"For Mr. Chris?" exclaimed Min, though all her sympathies were really with Carlton Mackrell and his Trotting proclivities. "Well, Master Frank, a good son makes a good husband all the world over—"
"No, I am glad to say she has so far not committedthatfolly," said the Professor, "at least to my knowledge."
Min snorted. What did this fossil know about love, indeed, that he should speak so slightingly of it? The idea!
"Infatuation for what, then?" she inquired. "Come, Master Frank, out with it, and let's hear the worst, though I'm sure it can't be anything very bad where Miss Gay's concerned."
The Professor looked hopelessly around. Why did not Mr. Toplady come in, he wondered? Men are so much easier to tackle than women, and Min was always so brusque and business-like.
"My sister's infatuation (there's no other word that meets the case), is for a form of sport that I am given to understand is patronised by people who have an even lower moral standard than the followers of horse-racing. I refer to Trotting."
Min Toplady bridled visibly, strong supporters as she and her husband were of the sport he decried, and she began to see how the land lay.
"Well, I'm sure!" she exclaimed. "You've got no business to speak like that about what you don't understand. You'll excuse me, Master Frank, but you don't know what you're talking about. Me and my 'usband goes Trotting whenever we can get away, and we don't consider ourselves as dishonourable and low, as you seem to think Trotting folk are, not by no manner of means—" In obedience to a gesture from her, the barmaid appeared with a second glass of punch, deftly removed the empty one from behind the Professor's back, and disappeared.
The Professor turned nervously round, and was agreeably surprised to find a full glass awaiting his attention. Surely he had finished the first? He supposed not, however, and really, after that tirade, he felt the need of a little comfort. He raised the glass, and looked through it to the window.
"I did not mean to hurt your feelings, Minnie, far from it. I fear I am unfortunate in expressing myself. I mean that people are talking about my sister associating herself with a sport"—he hesitated for a moment as though swallowing a bitter pill—"that as yet has failed to attract people of her own class."
Had Mrs. Toplady been a snob, here was another remark to form a bone of contention.
"I s'pose you think it's all my fault, then, sir?" she asked, watching the Professor delicately sipping his punch. "I told Miss Gay at Inigo Court it wasn't quite the thing for her, though I saw no reason why she shouldn't go in for it if she chose. Trotting's all right, take it from me, Master Frank—it's the sayings of a lot of outsiders who don't know their book" (the Professor blinked, and regarded his glass fixedly) "that gives it a bad name. Me and Bob's been at it a few years now, and we've done a goodish bit of horseracing in our time too, and always with the half-crown public, so to speak. But I give you my word, I'd sooner be among the Trotting lads than the proper racing crowd."
"Might I inquire why?" said the Professor.
"Well taken all round, they are a sight straighter than most of the mobs who go racing in silk hats and frock coats, and don't you forget it, Master Frank. I've had a good many things sneaked in a race-course crowd, but I've never had my bag snatched at Trotting, and never expect to. There's a freemasonry among them low people" (the Professor winced and changed his legs) "that won't let 'em interfere with you, even as a stranger on the track. There's bad hats among them, of course, but somehow the fact that a man's coming Trotting is a guarantee among 'em that he's all right, and unless hearsksfor it, he'll be let alone, even if dressed in bank-notes. Theymaybe all little men, butchers, fishmongers, and publicans—"
She sniffed audibly, and the Professor squirmed; nevertheless, things had begun to look more rosy to his view. That second glass of punch had produced an elation of feeling which he had been entirely without on his arrival, and now, as he put down his empty glass with elaborate precision, and squared his shoulders, there was decision in his tone, if a momentary loss of balance of his person as he said:
"I am firm in my resolve, nevertheless, to put a stop to my sister's utter disregard of the conventionalities."
His voice sounded unfamiliar in his own ears; he found extraordinary difficulty in separating the words that all ran into one another. Things would be easier, he thought, if only his listener would sit still, and not rock about in her chair so ridiculously.
"I don't see what you want to interfere for, Master Frank," said Min, checking a smile, "though for the matter of that, I don't s'pose Miss Gay attaches much importance to it. Haven't you ever thought how lonely her life is?" she broke out, remembering their talk at Inigo Court. "She hasn't got very much to amuse her, and—you'll excuse a bit of plain speaking—I'm afraid you're not much of a comfort to her. She don't complain, bless her plucky heart, but it ain't natural for a young girl like her to be cooped up in London with no companion of her own age—for Mrs. Bulteel is nearly ten years older, and 'most always with her husband, and Miss Lossie—well, she don't count. 'Twould be small blame to her if she took up with things—andpeople—a deal worse than Trotting folks."
The Professor resumed an erect position. This view had never been brought home to him before; his own selfish life, absorbed in science to the exclusion of all else, so contented him, that never a thought had entered his mind about his duty to Gay. She seemed happy enough always, he reflected, and because she never asked for anything, he supposed she had nothing to ask for.
Min saw her advantage, and pursued it.
"It would serve you right if Miss Gay was to marry, and leave you to look after yourself," she said severely. "I'm sure it's not for want of chances. There's more than one, or two even, young gentlemen as is head over heels in love with her now, and either of them could give her more fun and sunshine than she ever had with you, Master Frank!"
Frank Lawless thought of the girlish glee of the telegram he received on the day of Silver Streak's victory, "Won my first race—Hooray!" and how he had not only failed to congratulate her, but lectured her at dinner. He looked so crushed and miserable that Min's kind heart relented; there were tears in his weak blue eyes, though whether induced by self-reproach, or born of the unaccustomed punch, Min was not prepared to say.
Now she crossed over to him, and laid a kind, motherly hand on his shoulder.
"Don't take on about it, Master Frank," she said; "perhaps I've rubbed it in a bit too strong. But if my advice is worth anything, you won't try to deprive the child of the bit of harmless fun her horses will give her, but thank your lucky stars that she's content to stay at home, and look after you, instead of gallivanting about all over the shop, like some folks, trying to get someone to marry them!"
She sniffed disgustedly, meaning Lossie, whom she suspected, and rightly, of setting Frank against Gay's new fancy.
"As for what people say, let 'em. Them as don't like it can lump it—don't you worry—or worry dear little Miss Gay."
The Professor felt a burning desire to lay his head down on Min's ample bosom, and weep bitterly; he had not expected to be tackled so vigorously, though he had known he would not have things all his own way.
"Buck up, Master Frank," Min encouraged him, "and have another drop of punch before you go home. Your heart's in the right place—at least it always was when I had the looking after the boys and Miss Gay, and you only want just telling what to do, which is to let well alone."
The Professor accepted the punch (in a smaller glass this time) and drained it at a gulp, though it was insidious stuff, he feared, and treacherous. Dreading further criticisms of himself, he seized his hat, and grasping Min's hand, worked it like a pump handle, then started for the door with a little run, breathing a sigh of relief when he reached the pavement. Fortunately, whatever his head might be, his legs were of cast-iron, and he slipped nimbly enough into a hansom, just managing to jerk out his address to the cabby, before he fell fast asleep.
