The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gay Lawless, by Helen Mathers

Author of
"Comin' thro' the Rye," "Pigskin and Petticoat," "Bam Wildfire,"
"Griff of Griffithscourt," "Love, the Thief," etc.

CHAPTER I

INIGO COURT

"It's the prettiest sport in the world," declared Gay Lawless. "I think Mr. Mackrell just got up, don't you, Chris?"

"I hope so, but I'm no judge of this game, you know." There was a shade of contempt in his voice.

Gay's eyes were fixed on the number board, and she clapped her hands when No. 6 was hoisted.

"He's won all right," she said; "he is having his horse cooled out." Then she had time to remember the sneer in Chris's voice.

"Of course I know you're mad on steeple-chasing," she said, tilting her nose in the air, "but you needn't be bigoted; it's not the only sport, and anyhow you can't deny that Mr. Mackrell can drive; almost as well as you can ride," she concluded generously.

"Carlton Mackrell is a brilliant whip," he agreed, though he made a mental note that it was about the only thing Mackrell could do. "Let's go and congratulate him."

They left the members' enclosure, and made their way by the side of the track to the stables, where they found Carlton Mackrell talking to one of his swipes. He came to meet them, and his dark face showed the pleasure he felt at Gay Lawless' congratulations.

"Of course," cried the girl. "Evidently others besides you expected Billy Q. to win, for everyone was backing him. Although I got in early, I had to lay five to two on, to five shillings," she laughed. "It doesn't take very much money to paralyse the market, does it?"

"No," he said, "the sight of gold creates a panic, and an owner does not dare back his horse personally, unless he's prepared to lay odds on what very often is not an even money chance. The ring think the business is inspired, you know," he laughed, "and begin to pinch the price at once. However, as I don't bet, it doesn't affect me, though I like my friends to help themselves whenever I run anything."

He turned to Chris Hannen, who was attentively studying a big bay horse with the eye of a connoisseur. "You don't often come trotting, do you?" he asked.

The two men had known each other for years, but the fact that they both admired Gay Lawless had not strengthened their friendship very considerably. Still both were sportsmen, and, appreciated each other's talents in their respective branches with a genuineness not met with outside sporting circles.

"No," Chris replied, glancing at Gay from the corner of a twinkling eye, "in fact, this is my first appearance on a track."

"And your last, I should imagine. You don't look supremely happy," and Mackrell laughed.

"That's a poor compliment to me, Mr. Mackrell," Gay said mischievously; "you forget Mr. Hannen is on escort duty. It's quite by chance he is here, but, as you know, I'm stopping at Flytton for a few days, and Mr. Hannen walked over from Epsom—'wasting' he calls it."

She looked reproachfully at Chris. "There's one advantage about trotting, anyhow—you haven't to be perpetually worrying about your weight, or live on lemons, and tea, and gin!" She made a little face. "You must carry 10 stones 10 lbs. in a sulky, mustn't you—that's the minimum?"

"Yes, quite right," Mackrell assented, "that enables most men to drive themselves, though a lot employ professionals. I can't see any fun in the game, unless one drives one's own horses. Let's go back, and watch the next heat. It's a handicap, you know, one for what the horse owners call "pigs," he explained. Then his face grew serious. "It's a pity some good men don't take up trotting; there's no prettier sport (unconsciously echoing Gay's opinion), and its very much maligned because people don't understand it, and think that because it's trotting, it must necessarily be all crooked. I don't think there's much more finessing at it than in horse-racing, if the truth were known, do you, Hannen?"

"I daresay not," Chris replied guardedly, "though a lot of nonsense is talked about racing, and the rascality of the turf, by people who have never been near a racecourse, and who judge racing-men as a body from the isolated cases in the papers, in which an absconding bank-clerk pleads betting as an excuse for defalcation!"

"Too true," said Gay, "and—why, there's my dear old nurse in that dogcart! I must speak to her—you two go on," and she made her way quickly to the trap, which contained a jolly, good-natured-looking woman, whose get-up betokened an almost too great prosperity.

Gay's grey eyes sparkled with fun and pleasure as she came alongside, keeping just out of the line of her old nurse's view.

The occupant of the dogcart turned in her seat so suddenly, as to seriously disturb the balance of the shafts on the rail.

"Miss Gay!" she cried. "Well, I am surprised! Fancy meeting you here!" In a moment she was out of the cart, and had folded Gay to her ample bosom, while laughter and tears chased each other alternately across her comely face. Gay, for her part, was every bit as delighted to see her old nurse again, and quite oblivious of the scene about them, they climbed into the dogcart and sat, holding each other's hands, and chattering as only two women can. A great deal of what they talked about was of interest to nobody but themselves, but the horses racing past recalled Gay to the work in hand.

"Isn't it exciting, Min?" she cried, focussing her glasses as they sped past the stands, and round the bend to the back stretch. "I think it's ripping, and far more fun than galloping. What a smash there'd be if one of these sulkies—isn't that what they call the spider-looking thing they sit in?—ran into each other!"

But Min did not reply. Her eyes were riveted on the cluster of horses drawing round the corner into the home-stretch.

"I think we've won this," she exclaimed. Then becoming excited she began to bounce about in her seat.

"Go on, Bob!" she cried. "Set him alight! Oh, don't look round, it's all your own!"

Suddenly, fifty yards from the judges' stand, one of the back-markers came with a rattle wide on the outside, the driver urging his horse with the reins, and uttering weird cries which his charge apparently understood, for he put in all his knew, though, alas! he failed to "keep down," as they call it, and made a tangled break. Meantime Bob was going the shortest way home, sitting slightly forward, with his legs straight out in front of him like the rest.

A roar from the ring proclaimed the expected victory of yet another favourite. Min sank back in her seat, and her eyes shone with pride as she said:

"Is he your husband?" Gay asked, laughing. "I knew you were married, dear Min, but I didn't know your husband's name. Do introduce me."

Soon after, she waved to her husband as he walked back along the course; he handed over his horse and sulky to a lad walking with him, and ducking under the rails, made his way to his wife, Min fairly beamed with pride as she said:

Bob gave it, hugely gratified, though glancing curiously at Gay, as she sat smiling bewitchingly down on him.

"This is me husband, miss," Min said affectionately. "Mr. Bob Toplady, Miss Lawless."

"How do you do?" she said. "I am so pleased you won that heat, and I'm so glad, too, to see dear Min again."

"Thank you, miss," said Bob, rapidly recovering his equanimity under Gay's unaffected enthusiasm. "I thought I was caught just close home, but when I saw the other break, I knew it was all my own. Not that his breaking was enough to disqualify him, you know, miss," he explained; "he didn't do enough for that, but because I've raced with that horse before, and I knew he was a bad breaker."

Gay listened with all her ears, though Bob's arguments did not seem conclusive. Still, she thought, there's plenty of time to learn, and she would remember that, and ask Carlton Mackrell.

"Not a lot to you, Miss Gay," she said, "but enough to buy me a new hat, and a bit over. It's only a heat, you understand, miss," she went on to explain, "and worth five pounds to the winner. But the final is forty pounds, and I think we shall just about win to-day, shan't we, Bob?"

"I hope so, my dear," he replied, "but the pacer that took the first heat is a bit useful, and I know they're backing him outright. A hobbled pacer has a great advantage over a trotter, especially on this uneven track."

"I must really be off now," announced Gay, turning to embrace Min once more. "I'll certainly come and see you, and your husband must tell me some more about trotting. I have a great mind to buy some horses myself, and run them—though I suppose they wouldn't let me drive, would they?" disappointedly.

"Lor, Miss Gay, what a sportsman you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Toplady. "Good-bye, and be sure to let me know when I can have my little bit on yours."

"My horses will invariably be 'out,'" Gay answered, with a mischievous attempt at dignity. "As Mr. Hannen would say, they will always be 'at it.' Good-bye!"

Gay made her way to where Chris was leaning over the rails, and with sparkling eyes confided to him that she was greatly enjoying herself. When she added that she thought of going in for the game herself, Chris gave a long, reflective whistle.

"I expected it," was all he said. Perhaps his thoughts flashed to Carlton Mackrell, and of how much more Gay would be thrown into his society for the future, and he remained silent till they regained the members' enclosure.

"Frank? Oh, he won't be consulted! I don't suppose he'd mind, though, so long as I am about the place to look after him. And he does want such a lot of looking after too, Chris; you've no idea, he's just like a child, and simply lost away from his books and specimens. Oh! those dreadful specimens"—she shuddered—"he will show them to me, and he leaves them about in the most impossible places, and I do get such shocks sometimes!"

"He's a clear old chap," said Chris, "and not so very old after all, is he? He can't be, taking a line through you, you know," lapsing into racing metaphor.

"He's years older than his real age, if you can understand what I mean," Gay laughed, "and I'm no chicken, you know, Chris—twenty-two next birthday!"

"You'll never grow old," he replied. "I've known you some years now, and you haven't changed a bit."

"Frank's no judge," said Chris sharply, with more feeling in his voice than he usually showed, but Gay didn't seem to notice.

"Here comes Mr. Mackrell," she said, as a sulky swept past, going round the track for a warm up, before the second bell rang for the drivers to get on their marks.

"Take 'em out of those beetle-traps, and put a few fences across the course, then you might see something worth looking at," was his private opinion of trotting, yet the pacer's speed is founded on the camel's, and weedy and lanky as he is, no one who has seen either a trotter or a pacer fully extended in a race, especially if he has watched it coming straight at him, will deny that he is hardly less beautiful when in motion, than miserable-looking when he stands inactive.

A few minutes later, the second bell rang, and the drivers proceeded to their respective marks, some in receipt of a start, others giving one. Carlton Mackrell was on the back mark; the horse he was driving was amongst the fastest milers in England, and his form was fully exposed, with the result that he never improved appreciably on his handicap, as he was always trying, and frequently too close to the winner (often thrown in on previous "judicious form") to be re-handicapped.

The aim of all the drivers was to poach a start, and they turned, and came up to their marks with the pace up, so that at the sound of the "off" bell their horses were in their stride. The flag-man opposite each, raised his flag the moment the horse he was watching was on his mark, and lowered it when he had overstepped it.

After five or six attempts, "Uncle," the starter, with his finger on the trigger of his revolver, saw that all the flags were raised at the same time, and in a second, bang! and they were off. Gay's eyes were fixed on Carlton Mackrell.

There were few better hands at getting off smartly than Mackrell, and he was always fairly going as he reached his distance, timing to a nicety the manœuvrings of his rivals in front.

"That's the one advantage of being 'scratch,'" he always said, "you can see what the others are doing."

In the first round he caught four of the leaders, though one, a hobbled pacer under saddle, ridden by a small boy, with a start of fifty yards, was apparently keeping it. Going round the back stretch the second time, Carlton Mackrell set his horse going, and began to go after the leader. Approaching the straight, shouts of "Billy Q." and "Sam Sly" rent the air, while the two horses were home-locked together.

Those who knew Carlton Mackrell's style of driving, however, and how he liked to come with a rush on the post, slipped down off the stand and backed him. Twenty yards from the post—too late, it appeared to Gay, who was exhorting him under her breath to "go on"—he made his effort. It was all over in a few strides, and Billy Q. had won.

Gay walked to the gate of the enclosure, followed by Chris, and waited while Carlton Mackrell got down. In a few minutes the flag was hung out of the judge's box and the "all right" shouted to the ring. Emerging from the stable, he handed his rugged-up winner to an attendant, and slipping on his overcoat, he walked along the track, his eyes on the ground, thinking, not of his recent triumph, but of Gay Lawless. By nature a most undemonstrative man, he rarely showed visibly any emotion, either on the course or in private, but his colour rose as he thought what a good sort Gay was, what a pal she'd make to the right man. But who was the right man? Had he arrived yet, and if so, was he personified in Chris Hannen, or had he, Carlton Mackrell, any chance? He started, as close at hand Gay's soft, clear voice exclaimed:

"Well done again, Mr. Mackrell! You drew it rather fine, though, didn't you? I thought you wouldn't quite get there, and I was so excited."

Carlton stopped, his features breaking into one of those rare smiles that transformed his dark, handsome face.

"I always like to make a race of it, you know," he replied. "You see, I know my horses so well; nobody drives them but me, even in their work, and my wrist-watch"—he held his arm up—"tells me exactly how fast I am going, and if my horse keeps to his home time for the quarter and half miles, I know I shall be thereabouts at the finish."

"I have enjoyed to-day so much," she said, "and I'm regularly bitten with trotting. It's much prettier to watch than racing—even over fences"—she glanced saucily at Chris—"and, Mr. Mackrell, I'll let you into a secret—I mean to buy some horses, and go in for the game! Will you help me choose them, or let me know when anything good comes into the market?"

Mackrell looked earnestly at the girl's eager face, then he glanced quickly at Chris. That gentleman's face expressed no opinion, presenting the stoic indifference that characterised equally his riding of a winner, or another disappointment.

"This is hardly a lady's game, you know," Mackrell protested, "and, fond as I am of it, I could not recommend you to take it up seriously. The surroundings are not quite of the same class as Ascot or Goodwood, you know, and you would be an isolated instance."

"Wear your plainest clothes, no ornaments, and bring no money with you," had been Carlton's significant instructions when Gay had expressed a wish to attend a trotting meeting—and who could possibly have expected that horses, everything, would appear to her under a rose-hued glamour that assuredly they did not possess? Gay did not notice the component elements of the crowd, as Chris did—the weather was dazzling, the sun cozened, illumined the scene, and with a lover on either side of her to make things pleasant, the novelty of everything intoxicated her. Trotting showed to her in most attractive guise, and very differently to how it did later.

