No one could understand it.

A filly beaten on all the racecourses! A filly which that same morning no single sportsman would take at fifty to one against! What did this sudden madness betoken?
Some laughed at it and spoke of the pretty doing awaiting the duffers who were being taken in by the joke.

Others looked serious and uneasy and sniffed out something ugly under it all.

Perhaps there was a "deal" in the offing.

Allusion was made to well-known stories about the robberies which are winked at on racecourses, but on this occasion the great name of Vandeuvres put a stop to all such accusations, and the skeptics in the end prevailed when they prophesied that Nana would come in last of all.
"Who's riding Nana ?" queried La Faloise.
Just then the real Nana reappeared, whereat the gentlemen lent his question an indecent meaning and burst into an uproarious fit of laughter.