The stopping of the cab woke him, and hurriedly paying the man double his fare, he admitted himself with his latch-key, and proceeded on tiptoe to his study to finish his interrupted nap, taking the precaution to first lock the door. There was more of wily Brer Rabbit in the Professor's composition than most people supposed.
Gay and the Professor were sitting at luncheon, the girl still highly delighted with her recent success, and laughing as she described Lossie Holden's disgust at Min Toplady.
"She called her low, Frank, fancy that! Dear old Min, who was always so good to us, and never said an unkind word. You remember her well enough, don't you?"
The Professor agreed that he did, though he felt that his recent interview with the lady in question did not justify him in amplifying his sister's description of her amiability.
He fidgeted nervously with his letters (mostly circulars), then ran his knife down the wrapper of a newspaper which lay by his plate.
"Why have they sent me this, I wonder?" he said. He had not long to wait for an answer to his question, for upon smoothing out the paper, his attention was instantly attracted to the front page.
The next moment, with a startled exclamation, he hurled the paper from him, pushed back his chair, and walked to the window, rather to Gay's astonishment, though he always became "light-headed," as she called it, when anything but the obviously expected happened.
She snatched the paper up, and the next minute broke into a ripple of laughter. What she saw was a full-page illustration of the Trotting at Waterloo Park, Silver Streak winning, and inset at one corner a remarkably life-like snapshot of herself, in close conversation with "Brusher" Tugwood.
Below was some letterpress giving her name, and describing her as a new recruit to the sport, with one or two personal compliments with which she could easily have dispensed. The snapshot was deeply blue-pencilled round, while in the margin appeared a big note of interrogation, evidently ironic.
"Isn't itgood! How flattering!" she said provokingly, though her thoughts flew to Chris, and how annoyed he would be.
Her brother did not reply. His pride—or what did duty for it—was mortally hurt. To think that his sister—the sister of Frank Lawless, F.R.C.S., F.R.S., etc.—should be exploited in a public print like any opera-bouffe girl—it was too much!
"They'll call you 'theTrottingGirl!'" he squealed.
"Most women waddle," said Gay flippantly, "and if my action is one-half as good as some Pacers I have seen, I am quite satisfied. But are you sure it was addressed to you, Frank?" and Gay looked at the wrapper to try to identify the handwriting, but found no clue there.
"Some justly indignant friend of yours—or mine—has seen this rag"—he spoke bitterly, and without turning to face her—"and sent it on with a commentary that speaks volumes for their opinion of your taste. I hope you are pleased with your—notoriety."
"I am," Gay replied emphatically—"delighted, and I hope it will give a leg-up to a real good sport, though I don't flatter myself that my connection with it will boom it much. What is there to be annoyed about?" she went on. "Surely there's nothing so very disgraceful in being snapshotted? I assure you I didn't pose for the photo."
She thought it absurd that he should take the thing so seriously, and not in the least see its sporting side, and now looked at the paper again with a provoking laugh.
"I think you ought to be proud of such a pretty sister," she said pertly, "instead of standing there grizzling, and trying to belittle my sporting tendencies. I'm awfully amused at it. Perhaps, in the course of time, I may aspire to the dignity of the Sporting and Dramatic, who knows?"
The Professor did not reply, though his wrath was abating. Min's suggestion that his sister might be driven to seek companionship and recreation away from him had sunk into his mind, and though he could not bring himself to encourage, or even tolerate, her deplorable taste in sport, he was nevertheless wide-awake enough now to the possibilities of existence without her.
"It can't be helped, I suppose, my dear," he said at last, "but it is to be regretted. Were it not for the degrading influences—"
"Don't talk nonsense, Frank!" Gay interrupted. "You don't call Mr. Mackrell degraded, do you?"
"Of course not, my dear. I find him singularly refined for an—er—a sporting-man."
"Oh! whenwillyou learn the difference between a sportsman and a sporting-man, Heron?" Gay asked piteously.
The Professor declined to prophesy.
"By the way," she said, "Mr. Mackrell is coming to tea this afternoon, and has asked permission to bring Mr. Rensslaer with him. He's the great driver and owner of Trotters, you know—I daresay you've often seen his name in the papers—they say his stable contains the pick of the horses of the world—but, of course, you haven't," she added, laughing.
"This place is becoming quite a sporting rendezvous," said Frank spitefully. "I hope, at any rate, you will have the decency to exclude reporters from your meetings."
Gay stamped her foot.
"Don't be absurd, Frank," she cried with spirit. "None of my friends interfere with you, and you needn't shed the gloom of your depressing countenance on the scene if you don't want to. I expect Lossie as well, and I've no doubt she'd much prefer talking science (ahem!) with you, to listening to us talking horses."
"I appreciate Lossie's attitude towards sport as thoroughly as I deplore yours," he said with unexpected energy.
"That's all right, then," Gay replied cheerfully. "You two ought to make a match of it. Why don't you?"
The Professor actually blushed, and to cover his confusion, ambled away towards his laboratory, while Gay puzzled over that blue pencil mark of interrogation, in vain.
Later in the afternoon, as she sat in the drawing-room awaiting the arrival of her visitors, she looked very different to the little tomboy who so lately had driven her horse round the racing track. Dressed as usual in white, and almost buried in the depths of a saddle-backed chair drawn up close to the fire, it seemed impossible to associate her with the keen sportswoman, who openly declared that she would walk ten miles to see a steeplechase or a trotting race, and who rode and drove equally well.
Or so, indeed, thought Rensslaer, as he followed Carlton Mackrell into the room—possibly his expression showed a little of the surprise he felt, for Gay laughed as they were introduced.
"I suppose the women on your side don't do such outrageous things as own Trotters, do they?" she said demurely, as Rensslaer shook her hand heartily.
"I always admire a straight 'sport,' man or woman," he said, looking into Gay's grey eyes, "and I am proud to meet you."
"Thank you," she replied simply. "Do sit down, and tell us all about Trotting in America. I had no idea until lately that you were so keen on it over there."
Rensslaer blinked with those brown eyes of his, that looked so kind above the big, nondescript nose, and brown moustache just streaked with grey. He was so used to being taken for an American who had made a speciality of owning and driving fast Trotters, that he seldom took the trouble to explain how he had never set foot in the United States, was born in St. Petersburg, had a French mother, and that to cultivate Trotters was only one of his many pursuits.
"Well, in America a man takes it as a personal reproach if another man passes him on the road with a horse," he said. "Trotting there is brought to a fine art, and apart from track racing, there is keen competition in Trotting races, called 'Matinée Races,' that take place with gentlemen drivers, much as polo is played at the London Clubs of Hurlingham and Ranelagh. In fact, it is considered a distinction to own and drive a fast trotter in America, Austria, and Russia, instead of a man being rather ashamed of it as in England, where, if you want something fast and showy, you prefer a hackney."
Carlton shook his head—he honestly thought a trotting horse or pacer going at full speed a far prettier sight, as did Gay, and they both said so.