"I don't care," she said wilfully, "I'm fond of it, and I mean to do it, so that's settled. If you give me the benefit of your experiences"—she turned to Carlton—"I shall be grateful, and I won't be more of a nuisance than I can help."

"You could never be a nuisance," he said gravely, "and my advice is always at your command."

Almost immediately after he left them, and full of her delightful project, escorted by Chris Hannen, Gay Lawless left the pretty little racecourse.

CHAPTER II

A MAN OF SCIENCE

Professor Lawless was a scientist, and, as is common among professors and scientists, very eccentric. A Bachelor of Medicine, he had practised as much or as little as pleased him, and devoted most of his time to the materialisation of experiments that, if perfected, would make his fortune.

Not that it was with this end in view that he laboured, for his means were considerable, and it was his custom to give his services and advice to patients gratis in the majority of cases, although his sister Gay was no advocate of this practice.

"Why don't you put up a notice with "Free Hospital" on it over the door, and have done with the farce of refusing to take fees from people who can well afford them?" she used to ask indignantly. "You forget that it cost a heap of money during the five years you were learning the little you now know"—she laughed, for he was really a walking encyclopædia of learning—"and do you intend to get none of it back?"

Her brother would beam at her through the glasses that were eternally slipping off his nose.

"You are too commercial, Gay," he said. "None of us are infallible, and it would pain me to think that I had taken money for what might, after all, have been a mistaken diagnosis. I have ample means for my wants—which are simple—and I disapprove strongly of the tactics employed by some medical men in accepting fees for ailments which are often imaginary, and more often curable by fresh air and exercise than drugs and knives."

"Oh, you're hopeless," Gay rejoined, and there the argument ended for the time being, much to the Professor's satisfaction.

A remarkably handsome and intellectual-looking man, tall, but with a slight stoop, and with far-away, clear blue eyes that narrowed habitually whenever he looked at anything, possibly through years of close microscopic work, Frank Lawless had a personality (if an untidy one, as Gay said) that compelled people to ask, "Who is that man?"

He seldom left his laboratory and books, though occasionally Gay prevailed upon him to accompany her to some function or other, when he donned a dress-suit of archaic pattern, and, after spoiling a dozen ties, and wandering miserably in and out of his sister's room to ask if "this will do?" waited patiently in the hall, with an obsolete opera-hat held gingerly in one hand, the while he read from a scientific treatise held close to his eyes in the other.

A habit of standing first on one leg, and then on the other, had earned him the nickname of "Heron," and it was thus disrespectfully, but affectionately, that his sister usually addressed him. A man of unbounded possibilities, but indifferent achievements, only a total lack of ambition and enterprise prevented his rolling the ball still at his feet, but, as it was, he had never improved on the fame that came to him when quite a young man.

"The first man in England on his subject," was what his colleagues said of him, "but doesn't seem to push his opportunities; nice fellow, too!" while Frank Lawless himself, after a merciless tirade from Gay, would remark:

"My dear, I have used my brains to the best of my ability. My name is not unknown, and there are some eminent men who seek my opinion still, and value it. I do not wish to become a public character—to be obscure is to be happy—why not leave me to the work I love? I do not remember an instance in which I have interfered with you, though I must confess that some of your exploits—notably hunting, a practice I detest—have caused me some anxiety. Live and let live, my child," and waving a hand that clasped a test-tube, the Professor would flee to the safety of the laboratory, to which haven Gay never intruded, the smells were too awful, she said.

Since the death of their parents, Gay had taken up her abode with her brother in London. The girl was really very fond of him, and though they had few tastes in common, she thought it her duty, as well as her pleasure, to look after him, and, as she expressed it, "dress and wash him up generally."

The arrangement answered admirably. Gay was free as air to go where she liked, and do what she pleased, while the Professor followed his own pursuits, and took a secret delight in being well taken care of, without having to suffer the infliction of a wife.

In fact, so secure did he feel under existing circumstances, that the prospect of their interruption sometimes occurred to him with an unpleasant shock, and the possibility of his sister marrying appalled him. He consoled himself, however, with the reflection that she seemed in no hurry, and no one could accuse him of attempting to cross bridges before he met them; his character was rather the reverse, in fact, his impulse being to walk round any obstacle that presented itself, or if this proved impossible, to confront it sideways, and wait till either it removed itself, or someone—usually Gay—came to the rescue.

This disinclination to show a bold front to however trivial a difficulty, was the twin trait to his lack of ambition, and his attitude was pathetic when a worldly problem faced him, for he could no more reprimand or dismiss a worthless servant, than he could in cold blood destroy one of his cherished specimens.

"She does her best, poor thing!" It was thus he one day mildly excused an obstreperous and drunken cook, who had "held up" the whole household. "It must be very trying to stand over a fire all day, you know, and, er—she's only a little excited, is she?"

"She's drunk," Gay said emphatically. "She went for Sanders with the rolling-pin just now. I want you to see her, and tell her that if she's not out of the house, bag and baggage, in an hour, you'll send for the police."

This was, of course, a joke, but Gay spoke so seriously, and appeared so much in earnest, that the Professor felt in immediate danger of participating in a scene, and looked all the fright he felt.

"Of course, my dear, if you think a man's—and a firm man's (the Professor looked more like a jelly just then)—intervention is desirable, I will speak to the cook, and if necessary (he squared his champagne shoulders, and Gay almost laughed as she fancied she heard something crack) I will show her the door."

"If you want me," he continued hurriedly, "I shall be in my laboratory; I am in the middle of a very delicate experiment," and with the last words, his coat-tails vanished round the corner. Gay smiled as she heard the laboratory door hastily closed, and the key turned.

"Old funk!" she said elegantly. "Afraid of his own shadow! I do believe he'd rather be run over than hold up his hand, for fear of hurting the motor-man's feelings!"

The breakfast-room in Connaught Square was a pleasant apartment, and on the morning after the Trotting Meeting, when Frank had finished breakfast, and taken up his customary morning attitude before the fire, Gay leaned her elbows on the table, framed her pretty, fresh face in the hollow of her hands, and opened the ball.

The Professor passed his hand lightly over his face, touching it in three places. He always did this when his attention was required, and many people thought he was crossing himself, and unjustly suspected him of ritualistic tendencies.

"Yes, my dear?" he inquired. "Nothing unpleasant, I hope?" Turning to the glass he looked apprehensively at his sister's reflection, and was discomfited when she caught him.

"Quite the reverse," she said. "It's this: I'm going to buy and race some Trotting horses!"

And now, thought she, for a homily on sport and the evils of the turf! But she was disappointed.

"Why specify the horse with a superfluous adjective?" he inquired. "All horses trot, don't they? It is their natural pace—or one of them. Try to be accurate, my dear girl."

"Trotting horses are a distinct breed, old boy," she said, "and they trot against each other for prizes; trot, you understand, or pace—there are square-gaited horses—those that trot like a cab-horse, only faster, you know—and pacers, which move both legs on the same side in unison. Like this, you know"—she got up from her chair, and tried to illustrate her meaning by walking across the room, moving the right arm and right leg together, repeating the performance on the left side.

"I was under the impression that only giraffes moved in that way," he said. "Surely horses cannot go very fast with an action like that?"

"Fast enough to do a mile in one minute fifty-five seconds or less, anyway," Gay replied. "It is such a pretty sight to watch, they wear such funny boots sometimes, and hobbles and sheepskins, and—and—things," she finished lamely for want of more knowledge regarding pacers' equipment.

"Ah, yes, quite so," Frank Lawless agreed, "but—er—racing, you know. My experience of it has been limited, I confess, (the Professor's knowledge of racing was confined to two or three occasional turfites who came to him professionally), but I am given to understand that its followers are, to say the least of it, unscrupulous. I am not a prig, Gay, but I have seen life in my time"—he looked at himself knowingly in the glass, while Gay laughed inwardly—"and I flatter myself I am a man of the world, therefore I fear I cannot give my consent to your proposal."

The last remark was uttered with all the timidity of an assumed authority, and as he spoke, he lapsed into the one-legged attitude which had earned him his nickname.

"My proposal, as you call it, is a foregone conclusion, dear Heron," Gay answered smartly, "and with all sisterly respect for you, I would remark that I invariably make up my mind—both our minds sometimes—beforehand, and acquaint you with the result after. Carlton Mackrell has promised me his assistance and advice, and as soon as I can get hold of a few good horses, I mean to start. The Trotting season's young yet—perhaps later on, as a special treat, I'll take you to see a race."

"Mr. Mackrell?" he said irritably. "Well, well, a rich idler is bound to take up some fad, I suppose—but why be a sporting man, without two ideas in your head? An interesting animal, no doubt, of the same type as your friend, Chris Hannen, but—

"Oh," cried Gay with spirit, for she resented the sneer, "it's these 'interesting animals,' as you are pleased to call them, from the lofty heights of ineffectual science, who do the work of the world, the work that counts. It is the sportsmen of England who know how to rise to an emergency, and overcome it, old boy—these very same brainless men whom you so contemptuously patronise, by their pluck and determination, form the very bulwark of England when fighting has to be done!"

"But I fail to see any object in sport," reiterated her brother obstinately, "especially horse-racing and—er—Trotting matches. Where does it lead to, and what good purpose does it serve?"

"It improves the breed of a noble animal, and teaches the men who ride it self-reliance and resource," Gay flashed back, "to say nothing of making them hard—a soft man is every decent woman's abomination!"

The Professor shifted his feet uneasily, and glanced at his watch; it was his invariable rule to run away when getting the worst of an argument. He had no power to hinder Gay from making ducks and drakes of her two thousand a year, and he sighed as he reflected that she was already more than a little original in some of her ideas and speech; but he also knew that the charm of the girl overshadowed all else, and that whatever she said or did, seldom drew forth a more severe censure than "Oh, that's Gay Lawless all over, you know," from anyone whose opinion mattered.

Gay, in fact, possessed a soul which she described as "superior to public opinion or example—good or bad, especially good," and so long as what she said and did harmed no one, and she performed such duties as her station required of her, she felt answerable to none.

When he had left the room with his usual silent shuffle, the girl, quite unconscious of the pretty picture she made, talked confidentially to her reflection in the glass.

"Awful pity dear old Frank isn't more of an outdoor man," she said aloud, then her face grew serious as she remembered the fate of her four other brothers, all killed in the open, two fighting, and two in search of adventure.

"He's the only one of us all without the sporting instinct, and what's worse, is bigoted against every kind of sport for others. He can't help his nature, I suppose; but oh! I do wish he could understand all that the sight of the country, and growing things, and horses mean to me!"

Unconsciously Gay for a long time had felt the want of a sympathetic companion, or, as she would have expressed it, a pal, for, fond as she was of her brother, he was not an ideal listener when she lived over again a great run to hounds, or described a spirited game of polo at Hurlingham.

He always accorded her that polite inattention which checks confidences, and freezes enthusiasm, and Lossie Holden, Gay's cousin and enforced intimate, loathed sport in every shape and form, while Effie Bulteel, a sportswoman after Gay's own heart, was too constantly her husband's companion to have much time for anyone else. Thus, on the principle that we are nearly always furthest from those we love, Gay did not see half so much of her friend as she wished, while having to endure far more of her cousin Lossie's company than she either desired or deserved.

Dismissing the subject with a shrug of her shoulders, the girl started to attend to those household duties in which she was an adept, and retired below stairs to plan out the day's food, more especially the dinner. Then she did the flowers, of which there was always a profusion in the house, for Gay was a real lover of Nature, and to watch the different gradations of colour in the spring was a constant delight to her, though when leaf and flower came to their full growth and perfection, all rushing out on the top of each other, she lost interest in, and quaintly denounced them, as "vulgar."

Suddenly it occurred to her that she and Frank had not given one of their cosy little dinners for some time—why not have one soon, asking Carlton Mackrell and Chris Hannen, with the inevitable Lossie to make up the party? The Professor did not count, and in any case Gay would have found it difficult to find another girl—all those she knew were either too fast or too slow for her taste, and it must be confessed that while she bore her own sex no ill-will, she infinitely preferred the society of men.

"You can never tell a woman all your secrets as you can a man," she used to say, and Lossie was fond of quoting this remark, and telling everyone that Gay hated women—the deduction being that from close personal observation of her own character, she found all her sisters as hateful as herself.

Yet Gay looked no "cat" as she ran to her writing-table; in these days when the streets are filled with fine athletic woman, but the dear little girl, with her smile, her blush, her little foot and hand, her gracious ways, her thanks for some small service rendered, appears to have vanished from the haunts of men, one such girl at least, as more than one man knew, was to be found at a certain house in Connaught Square.

When she had penned the three invitations, she fell to thinking, then presently destroyed two out of the three she had written.

"Carlton Mackrell shall come alone, and convert Frank," she said aloud; "besides, he and Chris would be sure to fall out over the rival merits of racing and trotting"; but she sighed as she rang for the letter to be posted.

For Chris was such rattling good company, he would describe things in a manner that brought tears of laughter into the eyes of his listeners, such readiness, such a knack of creating sunshine wherever he went, Gay never found in anyone else—it was a mere coincidence, of course, that he found no other company in the world so delightful as Gay's!

CHAPTER III

"TROTTING VERSUS RACING."

"Are you still of the same mind about Trotting?" Carlton Mackrell asked Gay as they sat at the dainty, rose-lit table of the dining-room in Connaught Square a few nights later.

