The Man Who Could Not Lose | Page 4

earls and
viscounts. For three years in Europe Mrs.Ingram had been drilling her
daughter for the part she intended her to play. But, on returning to her
native land, Dolly, who possessed all the feelings, thrills, and
heart-throbs of which her mother was ignorant, ungratefully fell deeply
in love with Champneys Carter, and he with her. It was always a
question of controversy between them as to which had first fallen in
love with the other. As a matter of history, honors were even.
He first saw her during a thunder storm, in the paddock at the races,
wearing a rain-coat with the collar turned up and a Panama hat with the
brim turned down. She was talking, in terms of affectionate familiarity,
with Cuthbert's two-year- old, The Scout. The Scout had just lost a race
by a nose, and Dolly was holding the nose against her cheek and
comforting him. The two made a charming picture, and, as Carter
stumbled upon it and halted, the race-horse lowered his eyes and
seemed to say: "Wouldn't YOU throw a race for this?" And the girl
raised her eyes and seemed to say: "What a nice-looking,
bright-looking young man! Why don't I know who you are?"
So, Carter ran to find Cuthbert, and told him The Scout had gone lame.
When, on their return, Miss Ingram refused to loosen her hold on The
Scout's nose, Cuthbert apologetically mumbled Carter's name, and in
some awe Miss Ingram's name, and then, to his surprise, both young

people lost interest in The Scout, and wandered away together into the
rain.
After an hour, when they parted at the club stand, for which Carter
could not afford a ticket, he asked wistfully: "Do you often come
racing?" and Miss Ingram said: "Do you mean, am I coming
to-morrow?"
"I do!" said Carter.
"Then, why didn't you say that?" inquired Miss Ingram. "Otherwise I
mightn't have come. I have the Holland House coach for to-morrow,
and, if you'll join us, I'll save a place for you, and you can sit in our
box.
"I've lived so long abroad," she explained, "that I'm afraid of not being
simple and direct like other American girls. Do you think I'll get on
here at home? "
"If you get on with every one else as well as you've got on with me,"
said Carter morosely, I will shoot myself."
Miss Ingram smiled thoughtfully. "At eleven, then," she said, "in front
of the Holland House."
Carter walked away with a flurried, heated suffocation around his heart
and a joyous lightness in his feet. Of the first man he met he demanded,
"Who was the beautiful girl in the rain-coat?" And when the man told
him, Carter left him without speaking. For she was quite the richest girl
in America. But the next day that fault seemed to distress her so little
that Carter, also, refused to allow it to rest on his conscience, and they
were very happy. And each saw that they were happy because they
were together.
The ridiculous mother was not present at the races, but after Carter
began to call at their house and was invited to dinner, Mrs. Ingram
received him with her habitual rudeness. As an impediment in the
success of her ambition she never considered him. As a boy friend of

her daughter's, she classed him with "her" lawyer and "her" architect
and a little higher than the "person" who arranged the flowers. Nor, in
her turn, did Dolly consider her mother; for within two months another
matter of controversy between Dolly and Carter was as to who had first
proposed to the other. Carter protested there never had been any formal
proposal, that from the first they had both taken it for granted that
married they would be. But Dolly insisted that because he had been
afraid of her money, or her mother, he had forced her to propose to
him.
"You could not have loved me very much," she complained, "if you'd
let a little thing like money make you hesitate."
"It's not a little thing," suggested Carter. "They say it's several millions,
and it happens to be YOURS. If it were MINE, now!" "Money," said
Dolly sententiously, "is given people to make them happy, not to make
them miserable."
"Wait until I sell my stories to the magazines," said Carter, "and then I
will be independent and can support you."
The plan did not strike Dolly as one likely to lead to a hasty marriage.
But he was sensitive about his stories, and she did not wish to hurt his
feelings.
"Let's get married first," she suggested, "and then I can BUY you a
magazine. We'll call it CARTER'S MAGAZINE and we will print
nothing in it but your stories. Then we can