"Ever since the big association agreed to a code of rules a few years back," went on Rensslaer, "it has becomethesport of America. Yes, it's curious," he went on reflectively, "that England, considered to be the most horse-loving country in the world, has never cared for Trotters, that while in Russia the Orloff Trotter is considered fit for the Emperor to drive, and in the United States, the President, in England he is always looked on as a butcher's horse, and quite unfit to be seen in aristocratic society."
"Well," said Carlton, "as I believe about three million pounds worth of prizes are trotted for each year, it is no wonder the Trotter is popular in America."
Gay laughed, so did Rensslaer. When he laughed, he screwed up his face till his eyes were invisible, and Gay found him deliciously quaint.
"But they play the game, Miss Lawless," he said. "In all countries, except England, there have been ruling bodies over Trotting which safeguarded the sport, but in England, till lately, everyone could do as he liked, with what results may be easily imagined. Consequently Trotting has got a bad name, and people fight shy of a sport which does not rank any higher than prize, cock, and dog fighting."
"But we're improving," exclaimed Carlton. "The last few years very strong endeavours have been made to purify the sport in England, and several Trotting Clubs have sprung up which impose heavy penalties and expulsion on anyone not acting in a strictly honourable manner."
"So I have heard," said Rensslaer drily, "but it will be a hard task, as so many horses have been imported from America, then raced under false names in England, and it is often impossible to trace the original names of such horses. In short, there will never have been any classes on this side for real American trotters, until they are introduced at an International Horse Show here that we hope to arrange. In all the so-called trotting races in England, they let pacers start, and the public doesn't know the difference. They say in consequence that the American trotter is no good, that he only shuffles."
"You are hard on pacers," said Carlton drily. "Well, a pacer of say 2.15 speed is very much less valuable than a trotter of the same speed, so it is cheaper to get pacers than trotters, and anyone having a really fast trotter has the mortification of being beaten by a cheap second-rate pacer."
"The fastest trotting breed of all is the American, of course?" said Gay, eager to glean all she could about what interested her so keenly.
"Yes, the Russian Orloff used to be at least some twenty seconds slower, but now, with an admixture of American blood, they are getting much faster, and one or two of the longer distance records have been captured by Russian horses; very soon they will be quite the equals of Americans, and in Italy and Vienna the native trotter (which is really bred from imported American Russian crosses), is getting very fast. At the present time a trotter to be a first-class one must be able to trot in 2.8, a really extra good one in 2.3, a pacer in 2.2 or under, as the pacers going under two minutes are getting quite usual almost."
"And where do the English trotters—my trotters—come in?" inquired Gay, rather crestfallen.
Rensslaer smiled.
"As to the English trotter," he said, "there is no such thing. A horse is not a trotter unless he can trot a mile in 2 minutes 30 seconds, or faster, and no English horse can do that. All the horses racing in England are American horses, or of American parentage."
"Oh, come!" protested Carlton. "What about hackneys?"
"Of course there are legends of wonderful times made by hackneys in England early in the last century," said Rensslaer, "but when one considers the shady nature of trotting in those days, and the rough way of measuring distances—from such a milestone to such a milestone (and sometimes a milestone was shifted during the night before a match)—there is no way of being sure of any records."
"You won't leave us a leg to stand on," sighed Gay. "I supposeyou'llend by trotting a mile a minute!"
"Well, the average speed of trotters in America increases year by year. Ages ago, a professor worked out how long it would be before a horse trotted in two minutes the mile, but it was trotted several years before the time he had prophesied, though this was accounted for by the improvement in sulkies. You see, the original high-wheeled sulky with iron tyres weighed sixty or more pounds, and some eight years ago the ball-bearing, pneumatic-tyred, bicycle-wheeled sulky was invented, weighing only twenty-three pounds or less, and this makes a difference of three or four seconds in the mile, so the two-minute trotter came before his time."
Carlton Mackrell nodded.
"In hers, you mean," he said. "Lou Dillon. What were her best times?"
Rensslaer ticked them off on his fingers.
"In 1903, at Cleveland, a mile in two minutes two and three-quarter seconds," he said; "the same year at Readville, two minutes dead, and the best of all, one minute fifty-eight and a half at Memphis. That's travelling for you, isn't it—though the last time was made with a pace-maker, and a wind-shield in front. But that doesn't get away from the fact that the distance was covered in the time."
"How wonderful!" Gay exclaimed, thinking into what insignificance paled Silver Streak's performance at Inigo Court against such lightning speed.
"Dan Patch, too, the champion pacer," said Rensslaer reflectively. "He paced to a record of one minute fifty-nine and a half, which stands, though his absolute best was one minute fifty-six and a quarter with a wind-shield in front. Star Pointer was another pacer who did the mile in one fifty-nine and a quarter, with no assistance. Then the best American tracks are mile tracks, and the English are all two laps to the mile. Horses which trot in England cannot equal the times they made in America, the tracks being at least five seconds slower—that is to say, a horse which can trot in 2.10 in the States is not likely to go faster than 2.15 on an English track when he comes over to England."
Carlton looked at the speaker keenly.
Like most great men, Rensslaer was the essence of modesty, and not one word had he said about his own stable, of certain famous horses that he had driven in England faster than their American records, driven with a superb skill that the public unfortunately seldom had a chance of appreciating, as he did not exhibit.
"Do record-breaking Trotters cost much?" inquired Gay, thinking of the modest five hundred that the Professor never ceased to quote as an instance of mad extravagance.
"As much as twenty-one thousand pounds has been given for a Trotter, and eight to twelve thousand pounds for a horse for driving on the road is quite common," said Rensslaer. "A nine-year-old gelding has been known to fetch six thousand, and is, of course, of no value after his remaining few years of soundness are over."
"Oh, how I wish the Professor were here!" cried Gay, and Rensslaer looked at her inquiringly, then said:
"You see, everywhere but in England, the premier horse-breeding country of the world, it has become something more than mere sport—breeding trotters is one of the recognised means of improving the general utility horse (and especially the army horse) in every country except Great Britain. Why, in Russia there are large studs kept up under Government comptrole, and the same thing in France, Austria, etc., it being recognised that the trotting horse can do more work, and keep it up longer, than any other breed of horse."
"And there is no such comptrole here," said Carlton thoughtfully.
"No, it is a pity," said Rensslaer simply.
"Why don't you race here?" exclaimed Gay in her impulsive way, and Carlton wondered how Rensslaer would reply without deeply offending her new-born craze for the sport.
"Well," said Rensslaer, "I don't approve of letting pacers compete with trotters, and also, I don't like the mile-and-a-half handicap racing from standing post—
"I'm afraid you're proud," said Gay sadly, and at that moment the door opened to admit Chris, who, true to his creed, gave no sign of his deep disappointment at not finding Gay alone, though a little surprised to see who her visitor was.
He, of course, knew Rensslaer well enough by sight and reputation, but took no particular interest in him, or his famous Elsinore stable, in which steeplechasers, as apart from jumpers, were conspicuous by their absence. Like the rest of the world, he judged Rensslaer by his Trotting records alone.
When Gay had introduced him to Rensslaer, the latter went on with what he had to say in the quiet, chatting way that was so pleasant; he never laid down the law, but was always interesting without trying to be.