"Why, of course!" Gay said reproachfully. "I never change my mind once it's made up, do I, dear?" and she appealed to her brother.

The Professor looked at her with his soup spoon poised between his plate and his mouth.

"Never is a very positive statement," he said, "but I think you are fairly consistent when you have made up what you are pleased to call your mind, Gay."

What a contrast these two were, to be sure! Gay, so full of life, and fun, and spirits, bent on finding and enjoying all the good things of the world, without a care, apparently, and her brother, a prematurely aged, dry-as-dust specimen, with no ambition whatever beyond his musty books, and test-tubes, and things, and with a precision of thought and speech that must surely get on Gay's nerves terribly!

Doubtless the man had his good points, but it was an axiom of Carlton's, that unless a person's virtues struck one at once, life was too short to waste in trying to discover them. As a practical man about town—and there is no finer school for the observation of character than cosmopolitan society—he had learnt to "size-up," as he expressed it, a man on sight, and only on rare occasions had to acknowledge to a mistake.

"I wonder how you came to take up Trotting, Mr. Mackrell? It's much safer, don't you think, than 'chasing?'" said Gay, as she helped herself from a dish handed by a particularly pretty parlour-maid. "Mr. Hannen loves it—but gets more hard knocks than ha'pence. After a more than usually crushing 'downer,' in which his head suffered most, he was warned last year by an eminent specialist that another tap on the same spot would probably prove fatal—" She paused abruptly as the Professor nodded.

It would be hard to explain how his nod expressed the opinion that another such fatality would be well deserved, but it did, and Gay's eyes flashed whole volumes of indignation that did not escape Carlton—he loved a woman of spirit.

"I don't think I ever told you of my first real introduction to Trotting, and how it came about?" he said, breaking a rather strained silence, and Gay shook her head, while the Professor, with some ostentation, devoted himself to his dinner.

"I found myself at Southend, the place where the mud is, you know, and having nothing to do one afternoon—did you speak, sir?" as his host muttered something sotto voce about Satan and idle hands, and Carlton at once decided to inflict on the spoil-sport Professor, the punishment of hearing the whole story to the bitter end. He was rewarded by a delighted gleam in Gay's eye, as he imperturbably proceeded.

"I heard some Trotting races were on, and thought I'd go and see them. While watching the toilet of a horse about to run—or trot, a horsey-looking individual spoke to me, and though I had never set eyes on him before, he appeared to know me perfectly."

The Professor coughed. If ever a cough said "birds of a feather," his did then, but Carlton ignored it.

"'Good-day, Mr. Mackrell,' said the unknown, pulling his cap, 'and what might you be doin' at this game?' I liked the look of the old chap, somehow—he was fairly long in the tooth, I must tell you—so I explained that having nothing to do, I had come to see the Trotting. 'I think,' said my unknown, 'as I can do you a bit o' good 'ere this afternoon. There's a 'orse goin' to be sold after the second race to-day—owner's taken the merry rat-tat, you see, sir—an' if you can get 'im for anything below seventy quid, buy 'im. I've been Trottin' an' drivin' 'em a good many years now, an' I know all about this 'orse. 'E's sound in wind an' limb, an' money wouldn't buy 'im if it wasn't a case of couldn't 'elp it, 'ad to.'"

Gay laughed, highly amused. "Well?" she said, while the Professor, with the air of a god in the clouds, who leans over to observe the absurd antics of the human ants below, resignedly helped himself to more salad.

"Of course," Carlton continued, "I recognised 'the tale' when I heard it, and naturally supposed my new-found friend had an axe to grind, but his next remark disabused my mind."

"'I shan't get nothin' out o' the deal, guv'nor,' he said. 'You'll pay yer brass straight over to the auctioneer, an' I don't suppose 'e'll give me anything if you buy the 'orse, any more than if anyone else did—an' somebody will if you don't watch it, though there ain't much money 'ere to-day,' looking at the crowd disparagingly. 'This 'orse is in the last race, the open, with thirty-five quid to the winner, an' 'e can win it too, off the mark 'e's got to-day.'

"Well, to cut a long story short," Mackrell went on, dexterously combining enjoyment of a good dinner with his recital, "I did buy the horse for sixty-five guineas, and there I was, landed with probably a bad bargain—though I liked the make and shape of him, mind you, but with no earthly idea what to do with him."

"Marry in haste, repent at leisure," said the Professor. "I mean——" But Carlton did not stop to inquire what the Professor meant, only Gay realised that the "conversion" she had hoped for was far away.

"'Borrow a sulky off of the man you bought 'im from,' he advised. ''E'll lend it yer, for 'e's a sport—that's why 'e's taken the knock, I shouldn't wonder,' he added reflectively. Sure enough, the late owner of my purchase lent me his sulky, and he and my friend harnessed the horse to it for me when his race came on. Imagine my astonishment when the horsey-looking man put a whip into my hand, and said, 'Up you git, sir, an' drive the old boiler yourself. All you are to do is to sit where you are, an' leave 'is 'ead alone. 'E'll do the rest, an' you'll win as far as from 'ere to London.'"

"I expressed considerable doubt as to the success of this plan, you may be sure," Mackrell went on, "but the man would take no denial, and before I knew where I was, I had received the promise of a driver's licence from the Committee, and permission to begin then and there, and was on my mark, bewildered with the counsellings of my mentor.

"'This 'orse 'as forgotten more about Trottin' than you'll ever know, guv'nor,' he said. 'Just sit still, and leave the rest to 'im. And look 'ere, you're goin' to back 'im, of course?' I handed over a five pound note, and my man darted off to the Ring with it, returning before we were off. 'I've got Sevens'es to your bit,' he told me. 'Don't look at me—get as near yer mark as you can, and keep on the move.'"

"But you had time to jump off!" cried the Professor, his voice rising to a squeal of excitement.

"At that moment the bell rang," went on Carlton, "and my horse shot forward, and got into his stride at once, followed by shouts to me of, 'Don't pull 'im about, for Gawd's sake! Give 'im 'is 'ead!'"

"It was not a case of giving," he said, "the horse took it—and my arms as well, all but. However, I did as I was told, and we won pretty easily by a length, though I was indeed a 'passenger' on that trip! Directly after the race, my friend rejoined me.

"'Well done!' he said, 'though I thought you was goin' to fall out round that last bend.' He patted the horse affectionately. 'Wot did I tell yer?' he asked. ''Ere's yer money—forty quid. Now see what yer can buy this sulky for,' and he dragged me over to the owner of it. Enquiry elicited the fact that five pounds would buy it. My mentor whispered in my ear, 'Offer to toss 'im eighty or nothin',' he said; 'yer luck's in to-day, guv'nor, an' 'e's a sportsman.' I proposed this plan, and it was accepted. I won, and so found myself the possessor of a good Trotting horse, the winner of a race, plus thirty-five pounds in bets, and the owner of a sulky—nearly new—and all for a fiver!"

"Most remarkable," the Professor concurred dryly. "It was your monetary good fortune, then, that decided you to make a hobby of Trotting?"

"Chiefly, I think, because I saw an opportunity of following the advice of Miss Gay, who had advised me to take up a hobby."

"Shortly after, I bought some more horses, and have had no reason to regret it—they have won a good few races, and just about paid their way. I've got my eye on the chief Trotting Prize—Champion Vase they call it"—he turned to Gay—"this year, and I think I shall go very close for it."

"How I should love to win that!" Gay cried eagerly. "Do you think I could buy anything good enough to have a chance too?"

"You're flying at high game for a beginner," laughed Mackrell, "but if you're really in earnest"—Gay nodded emphatically—"I'll keep my eyes open, and let you know if I hear of anything. You will have to give a stiffish price for a 'green' or unexposed horse with a record of 2.20 trotting or 2.10 pacing, probably about four or five hundred pounds."

The Professor gave a startled, hurried glance at his sister. He regarded all money spent on anything but comfort, and books, which ranked certainly before necessaries with him, as thrown into the gutter.

His and Gay's modest stable arrangements were limited when in town—for she only hunted in the country—to a handsome mare that she drove in a smart Ralli car, and which attracted no particular attention save as being driven by a pretty girl, except when the Professor accompanied her.

Then, clutching in an unsportsmanlike way at the reins, shutting his eyes at dangerous crossings, and screaming out impossible directions to which Gay turned a deaf ear, his antics convulsed all beholders, and made her blush for shame.

"Of course," she said, not surprised by any means at the price Mackrell mentioned, "I know good horses cost money, and that I can't win anything with bad ones. By the way, what happened to your friend who made you buy your first horse?"

"I took him home with me," Carlton Mackrell replied, "and installed him as my trainer. His name is Tugwood, and I found out that he had had great experience of training and driving Trotters; twenty-five years of it, in fact, both in America and here. He is still with me, and drives when I am unable to do so myself, which is not often, happily. Of course you will want a trainer—"

"I think so"; but he did not tell her that he meant to transfer "Brusher" Tugwood to her as the most trustworthy man he knew, and in whose hands her horses would be treated as carefully and as jealously as were his own.

"It's awfully interesting," said Gay with a sigh. "How I wish I were a man, to be able to go about, and get some of these experiences. Nearly all amusing, aren't they?"

"Mostly," Carlton Mackrell replied, crumbling his bread thoughtfully, "though a few are sad, and many sordid."

He went away that night, knowing that he should have kicked himself for a sweep in encouraging Gay in her new passion, for the scales had already fallen from his eyes as regarded Trotting, but, doting on the girl as he did, her wish was law to him, while the prospect of getting her to himself while Chris was racing elsewhere, was too great a temptation to resist.

And after all, why should she not have her fling? She could afford it, and the time she put in with the noxious Professor must be dull enough in all conscience.

When at last, excited and happy, Gay betook herself to bed, she dreamed of new records created by her horses, and saw her sideboard covered with cups, king over which reigned the Blue Riband of Trotting, the Champion Gold Vase.

CHAPTER IV

"A RACING MAN"

Right on the top of Epsom Downs, and "far from the madding crowd," as he expressed it, was Chris Hannen's training stable.

A pretty red-and-white house, gabled, with old-fashioned diamond-paned windows, it stood at the top of a lawn (on which in the summer Chris played sundry hard sets of tennis to keep himself fit), surrounded by trees which served as a protection from the prevailing winds in the winter.

So keen and pure, indeed, was the air on the Downs, that when he took the house, Chris renamed it "The Breezes," and as a training centre the position was ideal. Immediately outside the front gate were the Downs to gallop over, while behind the house was a spacious schooling-ground, with fac-similes of all the fences to be met with on a race-course.

They were always kept stiffly built-up, too, for it was a sound maxim of Chris's never to allow his horses to get slovenly in their jumping, through being practised over weak fences. He knew from experience that horses so indulged were very apt to "chance" their fences in public, and races were not won under such conditions. Therefore every attention was paid to his schooling-ground, and the percentage of winners turned out from the little stable was wonderful considering the strength of it, and bore testimony to the painstaking way in which they were prepared.

Chris owed much of his success to a knowledge of the art of placing his horses where they could perform to the best advantage. He sometimes had a difficulty in persuading the owner of a bad horse that he would never win the Grand National with it, and on one or two occasions, having done his best with hopeless cases, their owners had removed them to another trainer, only to discover the truth of Chris's judgment, and the folly of incurring further expense in vain attempts to win races.

Chris regarded an increase in his horses with satisfaction, and a decrease with equanimity. He was not dependent upon training horses for a living, for he had a private income of a few hundreds a year, and after a couple of years in the Army had gone in for it more as a hobby to which he was devoted, than anything else. He generally had three or four horses of his own at Epsom, and an equal number of his friends', but never more than ten or twelve in his stables at most, as he was of opinion that a man could not do justice to a greater number, studying each individually, and becoming acquainted with their peculiarities, often very useful knowledge when riding them in public.

It was regarded as a privilege to have a horse or two with Chris, for an owner always felt assured that they could not be in more competent hands, and the amateur's independent position precluded the possibility of a horse being run to suit the stable rather than the owner.

Chris's popularity with both sexes was general, and occasionally he had a horse belonging to a sporting member of the fair sex. He found it hard sometimes to convince the latter that her horse was not within some stones of the Sandown Grand Annual Steeplechase form, and he was strong in his refusal to encourage useless waste of money in travelling expenses. He had incurred the momentary displeasure of a lady with sporting ambitions by informing her that, after many experiments, he was forced to the conclusion that her horse could not win a saddle and bridle at a country fair, if a decent proportion of the other runners were trying, but no one was ever angry with Chris for long. His imperturbable good temper and quaint humour invariably came to the rescue, and his opinion on the merits or otherwise of a horse was consistently borne out.

"I am unlikely to entertain an angel unawares," he once said to a disappointed owner, "and it is my custom to give every horse more than one chance. But, on the other hand, it is not my practice to keep horses belonging to other people in my stable when I know they are worthless. I do not keep 'stumers' myself for longer than I can help, though I'm pleased to say I do not often buy them either, so why should I delude other people into doing so? Your horse, my dear sir, would be better employed in some less ambitious sphere than a race-course, and, without wishing to hurt your feelings—and they are very sore, I know, when the brutal truth is driven home by a sympathetic but conscientious outsider—I would suggest that you cut your losses, and send him up to Tattersall's as a light-weight hunter for a galloping country like Leicestershire. There are many ten-stone hunting men who love a bit of blood to chase a fox upon, and your horse is at least sound."

