions against – just one word,” Hilary whispered; then aloud: “Is it a bet?”

“Say yes, Miss Allys,” Billy entreated. “You ain’t trustin’ to my judgment – remember that – but to the blood of Blink Bonny.”

“I take you up,” Allys said, nodding to Hilary. As well this way as any other, she thought – besides, she could hold him off as long as she chose. Her father would stand by her loyally – he was in no haste to see her established. Besides, this was what she had always craved – to watch a race with a heartrending wager on its event.

“Here they come!” Billy shouted, dropping his glass, and flinging up his head.

Up course the rainbow line had at last held steady, then, as the tape flew up, bellied out like a sail in gusty wind, and been rent into flecks and tatters. The lightweights, of course, were in the foremost of the flecks and tatters – all, that is, save the Heathflower thing, who came absolutely last. Tim’s orange jacket and scarlet sash were dust-dimmed by the time he came to the stand. But right in front of him were Aldegonde’s tiger stripes, black and yellow, and the blue and white in the saddle of Aramis.