"I must confess," he said, "that I like Class racing in mile heats. This means that trotters in any given race must belong to that "class"; for instance the 2.20 class is for horses which have not got a record faster than 2 minutes 20 seconds for a mile. The horses have a flying start, the race is trotted in heats of a mile each, with twenty minutes' interval between heats, the horse winning three heats first, getting first prize. Now, by the English handicap method, a fast horse has to start behind, and it "breaks his heart," and spoils a good horse, to have to try and make up several hundred yards to catch a little shuffling butcher's pony, who has been given that start of him. It is like making a man fight a boy, the man with his hands tied behind his back so that he cannot defend himself, and after a few such races a good horse gets sick of the whole thing, and is spoilt as a race Trotter."
"Oh!" cried Gay, all the more indignantly that at the moment she caught Chris's eye with a world of meaning in it, "you are trying to put me off Trotting—and Iwon'tbe put off! After all," she added naïvely, "I'm glad you are not racing, for I've set my heart on winning the Gold Vase."
"I hope you may," he said heartily, feeling that every moment he liked her better. "But apart from racing, the fact is, your roads are not made for trotters and pacers, and if you want something showy, you prefer a hackney. In short, you run to dogcarts, not road wagons; you're a sociable people—and in my opinion nothing will ever establish Trotting as a favourite sport in England."
Chris gave Gay a comical look, and picked up theLooking-Glass(that he had already seen, much to his disgust) which lay on a table near.
"Someone sent the Professor a copy," said Gay carelessly. "It had a note of interrogation against it, and was meant to be rude, I think. I wonder who it is that takes so much trouble about poor little me?"
The door opened pat on the question, and Lossie Holden came in, a radiant apparition, but as Rensslaer was introduced, "society," he said to himself, then glancing at Gay, added "sport" with appreciative emphasis.
"What are you looking at?" she said coolly, and took theLooking-Glassfrom Chris's hand. "How nice! You might almost have posed for it, Gay!"
"Do you think so?" Gay inquired. "But I didn't, you know."
"Of course not," Lossie agreed. "As if youcould!" But meeting Chris's eyes, she looked away—he had an excellent idea of who had sent theLooking-Glassto the Professor, and she knew it.
"Why don't you drive yourself, Miss Lawless?" said Rensslaer quietly.
"Oh, if I only dared!" cried Gay warmly, and clasped her hands together eagerly.
"Well," said Rensslaer, "in Berlin there was an outcry when a lady drove for me, but in Vienna it was otherwise—quite a feather in the lady's cap, in short. But then everything is done in such a nice way that it is a pleasure to race there, and the Trotting races are the most fashionable sport in Vienna."
Chris's face was grave—the thing was getting beyond a joke. It was all Mackrell's fault, and bad enough, without Rensslaer coming along to encourage wilful Gay in defying public opinion at a sport that his own refusal, and that of Vancouver and others, to take up in England, had practically declared to be unfit for gentlemen.
"Why not?" repeated Rensslaer, as he rose to go, and at something in his voice Gay coloured. Surely it could not be possible that he had seen her driving Silver Streak round the track at Inigo Court! But already she knew him well enough to be sure that he would not peach on her, and she longed to see him alone, that they might discuss at their ease his daring suggestion. Gay earnestly begged of him to come again soon, but neither Mackrell nor Chris displayed any marked cordiality on taking leave of him. Lossie only was gracious, that being her way with millionaires.
"He seems to regard Trotting as a sort of public-house show," said Carlton, when the other had departed, and Chris remarking rather audibly that Rensslaer was not far out, Gay promptly turned her back on him, and devoted herself to the comforting of her fellow-patron of the noble sport.
Very shortly, therefore, with a composure that completely hid his disgust at an exceedingly disagreeable afternoon, instead of the happy one with dear little Gay that Chris had expected, he made his farewells, and departed.
Gay, relenting, called out after him:
"Don't forget that the Ffolliott's dance is on Friday!" But Chris had by no means forgotten. In his own mind he had fixed on that special evening to ask Gay a most particular question, and now that, as he expressed it, she seemed like going "an awful mucker," with Mackrell's assistance, it was more than ever important that he should ask it, and have the right to protect her from herself—and others.
The Professor, Gay said, was always late. It was her solemn conviction that he would be late for his own funeral, so she considered herself lucky to get to the Ffolliott's dance at all, but better late than never.
Chris and Carlton Mackrell "ran her to earth," as the former expressed it, the moment she entered the ballroom, and with other men clamouring for dances, her programme was soon full. In vain had application been made by both Chris and Carlton days in advance; Gay's rule was firm.
"I never give dances away before I get there," she said. "I regard myself as public property on such occasions, and it's a case of 'first come, first served.' It's very unfair to the men who go to dances to find a girl's card full before they have a chance, and I won't do it."
So Chris had got those supper dances, reflected Carlton Mackrell presently, but she had been liberal also to himself, and he was leading her away when the Professor suddenly exclaimed:
"What time is supper?"
"Supper! Why, you've only just got here! What are you thinking about?" exclaimed Gay.
"Supper," Frank Lawless answered mildly, with no intention of being funny.
"You haven't long had your dinner, you greedy old thing," Gay reminded him as she moved away, "butdoput your tie straight!"
She never had any trouble in finding the Professor, however big the crowd in which he might be. She had only to look for a tall man standing on one leg in a doorway, with his white tie under his left ear, and there he was.
On the rare occasions when he attended a dance, he possessed his soul in patience till supper-time, when he did ample justice to the good things provided, after which he sought a secluded corner, and went to sleep until such time as Gay was ready to depart.
"You haven't asked me for a dance yet, Frank," said a voice in well-pretended tones of offence behind him, and his meditations—upon supper—being thus rudely interrupted, he turned to make apologies to Lossie, who in spite of her beauty and elegance was never surrounded in a ballroom like Gay.
"Shall we have this one?" she inquired, much to the Professor's surprise and confusion. "Come along"—and before he could remonstrate, she had manÅ“uvred him among the couples waltzing by, and he was executing his old-fashioned steps, precisely if not briskly. After one circuit of the room, accomplished with difficulty, and much bumping against indignant couples, owing to erratic steering, the Professor stopped abruptly and made a rush from the room, dragging Lossie by the arm with him. He subsided upon a couch in an exhausted condition, and producing an enormous red silk handkerchief, mopped his heated brow with it.
"You're only a bit out of practice," she said, pretending not to notice his little gasps for breath.
"Shall we have the supper ones?" she said. "I've kept them for you, and one square in the second half."
"Certainly, certainly," Frank Lawless replied, scratching his initials on her programme, "butdon'tbe late for supper. Draughty, dangerous things dances," and he shook his head disapprovingly.
Chris Hannen, who had long had his suspicions of Miss Lossie's intentions on the Professor (failing Carlton Mackrell), strolled up, intent on mischief, and Lossie, pretending to see a friend in the distance, left the two men together.
"Rather out of training, eh, Professor?" said Chris chaffingly. "Not quite clean inside, as they say. Come down to Epsom for a few days, and ride a gallop or two; do you a world of good."