On this particular day the morning's work was over, and Chris and his head lad, (who was universally and impartially known as Scotty, though the presumption was that he had been christened something else originally) were standing in the box of a horse, looking on while he was being dressed down, and discussing the results of a trial from which he had lately emerged triumphantly.

"It makes the 'andicap Steeple at Kempton look pretty good for 'im, sir," the head lad was saying; "'e showed up well the first time we tried 'im, an' there can be no mistake this time either, with old Evergreen in the gallop. 'E's a wonderful good trial 'oss, an' I never expected the young 'un to give 'im weight and a clever beatin'.'"

"I'm very pleased with him," he said; "the further he went, the better he seemed to like it. Of course, we shall be meeting something at Kempton—especially if Muscateer runs—but whatever beats us will win, I think."

"It's good enough for my money," Scotty announced, "an' if you take my advice you'll 'elp yourself properly w'en they begin bettin'."

"I believe you make it a point of honour to back anything that runs from here," he said.

"Not exactly so bad as that, sir," the head lad demurred, "but any'ow it's paid well up to now."

"Luckier than you was the first time I saw you, sir," said the head lad significantly. "You was on yer back in the h'ambulance at Sandown Pawk, and you wasn't 'arf 'outed,' neither. I was down at the fence where you 'came it'—I always goes out into the course when they're 'lepping,' you know, sir," he explained. "I like to see what they're a-doin' of round the far side, an' when the Stewards is at lunch, or 'arf-way back to London before the last race is run. I see your 'orse fall—old Blow'ard it was, sir—"

"And when 'e went down, my last bob went with 'im, but I didn't bear you no malice, sir, an' I was the first man to get to you. I've done a bit o' riding in my time, an' I know all about 'ow it feels to get knocked out, though, thank Gawd, I never got such a 'biff' over the 'ead as that 'orse what was follerin' 'anded yer!"

Chris laughed, and passed his hand carefully over a chestnut mare, which turned a vicious eye upon him.

"Gently, gel, gently," walking up to her head. "Pity she's so bad-tempered, isn't it, Scotty?"

"Turnin' sour, that's what she is, though when she does take it into 'er 'ead to try, she wants some catching, an' no error. It's them sort as gets innocent men warned off," Scotty concluded bitterly, having a lively recollection of an interview with the Stewards in connection with the running of the mare, "though 'Eaving was witness," as he told the Stewards, "that all parties were innocent enough, except the jady mare."

"Haven't forgotten your 'carpeting' yet, then, Scotty? It was bad luck. I expected them to send for me too, as the trainer. I think I should have asked one of 'em to ride the mare a few times, to see how in and out she runs. I've got her in a Selling Hurdle at Wye next week, and win or lose, she's to be sold—can't afford to keep such a dangerous customer as that, can we, Scotty?"

"We can not," the other agreed with feeling. "A 'orse like that would break the Bank of England, an' then win a nice race direc'ly you sold 'er."

The two strolled round all the boxes—Chris had eight horses in his charge now—and when he had seen them all done up, went in to breakfast, attended by his dogs, as usual.

No matter in what part of the house he might be, or how long absent, his faithful escort of three awaited him, eager, loving, full of warm welcome, and if the fox-terrier, "Copper," were sometimes jealous of his son "Penny's" accomplished tricks, and Chris had occasionally to smack them both into good behaviour, "Cypka," the bull-pup, gave him no trouble whatever, acting, indeed, as foster-mother to the other two, and occasional peacemaker.

Chris's eye fell on a letter from Gay Lawless among his correspondence, and his face brightened as he opened it.

"Dear Chris," he read, "I shall be very glad to see you any day for tea and a chat. I've got the Trotting mania badly, and though I know it isn't much in your line, I must talk to somebody about it, and dear old Frank is so difficult to interest on any subject except science. If you're not racing anywhere, do come in to tea to-morrow afternoon. Lossie's coming, and I also expect Mr. Mackrell, who thinks he has found a couple of useful Trotters for me. I am so anxious to begin.—Yours sincerely,

Chris Hannen digested the news with mixed feelings. "Gay's mad on Trotting," he thought, "and it's no sort of game for her. Carlton Mackrell has no business to help her, though, to do him justice, after what he said the other day, I can't accuse him of aiding and abetting exactly. He is deadly in earnest about Gay, and he'll have opportunities enough now, confound him!"

Yet Chris smiled as he folded her letter up, and put it into his pocket—the breastpocket. "All's fair in love and—racing, I suppose, whether it's jumping or Trotting."

Mrs. Summers, Chris's housekeeper, came in at that moment, and interrupted his thoughts, which were somewhat interfering with his breakfast. She had occupied to Chris the same position as Min Toplady did to Gay, but in appearance was a direct contrast, for tall, angular, and determined-looking, she inspired awe in all save her familiars, who were few.

Her young master was the very apple of her eye, and she strove to supply the dreadful want in his life caused by the loss of his mother. Just she and two others knew how terribly he felt that loss, for his mind was an open book to her, and undemonstrative and practical as he invariably was, he sometimes dropped a remark that showed his thoughts were never far away from his sorrow.

"She was my pal," he said once to Gay, "the only real pal I ever had. I don't think we had any secrets from each other—certainly no guilty ones, thank God—and now she's gone, I realise bitterly how much more I might have done to make her happy. She was easily pleased, bless her, for all she wanted was to be with me, but she never intruded, and I remember so well how she used to propose something she thought would please me, and say: 'If you don't mind, lovie?' as though she thought that perhaps she bored me sometimes." Only Gay, and Mrs. Summers and Aunt Lavinia knew the tremendous depth of feeling, the capacity for suffering, that lay under Chris Hannen's easy-going, bantering ways, and if the housekeeper used all her tact and kindliness to make up to him, if ever so little, something of what he had lost, Gay Lawless, who had the clearest possible insight into people's characters, never made the mistake of volunteering any sympathy.

She knew Chris hated it, as she did, and appreciated his silent pluck as much as he did the reserves of courage that had not yet been called up in herself.

"Good-morning, Master Chris," said Mrs. Summers (he was always Master Chris to her, never having grown up in her eyes), but her face assumed a stern expression as she regarded the only half-finished breakfast.

"No food again this morning? I hope you're not up to them wastin' tricks again? Wastin' your life, I call it," with a disgusted sniff.

"Good-morning, Summers," he said. "I hope I see you well? No, I am not wasting just at present, though there's just a pound or two to come off before Kempton next week. We shall have another glorious winner (Chris characterised all winners as glorious) then. Which is it to be this time, a new bonnet or a dress-length?"

"Gloves this time, Master Chris, and thank you," Mrs. Summers replied, "though there ain't much chance of showing off any finery in this place, I'm sure."

"How often has the butcher called this week, Summers?" Chris asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

Mrs. Summers tossed her head. The butcher was rather a sore point with her, his name having been coupled with hers by "those impudent bits of boys," as she designated the stable lads.

"If I hear one of them brats discussing me and my affairs, I'll box his ears for him soundly," she threatened, "so there!"

"Quite right, Summers, don't you stand it," Chris agreed. "By the way, I'm going up to town to-day, so don't bother about any dinner for me."

He walked towards the door, then paused on the threshold to fire a parting shot. He loved "chipping" people, as he called it, but he would have cut off his right hand rather than wilfully hurt anyone's feelings.

"If the butcher does call to-day by any chance, Summers, there are no orders, you know," he said with a grave face, then raced off into his study before the enraged but complacent housekeeper could reply.

"What a boy it is!" she said to herself as she cleared away, "always laughin' and having a joke about something, bless his heart! I'm sure I'd rather see him like that a thousand times, than sitting so quiet as he does sometimes, looking straight in front of him at nothing like, though I know well enough what he sees, and who he's thinking about, poor, lonely boy. I wonder if he'll ever marry that Miss Gay Lawless, whose photograph he looks at so often? If only she'll make him half as happy as he deserves to be," she concluded, as she left the room with her tray.

Curiously enough, that was the very question that Chris was asking himself, as he stood in his study gazing at Gay's photograph, though it was not of his own happiness he was thinking at that moment, but of hers—for that was Chris's way.

CHAPTER V

TWO GIRLS

Gay Lawless looked particularly bewitching the while she entertained her visitors that afternoon. She seemed more charming than usual to both Chris and Carlton Mackrell, while even the Professor, who usually noticed nothing, patted her approvingly on the head, and remarked, "You look very well, my dear."

Gay was gifted (for no one can acquire it) with perfect taste in clothes, and her tea-gown was cut with that attention to detail which results in simplicity itself. Although one could be with Gay for quite a long time, and have the pleasing assurance that she was the best style in the world, there was always a great difficulty in remembering exactly what she had worn.

"What had she on?" envious girls used to ask the men who admired her, and the answer usually was, "I don't know, but it was quite simple, and such good style."

To-day she appeared to both men more lovable than ever, and Chris thought what a shame it would be to bury such a bright creature in a place like Epsom, with no one to amuse or to admire her except himself.

He took short hold of his fancy before it carried him to further flights, however, as he dropped into a chair by her side, while, much to Carlton's disgust, the latter was button-holed by the Professor.

"What's the latest about your Trotters?" inquired Chris, breaking into a smile that accentuated the crow's-feet round his young eyes.

"Great news," Gay replied with enthusiasm. "Mr. Mackrell has bought me a couple he got to hear of, a green Trotter who can go in about 2.18 called 'Silver Streak,' and a pacer with a trial of 2.13¼ named 'Maudie T.' And isn't it kind of him, he's going to lend me his trainer—sounds funny to talk of lending a man, doesn't it?—while the craze lasts, as he calls it. But you know, Chris, it isn't a craze, it's a—a—almost a disease now! I'm racing one at Waterloo Park next Monday, and oh! I do hope it will win, don't you?" she asked eagerly.

"With all my heart," Chris replied, with more enthusiasm than he thought he could work up over Trotting. "And may I be there to see. Monday, you said, didn't you? That will suit me to a T. I've got nothing to do till Wednesday at Kempton, so perhaps you'll return the compliment, and come over to see me bump round on Beeswing? He did well in a gallop this morning—better than I expected, in fact."

"Answered the question all right, did he?" Gay asked. "Does he represent a betting chance on Wednesday, with the eminent gentleman-jockey up—and is he safe?" she added, turning a little pale.

"Well, he's about as safe a jumper as an amateur"—he grinned, "that's what some of the professionals in their scorn for the 'leather-polishers' they call us, could wish to ride, and my head lad says he has so much in hand that he could stop to scratch himself, and then win," Chris chuckled. "Oh! hang Lossie!"

The stifled ejaculation was prompted by the entrance of a remarkably pretty girl, beautifully dressed in dark blue, who rustled across the room to Gay, and kissed her perfunctorily.

"How are you?" she inquired, but though her voice was affectionate, her eyes flitted from Gay to Carlton Mackrell—where they stayed.

"A1, Lossie, thanks. I needn't ask how you are. I never saw you looking better—(or more expensive)", she added to herself with a sigh, as her cousin shook hands with Carlton and Chris, and begged Gay to give her a cup of tea.

Frank Lawless ambled forward, and was soon busily juggling with milk and sugar basin, while Chris wondered what in Heaven was wrong with the girl, for if she always gave him the same displeasing impression, he could not possibly deny her beauty. Tall and dark, with masses of silky blue-black hair, she had eyes blue as heaven, and straight, delicate features that emphasised the irregularity of Gay's changing face, of which the chief charm, perhaps, lay in its expression.

She seemed a bundle of nerves as her slender foot beat a tatoo on the floor, while her wonderful eyes were never still, yet never rested long on any single object save Carlton, who was certainly well worth looking at.

It was Lossie's misfortune to have fallen genuinely in love with him, not for his money, though she liked that well enough, but himself. His was the Saxon temperament which veils the keenest pleasure, and the deepest grief under the same quiet, almost bored exterior, but she knew that his indifference concealed an ardent, even romantic temperament, that might be counted upon sooner or later to betray him into one of those follies so dear to the heart of woman, while Chris's gay, almost affectionate manner to the women he liked, argued a much greater warmth of temperament than he really possessed.

She felt completely out of it as the three sat talking horses, and had leisure to note the eager look on Gay's face as she listened to what Carlton was saying, also to digest the fact that this Trotting fad would bring her cousin and Mackrell more together than ever.

"Both your horses are timed to do two minutes thirty seconds," said Mackrell presently, "and upon that form they will be handicapped on Monday. I think—at least, 'Brusher' tells me—that Silver Streak had improved on that time in private, but he has always been 'just beaten' lately, so they may put him on a few yards closer mark next time he runs. When a horse is entered for a Trotting race, you know," he explained, "the owner has to supply the handicappers with his best time for a mile on a track."

"What's to stop a man representing his horse as being able to do two minutes thirty seconds when he knows he can do it in less?" inquired Chris, for his experience of the Turf had made him familiar with most of the dodges for throwing dust in the handicappers' eyes, with a view to getting dropped a few pounds in the scale. "You can't get weight off in the stable," was a dictum he often heard, but never practised.

"Well, for one thing," Mackrell replied, "the officials generally like to see a horse do his time before they frame their handicap, to prevent mistakes, you know," and he laughed. "For another, if a horse improves appreciably on his entered time, the 'man in the box,' as they call him, wants to know something about it, though, of course, a few seconds faster might be owing to a good track and good going. On the other hand, if a horse does not trot up to his time, they can, if they like, put up their official driver to take him round as fast as he can make him go. If the discrepancy is considerable, the scheming owner will probably find himself suspended for a few months, or even warned off."

