"Here is the substitute I promised you, Rosalie. Miss March—Count L'Alienado."

There was a vacant seat in the barouche that stood before the Marches' villa. It had been destined for Tristram, but even behind the black glasses he wore the August sunshine dazzled his eyes, so he was compelled at the last moment to excuse himself.

"Mme. Violet—his lordship, the Earl of Marmouth."

Count L'Alienado was thus informally presented to his other two riding companions. There was just a suggestion of Spanish reserve in his obeisance, and he bowed a graceful adieu to Tristram before mounting to his seat.

It was curious that Tristram should have been the first to break the count's incognito. He had arrived at Lenox a few days before, attended by a single valet, and registered at the hotel as M. L. L'Alienado, Valencia. Though not imposing in stature, he exhibited a head of rare distinction—the black beard trimmed to an exquisite point at the chin and the curled mustaches setting off a pair of glowing eyes which riveted the beholder from the moment he met their gaze.

As the artist spoke Spanish, they had become friends in an afternoon.

"We have flattered ourselves that the coaching party is something purely American," said Rosalie, who sat beside him, to the stranger.

"I am glad of it for the color. That is an element I have observed to be generally a little lacking in your life."

"Color and lordliness," sighed Mme. Violet. "Ah, there are no troubadours, no spurred cavaliers, no mailed knights in this busy America—not even scarlet soldiers parading. You men are so dingy, dingy in your black propriety. Why be so funereal? My heart goes out sometimes to a very mountebank, all spangled and jingling like a tambourine when he moves. Color! Give me color. Ah, it is not we who have taste, it is the canaille! It is Victorine, my lady's maid, with her bonnet-ribbons flaunting all the colors of the rainbow."

A silk banner lay outspread in Rosalie's lap, throwing warm blushes against her throat. It was the prize for the gentlemen's steeplechase, which was to close the programme of the afternoon.

"Scarlet, sea-blue and gold," she cried, stroking the tasseled fringe which justified the last addition. "Are not these the primary hues, the major chord of color, and the white their perfect blending?"

The Violet laughed. When addressing her directly or referring to her in her own presence, people carefully called her Mme. Violet. But to the world, out of earshot, she was simply the Violet, just as Cleopatra is Cleopatra. It was taken for granted that her blood was French, but Count L'Alienado, noting her fawn-brown eyes and the strong black hair, which made Rosalie's fluff appear like carded golden silk—thought he detected the marks of the Romany. Yet the full mouth hinted at a Spanish cross. She was not very young, or, at first sight, very beautiful, but she possessed a diablerie stronger than girlhood or beauty, and gossip said the Earl of Marmouth was succumbing to its spell.

"The signal!" cried Rosalie, as the notes of a hunting-horn pealed, faint and mellow, from a distant quarter. "It is time to start."

For several minutes the occupants of the barouche lay back, reveling in the luxury of the cushions and in the changing view which the drive afforded. Other equipages swept into the main road here and there, from cottage and mansion and by-path, each freighted with its cargo of flower-raimented beauty. Marshals in velvet hunting garb galloped up and down, with low salutes to the passengers and brusque orders to the coachmen. On the top of a little hill there came a pause while the procession was arranging itself, and the conversation rippled out again.

"The color is overdone," said the Earl of Marmouth. "It smacks of Latin degeneracy."

"Such as appears in the canvases of Titian?" asked Count L'Alienado quietly.

The Violet, sitting opposite him, caressed her bronze-eyed spaniel to her cheek, so that she might survey the newcomer more closely. His lordship, at her side, alone of the party had sat upright during the ride.

"You are Spanish, not Italian, I am told," he said, much in the tone of a hotel clerk demanding the settlement of an overdue bill. The Violet's eyes met the count's interrogatively.

"Question me in Castilian," he smiled.

"Where are your estates?"

"In Valencia."

"I was there last autumn. I seem to have overlooked the L'Alienados."

"Our estates are in dispute with another branch of the family."

Marmouth grunted.

"The title is very old?" asked Rosalie, to blunt the edge of his impertinence.

"Not very old," answered Count L'Alienado, gently, but looking full at Marmouth. "Before Columbus set out from Palos my ancestor was knighted by Ferdinand the Great—for honorable services."

"We are moving at last," growled the earl, as if personally grieved at the delay. His own title was less than 200 years old and the services for which it was granted, by the second Charles, though historic, could not possibly be called honorable.

"Ah, this is joyous!" cried the Violet, as the sensuous pleasure of the ride stole over her. A quick-step, taken from the start, gave the party a gentle jolting, just sufficiently softened by the padded carriage upholstery. Up hill and down dale, through the riches of midsummer, the route chosen wound. Forest and meadow sailed leisurely by them. Handkerchiefs waved from piazza and window wherever they passed a dwelling house, and at every cross-road stood a group of the fresh-faced country-folk to give them greeting. At the end of an hour the road recurved on itself along a hillside overlooking the valley of the racing park and the pageant bent its length into the form of a letter S, so that without the delay of a formal review each carriage was permitted to inspect the others.

Count L'Alienado saw barges filled with maidens, like living flowers, four-in-hand tally-hos, crowded with sportive collegians, odd jaunting-cars and donkey-carts got up by the wags, staid family coaches with footmen faced rearward to enjoy the retrospect, and open drags like his own without number, all brilliant with lovely womanhood.