The Professor shuddered.
"I have not ridden for some years," he said, "though I was considered a good horseman as a boy. Not across country," he explained. "I used to ride every day in the park."
"On a fat pony with a leading rein, no doubt," Chris thought to himself.
"I never jumped anything," the Professor went on earnestly, "but I could hold my own on the flat—"
"Of your back," Chris supplemented.
"And I never hunted—"
Chris believed him, as he waxed indignant over the cruelty done to the fox in fox-hunting.
"Why not trail a red herring across the country and let the hounds follow?" he demanded excitedly.
"If only some fox-hunters could get hold of you," cried Gay, who had come up behind them, "there wouldn't be a bit of you left!"
Chris chuckled as he led the girl away, but the eminent gentleman-jockey did not look his old, confident self that evening, and Gay put her own construction on it, as the band struck up a lively waltz.
"You're overtrained, old chap," she said, "too fine drawn—wasting again, I suppose, to ride another glorious winner, or achieve a more than usually severe purler"; but she did not, as she would once have done, smile as she said it.
"No," he replied, "I'm not overtrained, and I'm not anticipating another 'downer' just yet—not at racing anyhow," he added to himself, his face becoming serious.
After a couple of turns, to Gay's disappointment, for he was a perfect dancer, Chris steered her towards one of the doors, and led her down a corridor to a sitting-out place, which looked more secluded than it was.
Here he deposited the astonished Gay, and sat down beside her. He said nothing for a moment or two, and when he spoke, perhaps she had an inkling of what was coming.
"Gay, dear," he said, "I've got something to say to you, and I don't know how to begin."
He turned, and looked at her in her pretty white frock, and little Empire wreath of vivid green leaves, but made no effort to take her hand or touch her, for he was particularly undemonstrative, and disliked nothing more than to see a man "mauling" a woman about—a description he applied to the average man's way of making love.
Gay said nothing. She longed to be able to help him, and to save him pain if she could, for now the inkling had become a conviction, and oh! how she did wish that he wouldn't— Free from all conceit as she was, she hated to have to give him the answer she had given so many other men.
And she was not far out, as Chris's words, very much to the point, proved.
"Will you marry me, Gay?" he said, very quietly, but with a little tremor in his clear voice. "I know it's great cheek asking you, and I can't do it in the proper way—the way they do in books, I mean," he explained.
Although very nervous, Gay could not repress a smile.
"We've known each other a considerable time now, and though, of course, while my mother was alive, the idea of marriage never occurred to me, for she made me so happy—" he paused, then blurted out:
"You must not think that I'm asking you to fill her place, or make up to me for her loss—no one could ever do that, not even you, dear little girl."
Gay, with tears in her eyes, in quick sympathy touched his hand—even if he took this for encouragement, she could not help it.
"I'm very lonely," Chris went on, "but it's because I love you for your dear self, and think the world and all of you, that I ask you to marry me. I'm very awkward at professing, I know, but you understand, don't you? You always do."
"Yes, I understand," Gay replied, as she dried her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. "Poor, dear old boy, I know—but oh, Chris—"
"Can't you?" he asked earnestly, leaning a little towards her, his clean-cut face looking thinner and sharper in the dim light. "We could be very happy."
"There are so many things in the way," Gay said. "It isn't because I don't care for you—you know that. There's Frank, you see, he's so helpless even as it is, and without me he'd go all to bits."
"He could live with us," suggested Chris, eager to overcome such a trifling difficulty as this seemed.
"I don't want to marry anybody for ever so long, Chris. Can't you understand that I want to have a good time—be agirlas long as I can?" she said a little piteously. "And Trotting is my last, or, rather, my new love."
"Well, think it over, and start prejudiced in my favour if you can," said Chris, striving hard to cover up his wound.
Never show you're hit, was a maxim of his, and he lived up to it now, though his disappointment was the keenest he had ever known. It is always the man whose daring is most determined in the hunting field, whose nerve is unshaken by all the obstacles to be met with over a stiff steeplechase course, rising unruffled from a rattling fall, who is the most gentle in all the occasions of life, and Chris was gentle now.
"But I've got a chance," he said, with more assurance than he felt; "while there's life there's hope, you know, and a race is never lost till it's won—though even then there may be an objection," he added whimsically.
Carlton Mackrell, who came at that moment to claim her for his dance, and knew every change in Gay's expression, knew at once that Chris had just asked her in vain the question that he himself, up to now, had not done, for the simple reason that she would not let him.
A man loses his head, is completelybouleversé, when a woman stalks him, and ten to one, in sheer nervousness he gives her the desired opportunity, but with the unwilling woman, every faculty comes into play to defeat the lover's purpose. She develops strategic powers of a high order, is an adept at keeping others round her, in never being really alone with him, and while it is warming, exciting work for the girl, it is an intensely irritating experience for the man. The brute crashes straight through all obstacles to his end; a chivalrous gentleman bides his time, as Carlton bided his, and in waiting, loses his chance more often than not.
It was curious how that opportunity never arrived, and Carlton came to regret very heartily the introduction that had resulted in the rapid installation of Rensslaer as a friend of Gay's.
Here was a man who had forgotten all that Carlton ever knew about Trotting, entirely superseding him as mentor to Gay, and enjoying all those sweets of her society that the lover had promised himself when she took up the sport, yet he could hardly be said to feel jealous, for love seemed the last thing likely to occupy Rensslaer's mind, and women, as women, held not the slightest attraction for him.
The two men had nothing in common, were almost antipathetic even, for Rensslaer was always doing things, Mackrell only hovering on the brink; even Chris, enthusiastic, dare-devil, lovable, had a definite aim and pursued it, but Mackrell unhappily lacked the lash of need, the spur of ambition, and had been gradually degenerating into an idle, cynical, self-centred egoist when he met Gay, and to obtain her became the one object and passion of his life.
Gay, on her part, felt a lively gratitude to him for having introduced her to Rensslaer; the man was so intensely interesting, and so completely unconscious of it, that he was a constant surprise to her, and she never knew a dull moment in his company. With animals he was perfectly charming, as Gay quickly discovered, and when one day she asked him if he thought there would be horses in Heaven, he replied with perfect simplicity that he wassureof it, as cats would be there.
Gay had rather demurred to this, as she liked dogs better, but the Connaught Square cat being slung round his neck at that moment, she swallowed the idea at a gulp, and was delighted to find that if he had deeply studied the subject of religion, he yet held a very definite belief in a future state, though possibly he believed it to be a more workaday one than she did. It was to be a world very much like this one, in which we continue the work we have done here, only under better conditions, with a knowledge of our past mistakes to profit by—and such animals as were the friends of man were to be there; of horses, dogs, and cats he felt certain—especially cats, as he had already told Gay.
If it was in sport that he excelled, and there Gay was with him heart and soul, their friendship had its serious side also. It was, indeed, through accidentally taking up a book lent to her, that the Professor afterwards discovered the "Trotting man," as he called him, to be one of the finest classical scholars in the world, a good mathematician, and owner of one of the finest libraries of rare editions extant, and Gay declared she could not get in a word edgeways when the two men met, and discussed learned scientific problems.