"But," said Chris, who at heart deeply resented Mackrell's encouraging Gay in her misguided fancy, "when such men as Rensslaer and Vancouver and that ilk, all hold aloof from the sport as understood in England, what chance has it of becoming a national sport? The trotting tracks here are so bad that it is really kinder not to enumerate them; most are in connection with public-houses, and the people who frequent them are the middle class. Trotting, in short, is the sport of that and the lower classes, and they trot cheap horses in consequence."

"Unfortunately," said Mackrell, with a slightly heightened colour, for he got fearfully chaffed among his own set for his bizarre taste, "the upper classes take no interest in Trotting in England. It will take time to prove to them that a trotter is not necessarily a butcher's horse, but can vie with a hackney and swell carriage horse, and is almost as fast as a motor car as well, thus combining the horse and motor in one animal. Of course we all know that in America the trotter is the National horse, as the thoroughbred is the English one."

Chris was silent. He thought that Mackrell understood trotting, or rather mixed trotting and pacing, as practised in England, but knew nothing of the higher art of trotting, that is to say, real first-class trotting with horses worth money, and which could go in 2.8 or better—like the famous Rensslaer's, for example.

"Rather! and I'm going to train at Flytton. Inigo Court's close by, you know, and I shall love seeing my horses jog in the morning. They'll let me do that, I suppose?" she asked Carlton Mackrell, and pointedly turning her back on Chris.

"Oh, certainly," he replied, after a moment's hesitation, and much to the disgust of the Professor, who considered that all this horsey talk was more suitable for stables than a drawing-room. He did hope Gay would not become one of those horrid, slangy, racing-women he abominated; almost unconsciously he exchanged a glance with Lossie, who flashed back one of sympathy, for jealousy and envy of Gay corroded her.

All the advantages were with Gay—money, position, freedom—there was even her great capacity for winning hearts to set against her cousin's beauty; it wasn't fair, and the unfairest thing of all was Carlton Mackrell's obvious devotion, and as Lossie sat unnoticed, while Gay was the magnet that drew the eyes and hearts of both men present, perhaps the two smartest and best-looking men of their circle, and one of whom Lossie loved, her gorge rose.

Fortunately Gay was not in love with him, and up to now, at any rate, Carlton had not picked a quarrel with Lossie for loving him unbidden, as some men do (regarding it as an unwarrantable encroachment on their liberty), and when Gay married Chris, whom she loved without knowing it, then Lossie would cut in, and a beautiful woman at close quarters is a beautiful woman all the world over.

Failing him, but the girl shuddered at the thought, there was the Professor ... rich men did not grow on every bush, and her tastes were expensive.

The mother of Frank and Gay had been wealthy, and their father and his family comparatively poor, a fact greatly resented by Lossie, who had a mordant tongue, and was wont to describe the Lawless branch of the family as "the silk cloak," and hers as "the cotton lining."

It was with angry, embittered heart that later in the afternoon she turned her steps homewards, bitterly comparing her lot with Gay's, for Becky Sharp's type is much commoner than is generally supposed—the type that can be good and happy (at a pinch) on five thousand a year, but quite good, and quite happy on ten and upwards, and Lossie was of that type.

She had friends, of course, and admirers, who came to see her, George Conant much oftener than she wanted him, but a house without plenty of money, and a man at the head of it, is not half equipped for life and happiness. For the tiny establishment in South Street was run, if not ruled, by Aunt Lavinia (Chris's especial pal), who would greatly have preferred the more roomy comfort of Connaught Square, in which the Professor and Gay buried their unfashionable heads.

Both Lossie's parents were dead, and Lavinia had given her sister's child a home, tackling each day the difficult problem of trying to love a singularly unloveable girl, though "Anyway, my dear, she's delightful to look at!" Lavinia would say confidentially to Gay, after some especially flagrant piece of selfishness on Lossie's part.

Lavinia had a queer religion of her own (but not so queer when you come to reflect that nowadays real religion is found chiefly in those who do not profess any), and it was summed up in the love of humanity, and the law of human kindness.

"Teach folks to love," she used to say; "teach 'em to keep on loving—the rest will follow. No soul was ever yet damned that knew how to love—it's in the loving, not the being loved, that we find happiness. Have you ever noticed the courting couples about on Sundays and holidays, that if the girls are not pretty, they look so? Love has done the trick—not new clothes, or getting themselves up, but just loving something that's not themselves."

Lossie had an immense contempt for the "giving out" process of love as practised by Aunt Lavinia, the more especially when it took the form of cheques better employed in paying the milliners' bills of her niece, nor was the Professor more appreciative, for he seldom or never went to see his father's sister in South Street, though he welcomed her cordially enough on her rare visits to Connaught Square. Perhaps it was because (as he had long ago suspected) she reluctantly recognised him as lazy, self-indulgent, ruined by his too abundant means, amiable with the tepid amiability of a dog who does not fight, and by blandishments hopes to be allowed to retain his bone. Hall-marked he was, with the special form of selfishness that makes the man completely happy in his bodily environment, and mental pursuits and hobbies, shun the society of his kind, and to whom it is a matter of complete indifference that "grass-grown become the paths to friendship that are never trod."

He usually (in quite unconscious antagonism) ordered twenty pounds worth of new books when through Lossie he heard of some preposterously good deed done by Lavinia, but to go and do likewise simply never occurred to him, nor did it at that time to Gay, who, without knowing it, was selfish also.

Yet, but for this blessed privilege of youth, where would beautiful, much-abused youth be? Gay was young, full of life and spirits, and would have to suffer a bit herself before she vividly realised the sufferings of others, even if she responded readily enough to any demand on her purse, if not her time. All of this Lavinia perfectly understood, but much as she loved the girl, Chris, whose mother's friend she had been was the very light of her eyes.

CHAPTER VI

AT KEMPTON

A bright, frosty morning broke for Kempton's second day, and at Epsom, Chris Hannen whistled and sang while he cold-tubbed and dressed, in sheer light-heartedness born of the pleasing conviction of training and riding another winner before the day was out. Besides, Gay was coming to witness his triumph, and the prospect of some hours in her society was enough to make any man happy, he thought, while her "Never mind, old chap; better luck next time," would considerably soften the disappointment if he got beaten.

Having seen his horse started for the station, he himself followed later on his way to town to pick up Gay. That young lady was as cheerful as Chris as she went about the house fixing things up, and arranging for her brother's comfort during her absence.

"Now don't get into mischief, Heron," she had told him at breakfast. "I shall be back soon after five, and I'll tell you all about how Chris gets on. I know you'll be interested to hear, won't you?" she added teasingly.

"I hope he will get on—and stop on," the Professor replied, with as near an approach to a joke as he ever permitted himself. "I like Chris Hannen," he went on, regarding his sister over the rim of his glasses, "and I wish he would give up that dangerous game before it gives him up You have some influence with him, Gay; can you not exercise it?"

"Every man to his own game, Heron, and Chris is as devoted to 'chasing as you are to science, you dear old fossil!"

"Hum!" was all the Professor vouchsafed to this remark, for to compare his pursuit with that of Chris was nothing short of an insult.

When Chris arrived about eleven o'clock he found Gay ready and waiting for him, dressed in a smart, workman-like tweed coat and skirt, and with her glasses slung. A remarkably good-looking and happy pair they looked as they drove to meet the coach that Effie's husband, Captain Bulteel, a sporting man—and who among Gay's friends was not sporting, except Lossie Holden?—was driving down to Kempton Park races.

A place had been found for Chris, and when they arrived at the rendezvous in Eaton Square they were received with great warmth, Gay especially, and were soon on their way.

Effie and Gay talked nineteen to the dozen, and the drive was very pleasant. Though not the coaching season, Tom Bulteel was no believer in his team standing idle during the winter, so drove them to all the suburban meetings, or to Richmond, and other places, when there was no racing within reach. Everyone was in the best of spirits, and expressed surprise when the coach turned on to the course—the all-absorbing topic of horses having claimed the party's attention on the way, it was little wonder that the journey seemed no sooner to commence than it was over.

"I never give tips," laughed Chris. "If they come off, people grumble at the price or something—as though I could help that—and if they don't, they look aggrieved, and more than half suspect one of putting them away. But I'll tell you this much—I'm having my maximum of a 'pony' on, and I expect to get it back, plus adequate interest, you know."

Arrived on the course, they made their way to the paddock to find Beeswing. He was in his box, and showed no signs of the railway journey. The lad opened the door as they approached, touching his cap to Gay, and regarding her with the unabashed admiration peculiar to his class.

"All right?" Chris inquired, walking up to the horse and patting him, an example Gay instantly followed. "Good. My bag's in the dressing-room, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. I see Captain Conant's traps there too. 'E's come to try and ride that 'orse of Gunn's, I s'pose."

"Yes, he always rides for that stable," Chris replied, and smiled. He had a way of summing up people; "drops her h's and calls it h'arsthma," was his definition of a rich, vulgar old woman he and Gay detested, and "a pair of spurs and a grin," had as aptly hit off Captain Conant, who fancied he could ride, and courted public disaster on every possible occasion. He was also an ardent but at present infrequent worshipper at Lossie's shrine, as, greatly to his disgust, his regiment was now quartered in Ireland.

"Pity Lossie's not here, eh, Gay?" whispered Chris in an aside. "Let's go and have some lunch—that is, you can have some, while I will sit and watch you longingly, and dream of my next meat dinner!"

They returned to the coach for lunch, and Chris looked after Gay with the same care and attention that a trained nurse bestows on a patient whose will she has reason to think has been made in her favour, and the girl enjoyed herself thoroughly.

Captain Conant was to ride in the first race, and her remarks on his ability as a jockey, and his probable fate, would have quite unnerved the gentleman in question could he have heard them.

"There he goes!" she exclaimed as a man cantered past, "what a seat! Did you ever see anything like it?"

"It is ugly, isn't it?" he agreed, "but men ride in all shapes, you know, and it isn't always the best-looking in the saddle that is the strongest."

"I know that, thank you," Gay replied saucily, "but George Conant can't ride for nuts, and never will. I wonder he hasn't broken his neck long ago. Of course, he only rides the safest of jumpers, and even so, it's no odds on his not jumping first. You yourself told me, Chris," she added reproachfully, "that he often throws down his reins at the fences, and catches hold fore and aft, shrieking loudly if anything ranges alongside!"

"Well, yes," he said, "he's certainly not what one would call a bold horseman. He likes to have most of the course to himself, and regards it as a liberty if anyone approaches within two lengths of him. He once reported a jockey who had the temerity to shout 'Yah!' while they were both in the air over a fence, and in consequence of which remark he lost his balance—he has no grip, you know—and fell off."

"Well," continued Chris, "he described the ejaculation as an intimidating one, and was surprised that the Stewards did not immediately suspend the perpetrator from riding again. The next time the two met in a race, the professional did not confine his ejaculation to the fences, but kept up a running commentary upon poor George, while his remarks were rather more pungent than on the previous occasion. I have before now helped George back into the saddle over the 'drop' fences—chiefly by the slack of his breeches, you know—and he seemed surprised, not to say grateful, that I had not given him the gentle push that would have dissolved the precarious partnership between himself and his horse."

"Oh, yes. This year he has won two races, one a walk-over for a National Hunt flat race, and the other when there were three runners. One was not trying, and ran out after going half-way, while the jockey of the other was so beat two fences from home, that he lost his senses, and fell off on the flat. George did not notice this, and for the last quarter of a mile rode a desperate finish, mistaking the jeers of the crowd for appreciation."

"Bet you a pair of gloves he comes undone this time, falls barred," Gay said, and Chris closed, knowing it was a bad bet for him, but welcoming the prospect of buying gloves for Gay, and perhaps being permitted to button them up. What felicity!

"He can't get his horse to join the others," she announced. "He's speaking to the starter—who looks annoyed, from his attitude. I do believe there are tears in his eyes."

"Strong glasses yours, Gay, aren't they?" inquired Mrs. Bulteel mischievously, but Gay was too busy to heed her.

"They're running," she said the next moment. "George has got away all right, and the pace is good. Something in green—what is it, Chris?—is alongside him; oh-h!—that was a near thing. He all but came unglued, as you call it, at that first fence. He's got back again now, and is picking up his reins. Does he always drop them when 'in the air'? Now they're coming to the ditch, and, by the way he's riding, I think I win my bet here. Sit back, sit back, man!" she muttered, as George rose to the fence, and on landing was shot far up his horse's neck, whence he gradually pushed himself back into the saddle.

Mrs. Bulteel laughed right out; it was more interesting to watch Gay than the race.

"Hullo! one's down—blue and white chevrons!" Gay glanced at her card to see its name. "It's 'Topaz.' The jock's up all right, but Topaz is where he fell—winded, I expect. Where are the others?" sweeping the field with her glasses. "Oh, there they are, and Captain Conant's still on top."

The horses were running towards them now, and every incident of the race could be seen without glasses.

"Knight Errant's going best," Chris said. "By Jove, can't he jump! Just through the top of the fence where the 'give' is!"

The horses galloped past, and Gay put up her glasses as they rounded the bend into the back stretch.

"Two more down," she said, "and at the plain fence too! It's a bit on the angle, isn't it, Chris?"

He did not reply. He was watching the three remaining runners approach the water with a quiet smile.

"You'll win your gloves there if anywhere, Gay," he said. "George never did like the water."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the expected happened. George's horse galloped strongly up to the guard fence, dwelt for a second, and then gave a tremendous bound which carried him clear over the water. The impetus was evidently too much for his rider, who abandoned his reins, and incidentally his whip too, at the very moment his mount took off.