The Violet stood apart from the others, sensuous and exotic—like an orange lily in a garden of snowdrops. But, supreme over all, like a bright light, enhanced by reflectors, shone the loveliness of Rosalie March—pure, placid and faultlessly costumed as ever. The jockeys whispered to one another when her vehicle entered the racing park. An eager look at that moment chased away the slight hauteur of her expression—not unbecoming in one so clearly removed from the common order, and far from approaching disdain. She turned her head toward the stables expectantly.

"Paradise," said the Violet, when they had entered and the carriages circled around the great oval.

"This is something like England," said the earl.

"None the worse for that," smiled Rosalie.

"No. Most of the good things I have seen here are derived from the mother country."

"Do you agree, Count L'Alienado?" asked Rosalie, appealing to the stranger.

"Candor is too sharp a sword to carry about unsheathed," answered Count L'Alienado.

Mme. Violet smiled archly, bringing her Gainsborough brim close to the earl's great face and caressing her spaniel with provoking abandon.

Rosalie's little abstraction since they passed through the gate might easily be understood, for Harry Arnold was entered in the steeplechase for gentlemen riders.

"There they come!" she cried, but it was only a group of motley jockeys for the ring race. This passed off quietly enough.

"Now for the steeplechase," cried Rosalie. "There's Harry!" She instinctively plucked the Violet's hand. Then, remembering they were not alone, she colored. Harry led the group of riders who came from the stables, mounted on strong-limbed steeplechasers. His uniform was of the bulrush brown velvet he liked, and his horse a bright chestnut, which pranced as if proud to carry such a master. Even at a distance his splendid seat gave presage of victory.

"Mr. Arnold is the favorite," said Count L'Alienado.

"Although he gives away forty pounds to Leroy," added Rosalie, the technical terms of the track coming strangely from her lips. It was fortunate for her peace of mind Tristram was not there to hear them.

"Now they start!" she cried, alive with interest; but it was only Harry Arnold who spurted his curvetting chestnut across the turf, then reined him up on his haunches with a sudden jerk, as you may have seen an old cavalry sergeant perform the trick. But Leroy, who, as Rosalie said, weighed nearly half a hundred less, wisely reserved his white horse's strength.

"Now!" repeated Rosalie, unconsciously clasping the flag, as if eager to bestow it. The horses, six in number, had started in a bunch and kept together easily till the pistol flash. Then each bounded as if cut with a whip, and rider and horse bent forward.

"Hurrah!" shouted the ring of onlookers about the inclosure, as all six took the first low wall together. The course led straightway across the oval, up a hill at one end, then out of sight for a circuit of a mile, and back by another route, over ditch and mound. Harry Arnold's chestnut and Leroy's white could be seen a length in the lead of the others and neck and neck, as they struggled up the hill and sunk to view on the other side.

"How glorious! How delightful!" cried the Violet, in the interim of suspense. "It is better than the wild Indians that rode in the coliseum last year. Your full-blooded racers, they are too lean, like grasshoppers. Oh, the steeplechase is better. I believe, after all, you owe something to old England, which bequeathed you this legacy."

"You remember the horse-race in 'Anna Karenina?'" asked his lordship, much mollified. "One of the most ethical of books, in the broader sense of the word."

His question seemed addressed to Count L'Alienado.

"I have not read the Russians," he answered.

"You are behind the world, senor. And where may your diversions lie?"

"My favorites," he answered, "are the Persian poets."

Rosalie desisted for a moment from scanning the black crest of the distant hill with her great eyes full of eagerness. Then she recovered herself suddenly, and cried out, in a piercing voice:

"They are coming!"

"Who is ahead?"

"The chestnut and the white are even," said the count.

"Oh, I hope he will win!" prayed Rosalie, clutching the prizes she was to award. Down the slope they strained, heading toward the goal. Only a close side view could have disclosed the advantage in favor of either.

"Harry Arnold will win," said Count L'Alienado. "Leroy is whipping his horse."

The count's judgment proved correct. Almost immediately the chestnut began drawing away from the white. A nose, a neck, half a length, and the clear ground intervened. Harry did not touch whip or spur to the sides of his mount, until the last leap, when a high wall and a long ditch had to be taken together. On the very rise of the jump he switched his chestnut's flanks, and just as the conductor's baton seems a wand visibly producing the swell of the orchestra, so this light motion seemed to give the impulse to the horse's spring. The clatter of his feet on the hard turf beyond announced him the winner amid cheers. Leroy's white took the ditch gallantly, too, but the blood showed red in its nostrils.

Instead of reining up at the goal, Harry executed a characteristic caprice. The fence surrounding the race-track was nearly five feet high. Careering on at full gallop, the victor urged his animal toward this obstacle. A great shout greeted him as he cleared it, the chestnut's hind hoofs grazing the boards. Then, swiftly turning to the right, he cantered up to Rosalie's carriage, gracefully backed his horse and saluted. Leroy joined him through the gate, and stood at his side, while the losers straggled in, haphazard and blown.

"That was for you, Rosalie," said Harry in her ear as she laid the flagstaff in his hand. It was meant for a whisper, but others heard it, and on the morrow the news had spread all over Lenox that Harry Arnold and the beautiful Rosalie March were definitely betrothed. When it reached Mrs. Arnold in Hillsborough, as though by special messenger, she retired at once to her room.

The coaching party paraded out and dispersed amid merrymakings freer than before. Mme. Violet was bewitching during the journey home, making up by a double stream of effortless prattle for Rosalie's unwonted silence.

"But Poe," protested the girl, as if waking suddenly, when the earl, who had got back to book talk again, inveighed against the poverty of our literature.

"Ting-a-ling," said his noble lordship. The carriage had just stopped to leave Count L'Alienado at his hotel.