The great disparity in their age enabled her to say to him, what she never would have done to either of the younger men, and one day she confided to him her intense desire to drive herself in a Trotting match—she knew it was wicked and quite impossible, but she had never longed for anything so much in her life!
She blushed vehemently as she said it, and Rensslaer smiled—nothing could be kinder, more humorous, than that smile.
"I've always meant to own up, Miss Gay," he said, "but I saw you that time you took a trial spin at Inigo Court—and uncommonly well you did it, too, for a beginner."
"Oh!" cried Gay, and caught her breath, then leaning forward, said almost in a whisper: "I'm just dying to do it again. I've beenpossessedwith the idea ever since you told me a lady drove for you in Vienna!"
He laughed.
"Why not?" he said again, in that way of his that no one else had, and which made impossibilities not only possible, but easy. "I'll take you down to Inigo any day you like after to-morrow, and you shall drive one horse, and I drive another—"
Gay sat erect, quivering with eagerness.
"The Professor mustn't know—or Lossie," she said. "I'll get my friends at Flytton to ask me down on Wednesday, and tell Frank so—it's awful being so deceitful, isn't it?" she added deprecatingly.
"You'll be doing no harm," said Rensslaer, getting up to go, for he was at that time a very busy man—at a Hackney Show one day, in Paris the next, all his arrangements to make for Olympia. Yet like most busy men he was never in a hurry, and such an economist in time, that he literally made it where lazy people could find none, and also do those kindnesses that the idle do not.
The Professor rather bristled at the idea of Flytton, but fortunately Lossie did not call that day, so Gay escaped in good time the following morning, and on arriving at the course found Rensslaer there before her, superintending the harnessing by Tugwood of two horses to two speed wagons.
One horse was "Marvellous" (record 2.8½), the other a young one bred in Austria, which was being prepared for the Austrian Derby.
Gay was put in behind Marvellous, and after the hand-loops on the reins were adjusted the right length for her, she was told to jog once round the wrong way of the track, and then turn and stand at the starting-post.
She found the mare had a perfect mouth, but kept giving little twitches with her nose to get her head free, and when the girl stopped as directed, the American came up, and let down the mare's check-rein.
"The race you are supposed to be driving, is the usual English mile and a half handicap heat," he said; "yours is the scratch horse, consequently you will start from here, and go three times round the track, the full mile and a half."
Gay nodded.
"My horse," continued Rensslaer, "is reckoned to be the limit horse. I will start 210 yards in front of you. Handicapping is supposed to be with the idea your horse can trot the mile and a half, at the rate of 2 minutes 30 seconds for the mile, the mile and a half therefore, in 3 minutes 45 seconds. Every ten yards means, roughly, one second, so my horse being put 210 yards in front of you, means that he is supposed to be 21 seconds slower than yours for a mile and a half, that is to say, he has to trot at the rate of a mile in 2 minutes 44 seconds, to make a dead heat of it with you."
Gay nodded again comprehendingly, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"You must drive so as to gradually overtake me," went on Rensslaer, "but not starting too fast, or you would pump your mare, if she could really only trot a 2.30 gait, and you must not overtake me till you get into the back stretch the third time. I have given you a very fast mare, so as to make you judge speed, and also so as to make it easier for you to be sure of overtaking me, as I intend to drive strictly at no faster speed than 2.44 for the mile."
"And fast enough, too," thought Gay, her heart beating a little too quickly for comfort.
"Carry this watch in your left palm, slipping the strap over your hand," said Rensslaer, "so that you can see what speed you are going. Try and drive the quarter miles in 37½ seconds till you come up with me, which should be, if you drive to this time, thirty yards from the winning post."
He then hooked up Marvellous' check-rein, and told Gay to walk the mare back from her starting-post twenty yards, turn back again, and so on till she saw him at his mark, and then stand still at her mark.
Tugwood stepped into the centre of the grass plot, and held a pistol in the air. The moment Marvellous saw his arm raised (she had been thoroughly schooled to this), she fixed her eyes and ears in his direction, and commenced to tremble slightly.
As the smoke came from the pistol, before Gay could hear the report, Marvellous jumped forward with a jerk that nearly threw her out backwards, and landed on a square trot. She was so much stretched out that she seemed two inches lower than when standing, and was sending the earth in quick hoof-fulls on to Gay's chest. It was lucky, the girl thought, her eyes were protected by goggles.
As soon as she had got over her surprise, Gay found she was gaining very rapidly on her teacher, and close to the first quarter pole. Glancing hurriedly at her watch, she found, to her horror, that the quarter was done in 35 seconds, a 2.20 gait, so she said, "Hoo, girl," and took a steadying pull at the mare, who came back to her at once, although by the way she shook her head, she did not seem to like it.
As Gay drove, she thought that, as she had made up 2½ seconds too much in the first quarter, she should drive the next in 40 seconds to make the proper average, but when she got to the second quarter mile she found she had overdone it, and Rensslaer was sailing away a full half of the track in front of her.
She therefore determined to rely on her own judgment of how fast she should gain on him, and gave a gentle click to Marvellous, who instantly lowered her head, and began to strike out, gaining rapidly on Rensslaer; as she came into the back stretch the third time she was just behind him.
Round the last turn she drew up to him on the outside, and, in spite of the much greater distance her mare had to go in turning, held her place, and passed him just as they came into the straight. The mare shot out of herself, and drew so rapidly clear of Rensslaer that Gay thought she would make a close finish of it, and took back her mare sharply. This was a fatal mistake, as Rensslaer shot up alongside, and before she could set her mare going again, he had won by a head, in 3.45½.
She looked so taken aback that he controlled a smile as he told her not to be disappointed, as it would be a good lesson to her, never to slacken speed enough to let herself be caught in that way, but he also told her that it was bad tactics to be alongside another horse at the turns, as it takes so much more out of your horse.
Here ended Gay's first Trotting lesson at the hands of a great expert, and if she had been too ignorant, too excited even, to appreciate the marked difference between "Marvellous" and the Trotters owned by Mackrell and herself, she had yet realised that this last experience of driving herself was something very different to that first essay in which Rensslaer had surprised her. For many a night after, she would wake up, throbbing with excitement, hoping that she would find her dream, in which she re-lived those glorious moments in a real race, a fact.
"Oh! if I only dared!" she thought, but the plain truth was that she did not dare. There was the Professor—the world—and—yes—Chris... though she scarcely owned it to herself, Carlton's opinion did not count.
"Heron," cried Gay, waving a letter at him, across the breakfast table one morning early in March, "I've got an invitation for you! Effie and Tom Bulteel are taking their coach down to Sandown to-day, and they want us to go with them. I heard all about it the other night," she confided laughingly, "but I knew if I told you of the treat that was in store, you'd plead an engagement, or shuffle out of it somehow, and Idoso want you to come! A day in the open will do you no end of good, and you'll get a ripping lunch (the Professor's face brightened a little), though you'll have to do without your afternoon nap, you know, unless you get inside the coach."