With a shriek of despair (which Gay declared she heard quite plainly), he described a parabola in the air, and descended in a heap in the middle of the water. His horse galloped on with the other two—it was not the first time his owner had parted company with him without apparent reason—and he showed his sense of the situation by lobbing along behind the others, thoroughly enjoying himself.

George remained in the water till he thought they had all gone over. He had no intention of being jumped on if he could help it, and he had sense enough to lie where he fell (and he fell pretty often), knowing that a horse coming behind cannot dodge you, if you are trying to dodge him. Then Lossie's admirer crawled out, a dripping, miserable-looking object, and made his way towards the paddock.

Passing close to the coach, Chris called out to him, "Not hurt, are you, George?" The reply was indistinct, though Gay supplied one.

"Hurt? Of course not!" she said, chuckling; "only badly frightened! And anyway, I've won my gloves!"

Soon after, Chris went over to change, and Gay was all impatience for his race to begin.

"You'll see something worth looking at," she informed the others. "Whenever I see Chris ride I think there's nothing like Steeplechasing, and whenever I see Mr. Mackrell drive, I think nothing can touch Trotting. I really believe I prefer Trotting, though, for it hasn't the danger of this game, and I don't like to see anyone I'm fond—anyone I know—run such risks."

"After all," said Effie, "it's a gentleman's sport, and if the dear boy will break his neck at it, he must. But as to your Trotting mania, Gay," hurriedly changing the conversation as Gay whitened, "frankly, I don't think it's good enough for you, and Carlton ought to be ashamed of himself for infecting you with his taste for it."

"He didn't," retorted Gay. "I maintain that a perfect Trotter is every bit as pretty a sight as a horse racing—and not half so dangerous."

"Well, well!" said Effie, a shade of anxiety on her small, weather-beaten face, "take care you don't get drawn in too far, and talked about—it's unusual, you know, a girl going in for that sort of thing, and not quite nice. Pity you can't hand Mackrell over to Lossie—the Trotting Meetings would be good enough for her—they're not for you. Frankly, I think the Professor for once is quite right there."

But Gay was not listening, she was just asking herself whether she really were fond of Chris, and how fond, when that gentleman cantered by with a cheerful nod, her opinion of him in the saddle being amply justified.

His lithe, graceful figure was seen to its best advantage in colours, while his long legs seemed riveted to his horse's sides—leaning slightly forward, and standing in his stirrups, he and his mount were in the most perfect unison, and personified the very poetry of motion.

"He'll take a lot of beating," one of the men on the coach prophesied. "He never says much about his horses, but I know he's very sweet on his chance to-day. I'm going into the Ring to back him," he added to Gay. "Can I do anything for you?"

"Put half-a-sovereign on for me, please," Gay replied, producing the coin, "and see if you can't get over the odds, whatever they are; say it's for a lady," she laughed, and the man lingered a moment to look at her bright face—yes, there was no doubt about it, all the men liked Gay.

In a few minutes the horses were off. There were eight runners, and a lightly-weighted one cut out the work at a strong pace. They strung out a bit over the first few fences, with the favourite Musketeer always nicely placed, and Chris on Beeswing lying handy.

Gay watched the race keenly, describing all the running to Mrs. Bulteel, who noted that most of her remarks concerned Chris.

"Watch him now," she exhorted. "Up! Well over! That's the way to ride over fences. Chris calls it the gentle art of sitting back. He says you can't sit back too far."

As the horses passed them she called out, "Well done, Chris! Well done!" in girlish delight. She looked her very best just then, the cold air heightening her colour, her grey eyes almost black with excitement and pleasure.

A fall occurred at the fence before the water, but the rest got safely over, and Musketeer began to improve his position little by little. He was ridden by a jockey who had steered two Grand National winners, and Chris knew too much of the skill of the man to let him get too far ahead if he could help it, so he too sharpened up a bit. As they approached the last fence he saw he had only the favourite to beat, and from the way his own horse was going, he felt he had his measure.

They rose together, and for a few strides ran side by side, Chris going easily, while the other was "niggling" with his hands. Chris improved his position, calling out "Good-bye, Arthur!" having no desire to be caught "napping" by such a consummate artist at finishing as his opponent. He drew away with a length's lead, and in a flash out came the whip on the favourite, who responded gamely, and for a stride or two (or so it seemed to anxious Gay) looked like catching Chris.

But to even a poor judge of racing it was all over. Chris had a lot in hand, and galloped home an easy three-lengths winner, the jockey on the favourite ceasing to persevere when he saw it was hopeless. He was a fine horseman, and a merciful man, a combination by no means common.

"After all," said Gay, with a rapturous sigh, "I'm not sure that I would not rather see Chris win a race, than take the Gold Vase with one of my Trotters!"

"Why not do both, my dear?" said Effie dryly, "so long as you don't take Carlton Mackrell as well."

CHAPTER VII

THE ESCAPADE

Acting on Carlton's advice, Gay did not enter her horses for Blackpool, Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast, or Leeds; the Irish Meetings were of course out of the question with so small a stable, so that she was practically limited to three Meetings within easy reach of town.

"It was," as he privately expressed it to himself, "merely a flirtation with Trotting, not playing the game itself," and he hoped that like other ill-advised flirtations, it would die a natural death. Though he honestly believed that Trotting had a future in England if properly managed, he had most unwillingly come to the conclusion that Chris was right, and though it furnished a healthy amusement for a great number of cheery, happy people, under existing conditions it was decidedly neither his, nor any young girl's milieu.

No doubts whatever troubled Gay, who was thoroughly enjoying herself, and two days before the meeting at Waterloo Park, at which Silver Streak was to carry her colours for the first time in public, she succeeded in effecting what she had set her heart on, viz., the driving by herself at exercise of one of her horses.

With her usual incorrigible frankness she unfolded her plan to the Professor at luncheon, much to his horror and disgust.

"Can you not be content to be a spectator," he asked, "instead of participating actively in a sport (he pronounced the word with venom) which Lossie tells me claims as its closest adherents publicans and tradesmen? A nice thing it would be to find your butcher or fishmonger careering round the course beside you, encouraging you with shouts and cries such as are practised on all race-courses, or so I am informed, for I have never visited one. I deeply deplore this unhappy infatuation, but, as usual, my wishes are ignored," he concluded huffily.

"Don't be a prig, Heron," said Gay carelessly. "You can't help being a muff, I suppose, or Lossie a sneak, but for father's sake—and a better sportsman never breathed, as you know well enough—do try to take a little interest in sport, even if you refuse to participate, as you elegantly express it. To hear you talk, one would think you were employed by the Anti-Everything-Healthy-League, and that you had a special mission to fulfil in saving everybody's soul—at the expense of his body, of course! It's enough to make the poor old dad turn in his grave to hear you go on as you do. If he were alive, he'd be the very first to back me up."

"Time and trains wait for no man," she said. "Run off to your laboratory, old chap, but before you go, give me a kiss—and your blessing."

She stood up on tip-toe to meet the Professor's chaste salute, imprinted somewhere in the neighbourhood of her ear.

"Expect me when you see me," she said maliciously as she made for the door, "and don't be surprised if I return in pads. There's sometimes an accident at Trotting, you know."

The Professor ambled towards her, shaking his head apprehensively, but Gay was half-way upstairs. She had only just time to catch her train, and would get down to Inigo Court by half-past three, with time enough to give the horses their work out round the track.

Tugwood had promised to borrow a speed wagon of a different pattern for her to drive in, for her disregard of public opinion did not go to the length of perching on a seat the size of a soup plate, with her legs stuck out on either side of the horse, which was the usual mode of progression.

On the journey down, she read the Trotting World, a journal devoted to the interests of the sport, and was delighted to find a paragraph about herself and Trotters in it.

"If a few more people of Miss Lawless' and Mr. Carlton Mackrell's class and position could be induced to patronise Trotting," she read, "the sport would soon assume its proper standing, and become, as in America, a national pastime."

Gay walked briskly along the country road leading to Inigo Court, and made her way to the stables. There she found Tugwood in Silver Streak's box, the horse already harnessed, and ready to be put to the wagon.

"Horses all right, Tugwood?" Gay asked, pulling on her driving gloves—thick bus-driver's gloves they were, bought on Carlton Mackrell's recommendation.

"Never better, miss, thank'ee. Silver Streak don't want too much work to-day, with 'is race so near, an' 'e's pretty fit. I 'ad 'im out early this mornin', just to work off any stiffness 'e might 'ave after a good spin against the watch yesterday. A mile easy at 'arf-speed, at a three-minute gait, is about all 'e wants now."

"I hope I shall be able to steady him," she said. "He does 'take hold' a bit sometimes, doesn't he?"

"On'y when 'e's racin', miss. 'E don't like to see nothin' in front of 'im. I expect you'll be surprised at the pace 'e goes, an' think 'e's runnin' away. But 'e ain't really, you know," he added reassuringly; "'is manners is too good to bolt with anybody, let alone a lady."

He chuckled at his joke as he helped Gay into the wagon, which was a boat-shaped Benjamin, weighing 46 lbs., the body much like the seat of an outrigger boat, with rounded ends to break the wind.

She made a very pretty picture as she sat in the wagon, excitement and the bloom of health showing in her face. As Tugwood led the horse on to the track, in accordance with instructions, she slipped her wrists through the loops in the reins, and planted her feet firmly against the foot-rests.

"Don't be nervous, miss," Tugwood urged. "Just keep a nice steady hold on 'im, an' keep in the middle of the track. Time enough to think of cuttin' the corners when you know more about it."

Gay had no intention of cutting the corners, and devoutly hoped that Silver Streak had none either, as Tugwood stepped to one side.

Gay did as she was told. Silver Streak "got into his stride" with a suddenness that was a little disconcerting, ready as she thought she was for it, and the wagon shot forward, while her arms felt as though they were being pulled from their sockets.

Shifting her position as soon as she had recovered her balance, she hung on to the reins like grim death, and steered for the middle of the track, as Silver Streak was evincing a partiality for the rails that spelled probable disaster at the bend, unable as she was to balance him properly.

The horse stretched himself out to his work in grand style, and before they had rounded the first turn, Gay felt convinced he was running away. The pace was tremendous, while the wind whistled past her ears and made her face smart with its force. She took a pull at the horse after the way she had seen drivers do when pulling up after a "brush," before a race started, but at once felt the uselessness of it, and was not surprised when Silver Streak pulled back, though his pull was of considerably greater strength than hers, and resulted in another temporary loss of balance, this time nearly over the dash-board.

The horse's hind feet were much too close to be pleasant, and she earnestly hoped he would not cast a shoe, which, for a certainty, must fly into her face, or so it seemed. Along the back stretch she cast a glance in Tugwood's direction, half expecting to see him brandishing his arms, or covering his eyes to avoid seeing her untimely end, but no such view met her gaze. On the contrary, he was leaning over the rails in an attitude that betokened an easy mind, and as she turned her head, he clapped his hands repeatedly, thus conveying to her the reassuring news that she was doing well.

She negotiated the home-bend nicely, though by this time her arms had begun to ache in earnest, and her breathing was not so regular and easy as on foot. Now her natural fears had subsided, she felt that she was having the time of her life, and disregarding her trainer's instructions, actually encouraged Silver Streak to go faster. This the horse did, and made the pace a cracker on the second circuit, though even then he was by no means going his fastest.

Approaching the spot where Tugwood was holding up his hand as a signal to stop, she took another pull at Silver Streak, but with as little result as before. Another pull, but with a like effect—the horse was evidently enjoying himself, and intended to complete another circuit. Gay's horrified look as she sped past, sitting back as far as she could, and hauling at the reins, brought a smile to Tugwood's face.

"Finds it ain't quite so easy as it looks," he said to himself, though with no anxiety, but as the wagon bore towards him again, he opened the gate leading to the stables, and walked down the track with outstretched arms to meet it.

Silver Streak saw him, and pricked his ears, at the same time slowing down till he dropped into a walk almost on the top of his trainer. Gay heaved a little sigh of relief as they turned off the track. She was quite numbed with the cold, and her feet felt like lumps of lead, while her hands shook violently from the strain, as she disengaged them from the reins, and jumped to the ground.

Her voice sounded catchy, which was not to be wondered at after so much excitement, crammed into such a short time.

"Not a bit of it, miss. Why, 'e wasn't goin' fast enough to keep 'imself warm at any time. You didn't do the first mile in much under three minutes, I'll be bound."

"Well," said Gay, "I've never travelled so fast before in my life, behind a horse, anyhow. I wonder what the excitement of a race must be like?"

A mad idea to dress up as a man, and drive at the next Meeting flashed across her mind, but she dismissed it as altogether impracticable. Besides, it had been done before—in books, anyway—and Gay was nothing if not original.

"'Ow do you like drivin', miss?" Tugwood inquired, as he led Silver Streak back to his box.

"It's splendid!" Gay replied enthusiastically, "but it does make your arms ache, doesn't it? Mine feel all on fire now."

"Ah, that always 'appens to a beginner," the trainer explained indulgently. "You'll get the better o' that after a few more turns, and learn to take a nice steady hold, just to feel his mouth, instead of hanging on like grim death. I suppose you won't drive Maudie to-night, miss? It's rather late, an' just on doin'-up time."

"Oh, very well, I won't, then," the girl answered, "but you must not think I am afraid, you know, because I'm not."