The Professor moved uneasily in his chair.
"Why do you drag me into all these things?" he asked pathetically. "You know how I detest society, and you promised to leave me in peace if I went to the dance with you."
"Yes, I know," Gay agreed, "but Effie made quite a point of your coming to-day; you—you amuse her so, you know."
The Professor did not appear struck with this form of flattery, and half suspected that it was a plot between Gay and Mrs. Bulteel to make him appear to throw a mantle of respectability over his sister's racing divagations. Yet he had a sneaking desire to see for himself what there was in racing to make so many empty-headed people happy, and when he feebly urged that he had got nothing to wear, she knew that the game was won.
"Oh, yes, you have," she replied promptly, "that pepper and salt suit of yours—you know, the one you wear on your holidays. It's quite respectable—quite sporting-looking, in fact—and you can wear your 'Trilby' hat. (She exploded inwardly.) Altogether your rig-out's splendid, and I shouldn't wonder if people took you for a trainer!"
Frank Lawless looked offended, and made another attempt to escape.
"I shall be entirely out of it," he said. "There is much to do in there"—he nodded towards the distant laboratory. "Can't you make some excuse for me?"
"No, I can't," the girl answered firmly. "You're very seldom seen anywhere with me, you know, Frank, and people must wonder whether my brother is not a myth. Once you start, you're sure to enjoy yourself, and perhaps there'll be a job for you if one of the soldier-jockeys comes to the ground."
But even the prospect of a "case" did not console the Professor.
"I hope not," he said gravely; "you shouldn't joke about such things, Gay," and he shook his head reprovingly.
"Truly, I hope it won't be Chris," the girl answered, drumming her fingers on the table, and looking thoughtful. "He's riding in the Gold Cup, you know—a horse he trained himself."
"Well," said the Professor with a deep sigh, "as it appears to be my duty, I'll come. I hope they won't talk horses to me, though," looking up anxiously.
"If they do, agree with everything they say," Gay instructed him, "because you don't know enough to contradict, do you?"
"I have my own ideas," he answered complacently, while Gay devoutly hoped he would give utterance to none of them, or she foresaw a rude awakening before him.
"We must leave here by eleven for Eaton Square," she said, "so toddle upstairs in half-an-hour, and change your clothes. I'll put everything out for you, including a pair of race-glasses, so you'lllookthe part, at any rate, even if you don't feel it."
When the Professor reappeared again, after an absence of an hour, he looked very nice and archaic, as Gay told him, though by no means happy.
"I am cold," he announced (and indeed his own skin was always his first consideration), looking down at his well-worn suit; "these are summer clothes, you know."
"It's a glorious day," Gay informed him; "but of course you'll want a top-coat. It'll be cold driving back, I expect."
When they arrived in Eaton Square, the Professor was hoisted on to the coach where he held on with both hands, and otherwise delighted Effie during the drive. His conversation was of a spasmodic character, interrupted by backward glances over his shoulder whenever a corner was turned, and he heaved an audible sigh of relief when the coach drew up in the enclosure.
Effie surveyed the scene with approval. Her sympathies were not particularly with the racing, indeed she only regarded it as a necessary evil connected with bringing a crowd of people together—and this was a very smart crowd certainly.
She focussed her glasses on the moving throng in the members' enclosure, open for this meeting only, to non-subscribers in the way of soldiers, and their wives and sweethearts, and here and there she recognised someone she knew.
The Professor was cautioned on all sides to take care of himself, but Gay took possession of him, and hurried him off to the paddock to tout the horses for the first race. There were several walking round in a circle on the crest of the hill, and while Gay stood as close to them as she could get, checking the numbers on the lads' arm-badge with her card, her brother kept at a more than respectful distance. Presently a lad walking a horse up behind him, nearly frightened him out of his wits with a business-like "By y'r leave, please," and he executed a wild leap to safety, to the intense amusement of the onlookers.
Catching Gay's eye, he scuttled over to her, and tried to get her away from the charmed circle, prophesying hysterically a kick from one of the horses.
"Don't be absurd, Frank," she replied, watching with interest each one as it passed; "horses can't kick when they're walking. They're not cows."
The Professor remained unconvinced, however, and was greatly relieved when Gay moved off in the direction of the weighing-room to see the numbers and jockeys, but the frame with the mixture of figures and names conveyed nothing to his mind.
"Halloa! Chris rides No. 9 in this," Gay exclaimed, "let's see what it is. Here we are—Mr. M'Nab's Irish Knight, four-year-old, 10st. 7lb. I wish we could find Chris; it may be a good thing—what he calls a 'pinch.'"
At that moment Chris Hannen came out of the weighing-room. A thick frieze overcoat, cut to the knee, disclosed a thin kid workman-like pair of boots, he wore a white scarf round his throat, while his head was surmounted with a dark blue racing-cap. He was busy chatting with the owner of Irish Knight, but as he passed through the gate into the paddock, his quick eye noticed Gay, while a second astonished glance discovered the Professor.
He at once left his companion, and came quickly towards them.
"How are you, Gay?" he cried eagerly. "Morning, Professor! Lovely day for jumping, isn't it? Hope you won't be wanted" (the Professor shuddered). "Excuse my apparent rudeness in not taking off my cap, Gay, but I've been tied into it."
Gay thought, with a pang, how drawn he looked, "but how workman-like!" a moment after.
"You didn't tell me you had two rides to-day," Gay said, as the three walked off to look at the horse.
"No," Chris replied, as they turned down the hill on the left to the saddling-stalls. "I didn't know myself till just now. M'Nab couldn't do the weight himself, so he asked me."
"And is it a jewelled-in-every-hole, compensated-balance 'pinch,' Chris?" Gay asked, laughing, as she stood by watching the trainer place the tackle on Irish Knight.
"I'm afraid not, though I've got more than an outside chance. I can't advise you to gamble heavily on this occasion, but perhaps a trifle each way will show a profit. You ought to get ten to one in this field."
The horse was led out, and Chris took off his coat, and handed it to the lad. His owner, looking very disappointed at not having the ride himself, saw Chris chucked up, then walked beside him to the plantation avenue leading to the course. As they disappeared, with a wave of the hand from Chris, Gay turned to her brother, and cried enthusiastically:
"Doesn't Chris look ripping on a horse? And can't he ride, too, just! Let's get on the stand and watch the race, and Imusthave half-a-sovereign even, and place on him for luck."
With one of the men on the rails she placed her wager, getting eight's and even money for a place, then she and the bewildered and annoyed Professor mounted the stand, to watch the horses go down. There were nine runners, all soldier-ridden, a well-known amateur who rode a lot in Ireland being up on the favourite.
They all got safely over the first two fences, and as they galloped past the enclosure, Gay pointed out Chris's scarlet jacket and blue cap, lying fourth, to her brother.
Each time the horses jumped, he gave a convulsive little leap into the air himself, screwing his eyes up painfully, and only half looking at the fences.
"Terribly dangerous!" he muttered. "If one of those fellows fell off, he must be killed."