"No fear o' that from one of your stock, miss. I've heard tell of your father, an' a better plucked 'un with 'osses never lived. I'm always to be found here, miss, so if you'll drop me a line any time you want a drive, I'll be waitin' for you."

With the promise of a speedy return, Gay took her departure, quite unaware that there had been an interested spectator of her work on the track, in the person of Mr. Rensslaer, who by accident was passing. He occasionally used the track in private for trying a horse when too far from his own place, and happening to look over the hoarding which enclosed the course, had seen Gay driving Silver Streak in his wagon, of which Tugwood had begged the loan.

The sight had greatly amused him, and as she passed, he ducked his head, afraid of "scaring" the girl, for he saw at a glance that she was a complete novice at the game, though he expressed himself emphatically and aloud on her performance.

"Now, that's what I call real sporting," he exclaimed, standing up in his wagon to get a better view, though even then his head barely reached the top of the hoarding.

"Wonder who she is?" he soliloquised. "I'll go in, and inquire of Tugwood when she's finished her work out. Mighty pretty girl, anyway, though she don't look altogether as if she's enjoying herself. That's a nice pure-gaited one she's driving—for England."

At the conclusion of the spin, and after Gay had left the place, Rensslaer continued his drive, turning in at the park gates, then made his way round to the stables, where Brusher Tugwood, hearing the approach of hoofs, left Silver Streak's box, and came out into the yard to see who it was.

His grim old face relaxed into a respectful smile, and he pulled at his cap as the new-comer sprang out of his road wagon, looped up his reins, and adjusted a horse-cloth with the quick dexterity of the professional.

Tugwood waited for developments, looking inquiringly at the powerful, straight-hipped horse in the wagon, and Rensslaer was quick to follow his glance.

"That's old 'Marvel Girl,'" he volunteered, and gave her pedigree; then immediately, keen enthusiasts both, they fell to talking and comparing notes of doings on both sides of the Atlantic, Rensslaer walking Tugwood restlessly up and down, the idea of his original quest quite vanishing from his mind.

"By the way," he said, suddenly remembering it, as he drew the "cooler" off his waiting horse and folded it up, "who is that young lady I saw going round the track a while ago in my wagon?"

"That was my young mistress, Miss Gay Lawless, sir, and very kind it was of you to humour her with the loan of that wagon; she couldn't have done what she was so dead set on else. It was 'er first drive, though where you see it from, I don't know, sir."

"So that was Miss Lawless, was it?" Rensslaer said thoughtfully. "I've heard the name only just lately. There was something in the Trotting World about her, and some horses she had bought. It is a surprise to me to find a lady patronising Trotting."

"Well," said Tugwood, not desiring to typify his mistress as the example that proved the rule, "I shouldn't wonder if before long we don't 'ave a duchess trottin' 'orses under our Rules, the same as they do under the Jockey Club," but his tone lacked conviction.

"I suppose you know Mr. Carlton Mackrell, then," pursued Rensslaer, who himself did, and foresaw through him an introduction to Gay.

"Know 'im, sir? I should think I did indeed," the trainer assured him. "Why, it was me as introduced Mr. Mackrell to Trottin'," and he drew himself up proudly.

"Remarkably so, sir, I'm pleased to say," said Tugwood, bridling, "though I says it as shouldn't, seein' as 'ow I've 'ad the trainin' of his 'osses till quite lately. I left Mr. Mackrell to come to Miss Lawless, you see, sir, an' I 'ope to be as successful for 'er as I was for 'im, though of course Miss Gay 'as only just started, so to speak. I expect to 'ave a winner for 'er at the next meetin' 'ere, sir—that 'oss you see goin' roun' just now. Silver Streak 'is name is. Come an' 'ave a look over 'im."

Together they entered the horse's box, where Tugwood proceeded to recount Silver Streak's performances before he came into his charge.

"A nice horse," commented Rensslaer, "though I should call him too good-looking. Quite a picture compared to my mare outside, isn't he?" indicating with a jerk of his head the rough-and-ready-looking animal in the wagon. Certainly Silver Streak was more of the race-horse stamp than the trotter, and the expert shook his head as he looked him over from all points.

"Two-twenty on this track, sir," the trainer said, "though I think I can improve 'im a lot on that time. In fact, Miss Gay thinks of enterin' 'im for the Champion Vase, an' though I won't go so far as to say he'll win it, some of the others will know they've been racin' before they're done. There's some good 'osses with form be'ind 'em waitin' with a view to that race. Demonstrator's one of 'em, an' Mr. Mackrell's Billy Q., wot won at the last meetin' 'ere, is not out of it by a long way. From what I know of that 'oss—an' I trained 'im for all 'is races—'e'll very near win it. Whatever beats 'im will win any'ow," he concluded.

"Well, we shall see," replied Rensslaer. "I must be off now, but you'll see me again before long. What did you say Mr. Mackrell's present address was?"

"The Bachelors' Club will find 'im, sir, though I shouldn't wonder if 'e don't 'ave to resign there afore long from wot I can see of it," he added to himself, but Rensslaer heard him as he climbed into his wagon and drove off.

Tugwood, left alone, shook his head gloomily. His late visitor's low estimate of English horses annoyed him by its assurance; he also resented the slur Rensslaer cast on the sport by abstaining from it in England, while practising it in most of the big capitals of Europe. A fine sportsman, with one of the finest, if not the finest, stable of Trotters in the world, he was the very man to elevate and establish the sport firmly here, and it was with a sense of depression that Tugwood gave Silver Streak his evening feed, and remained to watch the horse eating it up.

CHAPTER VIII

GAY TRIUMPHANT

In a spirit of pure mischief Gay had invited Lossie Holden to accompany her and Chris Hannen to see Silver Streak's début, and they drove the short distance from the station to Waterloo Park in excellent spirits, Gay all impatience to see her horse trot, and Chris as interested as he could ever be in anything outside his own stable.

Lossie was entirely out of sympathy with Gay's natural excitement; all sporting tastes were low, she considered, and Trotting quite the lowest of them all. She could not understand a woman possessing the healthy, out-door instinct—a girl's first duty, she considered, was to herself, and her time was much better employed in making herself as attractive as possible in the eyes of men, than in sharing their rude pursuits. Man was woman's lawful spoil, and for her part she quite understood why the "manly woman" remained a spinster, and by not attracting, failed in her mission in life.

In this, as in other matters, Lossie's view was too narrow to be correct, for she could not separate Gay, with her healthy love for horses, and dogs, and an open-air life, from the muscular, loud-voiced, corsetless Amazons who are so frequently much better athletes than men, and well able to protect the lady-like creatures in breeches they usually marry.

Chris noticed the contrast between the two girls especially that day, Gay, looking the picture of health, and thoroughly alive in her plain tweed frock, her workman-like gloves, and stout boots, intent on a good day's sport, and exulting in the part she was to play, and Lossie, "dressed to kill," with her bored, petulant air, tilting her nose (a very pretty nose, too, Chris had to admit), whenever a fly-load of "mellow" Trotting men galloped past.

Arrived at the course, Chris obtained a race-card that they were busy discussing, when a hearty voice called out at Gay's elbow:

Gay turned to see Min Toplady, and while she took in the opulent splendours of her attire, with a delighted side-glance she caught the disgusted look on her cousin's face.

"Dear old Min!" she cried, embracing her old friend heartily, then with a quick, mischievous glance at Chris, she dragged the somewhat flustered Min up to where stood Lossie Holden, a supreme figure of elegant disdain. "Why, Lossie, surely you've not forgotten Min Toplady, my dear old nurse," cried Gay. "All my friends are Min's friends, aren't they, Chris?"

"Of course," he replied, with difficulty keeping his countenance, so tickled was he by Lossie's, then raising Min's tightly-gloved hand to his lips, respectfully kissed it. "Min and I are old pals, and I really think she's beginning to quite approve of me at last?" he added with twinkling eyes.

"Oh, you'll do, Mr. Chris," Min said, laughing, "until you break your neck with your silly jumping." She was very quick, and knew that the young man's instant ranging of himself on her side was due to Lossie's frigid acknowledgment of her presence.

"Well, Miss Gay," said Min reproachfully, "I've been expecting you to look me up at the 'Trotting Nag,' Camberwell—I always tell Bob it was the name of our 'pub' that started us at the Trotting game—but you'll be more than welcome when you do find time."

Gay promised eagerly that she would come soon, and Carlton Mackrell appearing at that moment, they split up into groups, he remaining with Lossie Holden, who regarded with horror the progress of the others to Min's wagonette, where, with exaggerated gusto, Gay assisted Chris to partake of sherry and sandwiches.

"She don't alter much," said Min, glancing at the distant Lossie, now exercising all her fascinations on Carlton, but when Gay with her usual generosity urged that Lossie did not have much of a time, Min interrupted her majestically.

"Don't make no excuses for her, Miss Gay; what she always was as a mite she is now. I've got her weighed up to an ounce, my dear, and if she's a real friend of yours, and not a spiteful, jealous cat, I've made a mistake, and I don't make many among my own sex, if I did make a bloomer when I took up with my old man—" And she beamed upon the enormous and delighted Bob, who had just come up, and acknowledged the soft impeachment with a prodigious smile.

"There goes the bell for the horses to get on the track for the first heat; let's go into the enclosure, and watch the 'plugs' go round," cried Gay, and off she and Chris went together, Gay running back for a moment to give Min a "tip."

"Mr. Mackrell thinks my horse will win his heat and the final—Brusher Tugwood drives, and he knows the horse. He's very sweet on his chance. Mind you back ours, Min dear, and tell your friends to 'help themselves,' as they say."

The first heat over, Gay and Chris went off to the stables, Carlton Mackrell and Lossie joining them. Mackrell studied his card as they went along.

"You are sure to win your heat," he said, "and the time of your horse, and the other two heat winners, will tell us what chance you have in the final, but according to the conditions of the race, I think it's a good thing for you."

Chris smiled. He had seen too many "good things" come undone, though in this case there were no fences in the way, he reflected.

They arrived at the stables in time to watch Brusher Tugwood put the finishing touches to Silver Streak's toe weights. The horse looked splendid, and Gay's brand new colours—blue and white hoops—showed up brilliantly in the wintry sun.

"This is a good thing, isn't it, Tugwood?" she inquired anxiously. "I do so want to win the first time out, you know, though I oughtn't to expect it," she added.

"We shall win all right, miss," Tugwood assured her. "Do you pop into the ring and back me as if money—or price—was no object." He climbed into his perch, and turned on to the track, where he let Silver Streak stride along at about half-speed.

By the time Gay and the others had got back to the stand, the second bell had rung, and the horses were jockeying on their marks for a start. Gay had invested, through Carlton Mackrell, a couple of pounds on her horse for the driver, Tugwood, and the odds of four to one were obtained.

She would not bet herself. "I don't approve of regular betting," she said; "besides, I shall get five pounds if I win this heat, and fifty pounds, actually fifty golden sovereigns"—she clapped her hands and laughed as if she had never seen so much money before—"if Silver Streak wins the final as well!"

"You've won it now," Carlton Mackrell said quietly, his eyes showing his appreciation of the consummate skill of Tugwood in getting off like lightning, and almost in his stride.

Though they had to go three rounds for the mile and a half, the value of a good beginning was soon made obvious as Silver Streak swooped down on the horses in front of him approaching the first bend. Along the back stretch he improved to third place, and though the leader was thirty yards and more to the good there, Carlton Mackrell knew that Silver Streak's driver was only biding his time, and would win comfortably, without distressing his horse with a view to the final.

"I do believe he will win!" Gay cried breathlessly, as the horses passed the stand, the same one leading, while Silver Streak and a pacing mare called Mrs. Wiggs were racing side by side.

"Thank you," she said, "but not yet. Oh, look, there's something—Mrs. Wiggs, isn't it?—that's passing Silver Streak now. Why doesn't Tugwood go after her?"

The apparent catastrophe occurred on the back stretch approaching the turn. Chris, looking on, noticed it, and prayed that Mrs. Wiggs could not sustain the effort. He saw, too, that the pair had considerably decreased the leader's advantage.

"It's all right," Carlton Mackrell declared. "Tugwood will make his effort—an easy one, too—directly they get into the third lap."

And so it proved. Mrs. Wiggs' advantage was only temporary, and directly Tugwood asked Silver Streak to catch the leader, he did so in decided fashion, and Gay breathed a sigh of joy and relief as Tugwood put the issue beyond doubt fifty yards from the box, and jogged in, a two-lengths winner, in 3.36 from scratch.

"Oh! I'm so glad!" Gay exclaimed, and indeed she looked radiant, and altogether adorable, as she received from the two men congratulations so warm that Lossie's silence was quite overlooked.

The beauty was quite out of her element, and took no pains to hide the fact. How Gay could mix with such awful people she did not understand, and she registered a vow that this was the first and last visit she would pay to Waterloo Park, or any other of the Trotting Meetings.

It was adding insult to injury, too, for Gay to openly show her friendship with that vulgar person, Min Toplady. She looked angrily in the direction of the carriages, where the "vulgar person's" purple gown refused to be overlooked, and Min was clearly in her element as she dispensed hospitality with a lavish hand, while Bob conducted an earnest conversation with a professional driver.

"What's the matter, Lossie?" Gay inquired suddenly. "I'm afraid you're not enjoying yourself."