"Stuff!" was Gay's rejoinder. "Men who play this game are not so soft and brittle as you, old boy. There they are again," pointing to the left as the horses made the bottom turn. They were all on their legs still, and as the Professor fumbled with the glasses, he devoutly hoped they would remain so. For a surgeon he was a remarkably nervous man, though he could operate with skill and precision, with no thought but for the work in hand. But he could not look at an accident, or anticipate one, without infinitely more suffering—mentally—than the actual victim, and Gay wondered what he would do if, as sometimes happened, half-a-dozen men were all on the ground together ... which was precisely what happened, and it did not need the terrified squeal beside her to inform Gay, that under amêléeof men and horses, had disappeared a certain scarlet jacket and blue cap.
If Gay had ever doubted which it was of the two men laying such close siege to her, she loved, she had no doubt at all when, through her glasses, she saw a small patch of colour lying perfectly still, and in the same moment discovered that the Professor had vanished.
If terror had wrung from him that involuntary squeal, all his professional instincts—and they were the keenest he possessed—were instantly aroused by a "case," and he precipitated himself from the stand with a rapidity that left Gay far behind, and never stopped running till he had reached Chris. No other doctor had yet put in an appearance, and with quick, clever fingers the Professor made a cursory examination, and issued his orders rapidly and to the point, here was the cool, astute surgeon, recognised as such and instantly obeyed, as he superintended Chris's removal. The list of injuries when tabulated proved a heavy one. There was no fracture of the skull, but severe concussion of the brain, a collar bone and three ribs broken, also a hip put out, but no internal injuries as far as could be ascertained. Epsom was nearer than town, and the Professor decided to take Chris straight home in an ambulance, and remain the night with him, afterwards placing him in charge of a local doctor, if no complications ensued.
This he presently hurriedly explained to Gay, who, though deathly white, was quite composed; her spirits rose even at the report, for though Chris had had few worse "outings" than this one, at least he was alive.
"No doubt Mrs. Bulteel will look after you," added the Professor, as he rushed away, and Effie did, knowing well enough that if Chris Hannen had lost his race, and almost his life that day, he had beyond all question only established more firmly his claim on Gay's heart.
"It was a beautiful case," said the Professor, looking rapturously at Gay through his glasses, and he fired off a lot of technical terms that she did not in the least understand, but inwardly shuddered at, for it was Chris's flesh and bones of which he was speaking, and he wound up by telling her of the cemetery so conveniently placed for jockeys under the hill at Epsom.
"When are you going to see him again?" inquired Gay, sitting down to hide a sudden faintness.
"I have placed him in charge of an excellent man at Epsom," said the Professor in the superior way in which one doctor speaks of another, "but I shall overlook him, of course."
"Take me when you go," pleaded Gay. "I could speak to Chris through the door, you know, and it might buck him up."
"More slang," said the Professor resignedly. "And—ah—Epsom Downs is notquitethe place for a young lady, my dear—the air is so strong and keen, it nearly takes your head off—" And indeed he looked more alive than he had done any time these ten years.
"I wonder if his mother knows," she said, and her voice trembled. We seldom weep at things wefeel, it is in the attempt to put them into words that we break down, and quite unexpectedly a tear rolled down her cheek.
A tear with Gay was so unprecedented an occurrence, that the Professor realised the severe nervous strain the girl had passed through, and that had kept her sleepless during the past night, but before he could make up his mind to try and comfort her, Gay had vanished, blaming herself for her lack of pluck.
After all, Chris lived, and that was everything; but oh! she hated sport—hated anything to do with horses. She had taken Chris's steeple-chasing more or less light-heartedly till the accident to which she had been an eye-witness, she had onlyheardof the others—become used to his disappearances while being patched up. But now she knew, in one lightning flash, that she could not bear to live with the constant dread before her of his being killed, or dragging out a maimed existence, and with her usual decision of character, came to the conclusion that Chris would have to choose between racing and herself.
She fell to wondering if Mrs. Summers would be offended if she sent down by the Professor some of her famous strong mock turtle soup, and she hoped his beef tea would be made properly, one part beef, one mutton, one veal. She was still thinking about it when her cousin walked in, unannounced, of course, as most undesirable things are.
"So Chris is going on all right," said Lossie, thus proving that she had already looked up the Professor. "Awful good sort, isn't he?" she added, in a tone of pretended warmth, for as she wanted Carlton Mackrell for herself, she never missed a chance of pointing out Chris's charms to Gay.
Gay nodded, and, in an effort to calm herself, took up a bit of needlework, and began to plant delicate, intricate stitches. It was significant, perhaps, that no one ever saw Lossie with a needle in her hand, and as she had no maid, how she got mended was a mystery.
"You look awfully bad," said Lossie frankly. "But if you feel like that, why not marry Chris Hannen when he gets up, and have done with it? Steeplechasing doesn't begin again till the autumn, and you may as well be his wife as his widow."
Gay paled. Lossie had brutally enough hit the right nail on the head. It was because she could not bear to own Chris, then lose him, that she must keep him at arm's length—be his comrade rather than his wife, which was by no means what Chris wanted!
"How is Aunt Lavinia?" she said, abruptly changing the conversation.
"Just as idiotic as ever. Sent five pounds to Barnardo's Homes yesterday, and refused to pay my hat bill."
Gay looked disgusted, knowing that the sweet lady's life was one long struggle to balance Lossie's dressmaking bills and her own private charities, the result being that she had not a frock or bonnet good enough to play chaperon in, so that Lossie was dependent on her friends and Gay to take her about.
"That reminds me," said Gay, "I haven't sent my contribution yet," and she rose and went to her writing-table, where she jotted down a note.
"As to my dressmaker," said Lossie, "she's going to summon me. It's all these hateful seasons of the year—as soon as one is straight for spring, it's summer, then winter in the middle ofthat—and so on. Why can't we live in a place where the same sort of clothes do all the year round?"
"That blue frock you wore at the ball must have been very expensive," said Gay hesitatingly; "the dear aunt really does her best, you know."
"Oh, it's easy for you to talk," cried Lossie spitefully. "One-half of the feminine world is a pincushion, for the other rich and happy half to stick pins in, and I don't pretend to be like Aunt Lavinia, who would rather be the pincushion than the pins!"
"I'm sure," said Gay wearily, too unhappy to be indignant, "Inever stuck any pins in you or anybody else."
"Well, no," admitted Lossie, who had an excellent reason for getting Gay into a good temper, "youdon't, but every woman is given two chances of happiness in life, a rich father, or an adequate husband—or both—but as a matter of fact, the double event seldom comes off—indeed, far more women are ruined by their fathers than their husbands.Cherchez la femmeindeed! Oh, it's easy enough for a girl to be gay, to be happy, if she's rich—if men 'don't go after the money,' they don't refuse to go where the money is!"
Gay coloured. She knew well enough that her fortune counted for nothing in the eyes of at least two men towards her—Chris couldn't and wouldn't give up trying to win her because she had more money than he had, and Carlton was so rich, that if he ever cast it a thought, it was merely as private pocket-money with which to buy chiffons and fal-lals.