"No, I'm not," she said positively. "What you can see in this rabble, and travesty of sport I'm sure I don't know—I mean," suddenly remembering, and turning a dazzle of blue eyes and smiles upon Carlton Mackrell, "from a woman's point of view, of course. I quite understand the fascination driving your own horses has for you, Mr. Mackrell, but I can't admit that it's quite a nice thing for a girl—" But she spoke to unheeding ears, for he had divined Gay's wish that he should take her to the stables, and when he suggested it, she went with him eagerly.

Leaving Lossie and the unwilling Chris together, they made their way through the Ring, Mackrell drawing ten pounds from his bookmaker, who begged him "not to do it again." Her original stake of two pounds Gay put in her pocket, tightly clutching the remainder in her little fist.

They found Tugwood assisting a lad to rub Silver Streak down, and highly pleased with himself. He magnificently waved Gay's outstretched hand containing the eight pounds away.

"Leave it all down, miss, please," he said; "put the lot on our 'oss for the final. We shall win outright now, for the best field was behind me in the first heat. You understand the market 'ere, sir, don't you?" he asked Carlton Mackrell, "so don't forget to distribute the money among the bookies. A quid 'ere, an' a couple there, you know, sir, though you won't get such a nice price again. It's wonderful 'ow they pinch the price for a heat winner for the final."

Together Gay and Carlton watched the next four heats, Gay taking particular interest, naturally, in the heats which concerned her race, and when the horses turned out for the eventful final, Carlton Mackrell walked down the rails to speak to Tugwood, for he had seen something in the second heat that he knew would be valuable knowledge to the driver, and this he told him. He had barely time to get back to the stand before the bell rang to announce the start. But Silver Streak did not get off so well this time, and for the first circuit of the course only improved two places. Passing the stands he was fourth, the heat winners and two fastest losers being qualified to go in the final, and Gay's expressive face looked the picture of despair as the horses sped past to the turn.

"He'll never catch the leaders," she exclaimed; "they're all going well, faster than they went in their heats, it seems to me. Whatever does Tugwood keep looking round at that crimson jacket behind him for? I don't see any sense in it; it's those in front he has to beat, not that one."

"He's doing what I told him," he answered. "The crimson jacket is the real danger. Look!"

As if to prove his words, the pacer mentioned suddenly increased his speed in a great effort to pass Silver Streak. Tugwood instantly responded, and a great race for supremacy began between the pair. The terrific speed they were going at, took them past first one leader and then another, while from the enthusiasm among the spectators on the stands, it was apparent that they regarded the race as a match between Silver Streak and the crimson jacket.

Rounding the home bend into the straight in the last lap, there were still three in it—the trotter which had led throughout, Silver Streak, and the pertinacious crimson jacket. Each driver was doing all he knew, but Tugwood had the inside position, which he kept with a bit to spare, thus compelling the other two to go wide at the turn, and Carlton Mackrell and Chris both appreciated his fine and legitimate driving.

A great race ensued up the straight, all three horses' names being shouted in turn, each exhorted by their respective backers to "go on."

Amid a storm of cheers and encouragement the three flashed past the box, but Carlton Mackrell, from his intimate knowledge, knew that the one, two, Tugwood had given Silver Streak a few yards short of the judge, had done the trick, and snatched a bare victory.

Gay was trembling with excitement, while even Lossie sufficiently forgot herself to stand on tiptoe to watch the number board.

"It's all right," Carlton Mackrell announced. "He's putting No. 3 in the frame, and that's yours. Won by a neck, I should say, all out, in 3.32½."

Gay heaved a deep sigh, and then they all went on to the track, and, after Tugwood had dismounted, accompanied Silver Streak in a body to the stables.

The crowd gave Gay a hearty cheer as she passed the Ring, and this completed her cup of bliss. Min Toplady showered congratulations on her, and was so pleased that she actually smiled at Lossie, hastily composing her face the moment she realised the mistake.

CHAPTER IX

AT THE "TROTTING NAG"

It was by deliberate intention, not accident, that Lossie found the Professor alone on the day following Silver Streak's victory, and conveyed to his mind her own epicurean disgust at the associations to which Gay's new Trotting mania had exposed her, though jealousy at the increased opportunities of her cousin for meeting Carlton, was really at the bottom of her interference. Lightly, but maliciously, she ran over the whole scene, the surroundings at Waterloo Park, so utterly different to those of an ordinary race meeting, and, so far as she could see, without a gentlewoman present save Gay and herself. But when, in speaking of the "public-house ladies" present, she mentioned Min Toplady, the Professor visibly stiffened.

"A most estimable woman," he said, "and nurse to all the younger members of our family. She adored Gay, and though we lost sight of her on her marriage, I don't know anyone from whom my sister would take better a word in season than Minnie. I am shocked to hear that the poor woman has taken to racing—married a sporting publican, I fear."

Lossie shrugged her graceful shoulders as her appraising glance ran up and down the Professor's handsome, if unbraced, figure and face, then round the pictures and appointments of the room in which they sat. After all, she might do worse, if—if—but Gay was not going to have it all her own way with Carlton Mackrell. Chris Hannen was her man, and the sooner she realised it the better.

"I have a great mind to go and see Minnie," said Frank nervously, "and get her to use her influence with Gay—but I don't know her address—

"Oh," said Lossie, with curling lip, "I can tell you—the "Trotting Nag," Camberwell, which is precisely the place and neighbourhood where, from her appearance, you might expect to find her!"

"Now, now," protested the Professor, for unkindness is not so much a matter of speech as of atmosphere, and he thought it unbecoming that so lovely a creature as Lossie should be so acrimonious.

And yet he pitied her, without parents, without money, though why she had not married long ago, and brilliantly, was a puzzle to more worldly people than the Professor.

"Poor Frank," she said, "I'm afraid you'll find her much more Gay's ally in the matter than yours. Why don't you put your foot down yourself, and insist on Gay's giving up this disreputable business?"

The Professor sighed, and Lossie longed to shake him. Fearing that she might be tempted to do so, she got up to go, and she was so tall, and at that moment so beautiful in her contempt, that an unwonted thrill ran through him. After all, he was only a man, and not such a very old one at that, and reading him perfectly, she put up her face to his, and murmuring, "Dear old Frank!" kissed him with rather more than cousinly warmth in farewell.

He stood looking at the door through which she had passed with what Gay called his "gay old dog" air of reminiscence; then his thoughts reverted to Minnie, and her good influence over Gay when the latter had been a wilful, charming child, and on the spur of the moment he decided to go and see her.

It was lucky that Gay was out. It would never do for her to intercept him, and inquire where he was going, for he had a wholesome dread of his sister's discerning eye.

Upon such occasions as he invented "taradiddles" to cover more or less unlawful excursions abroad, he was invariably bowled out, and stood disconsolate, and looking justly sheepish at the emphatic "Rubbish!" with which they were received.

"You're a bad liar, Frank," Gay said one day, "and wouldn't deceive a child. But why lie at all? Besides, your memory isn't good enough."

Now he hailed a hansom, and darting into it as quickly as a rabbit into its burrow, through the trap-door gave as his destination, the "Trotting Nag," Camberwell, looking, moreover, so guilty and self-conscious, that the cabby smiled broadly as he gathered up the reins, and chirruped to his horse.

"Looks more like the British Museum than a 'pub,'" he said to himself, "but, Lord, appearances is such liars!"

The Professor squeezed himself into a corner of the cab, and tried to marshal his ideas and line of attack. He did not relish his job, as he had a lively recollection of Min Toplady's temper years ago, before she was married; he hoped that matrimony had softened her downrightness considerably, and also that her husband would be there. He felt he could count on his sympathy, if not on his support, because men always hang together where a woman is concerned.

Throughout the long drive he talked nervously to himself, and attracted much attention by his silent rhetoric and expressive gestures. His Jehu passed the wink to such other Jehus as congratulated him on his fare, and having peeped through the roof in the middle of one of the Professor's most impassioned appeals, reassured interested curb-loungers by tapping his head significantly, and turning his eyes heavenwards.

Arrived at the "Trotting Nag," the Professor was most reluctant to leave the security of the cab, and merely met the cabman's reminder that he had arrived at his destination, with an "Ah, yes; so I observe."

Finally collecting the fare from the depths of a waistcoat pocket, he thrust it hurriedly through the roof, and hastily descended. Without looking ahead, he made for the door of the public bar, entering with a run, and cannoning violently against a navvy coming out, who had consumed sufficient beer to become severely critical of the manners of other people.

This individual, having recovered his balance against the door-post, promptly inquired "where the 'ell the old image was agoin' to?" But the Professor had sought the far end of the bar, and was inquiring nervously, and with many smiles, if Mrs. Toplady could be seen.

The Professor assured her it was not, but quite a private matter, upon which the barmaid withdrew, and a moment later Min Toplady herself emerged, and gave an exclamation of astonishment.

The remark attracted some attention in the bar, one of the customers remarking that the Professor was "a bit old-fashioned" for a kid, as Min raised the flap of the bar, and escorted her guest through it to the parlour, where a few privileged friends had the right of entrée.

It was empty now, the harassed Professor was relieved to find, and as he stood before the fire, and looked anxiously through the door into the bar, Min's hospitable mind mistook his meaning.

"What will you be pleased to take, Master Frank?" she inquired, and the Professor looked at her blandly as his fingers flitted lightly round his face.

"Oh, but you must have something, sir, if only for the good of the house, as some of the boys say who have had more than is good for them already, just on closing time," she insisted.

The Professor thought of his errand, and in the exuberant presence of Min, felt his courage slipping away from him. Perhaps a little drop of something might revive him, he thought—a little "jumping powder," as those sporting friends of Gay's would call it.

But Min had already disappeared into the bar, and quickly returned, bearing a small glass.

"Being such a cold day, a drop of milk punch won't do you no harm, sir," she said, putting the glass down before the Professor. "It's a wonderful thing for warming the cockles of your heart, and it always does my indigestion—to which I'm a martyr—a power of good."

The Professor could trace no direct connection between the cockles of his heart and Min's indigestion, but nevertheless he took the proffered drink gratefully, and sipped it with the air of a connoisseur, while Min sat down, and racked her brains to find a reason for his visit.

A silence ensued. The Professor was temporising, but by the time his glass was empty, he felt a little more able to open the ball.

"I suppose you wonder why I am here?" he suggested, standing on one leg, and looking more like a heron than ever. "The truth is, I—er, wish to speak to you about my sister's—er—infatuation—"

"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 committed that folly," 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."

"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 he arsks for it, he'll be let alone, even if dressed in bank-notes. They may be 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—and people—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.

"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.

"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.

CHAPTER X

THE NOTORIOUS GAY

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 it good! 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!

"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! when will you learn the difference between a sportsman and a sporting-man, Heron?" Gay asked piteously.

"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."

"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 become the sport 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.

"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."

"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 suppose you'll end 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."

"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."

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."

"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 I won't be 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 the Looking-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 the Looking-Glass from Chris's hand. "How nice! You might almost have posed for it, Gay!"

"Of course not," Lossie agreed. "As if you could!" But meeting Chris's eyes, she looked away—he had an excellent idea of who had sent the Looking-Glass to the Professor, and she knew it.

"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.

"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.

CHAPTER XI

GAY DISPOSES

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:

"Supper! Why, you've only just got here! What are you thinking about?" exclaimed Gay.

"You haven't long had your dinner, you greedy old thing," Gay reminded him as she moved away, "but do put 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 manœuvred 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, "but don't be 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."

"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."

"I never jumped anything," the Professor went on earnestly, "but I could hold my own on the flat—"

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.

"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.

"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 a girl as 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 completely bouleversé, 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.

CHAPTER XII

RENSSLAER PACE MACKRELL

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 was sure of 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 been possessed with the idea ever since you told me a lady drove for you in Vienna!"

"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—"

"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."

"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."

"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.

CHAPTER XIII

SANDOWN GRAND MILITARY

"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 I do so 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."

"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!"

"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."

"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'll look the 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.

"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 I must have 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 a mêlée of 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.

CHAPTER XIV

A BEAUTIFUL CASE

"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 not quite the 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 we feel, 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 only heard of 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!

"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 of that—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, "I never stuck any pins in you or anybody else."

"Well, no," admitted Lossie, who had an excellent reason for getting Gay into a good temper, "you don'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 femme indeed! 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.

"How much will your dressmaker take off her account?" she said, for she always preferred coming to the point, to beating about the bush, and she was used to these periodical attacks on her pocket.

"Don't," said Gay, who had drawn out her cheque-book, and begun to write. "Lossie," she said half sadly, as she came forward, and handed her cousin a slip of pink paper, "why do you bother so much about the outside of you? Be rice, be natural, be kind; don't talk scandal—men hate it—" She paused and blushed; unconsciously she was trying to teach Lossie those pretty manners and ways of her own that men cherish so deeply, and to which their homage, so long forgotten among brusque women, inevitably sprang.

"I can't be a dear little charmer like you, Gay, if you mean that," said Lossie, as she put the cheque away, and warmly thanked its giver, though after all it was no more than her right. Those who had, ought to share with those who had not, and our Labour Members' vigorous contention that people who have money, should be forced to provide for those who have spent theirs, also for those who can't and won't work, expressed her opinion exactly.

And yet the cheque did not make Lossie as happy as usual. In sudden flashes, now and then, she realised her position—saw over. Beauty she had, and brains, but up to now, and she was twenty-seven, they had brought her little good. She had received no really good offers, but it never seemed to strike her that her extreme expensiveness in dress and tastes had a good deal to do with it, and her absorbing (and patent) passion for Mackrell still more. To be sure there was that ridiculous George Conant, at present the favourite nephew and heir of the enormously rich Mrs. Elkins, but as the old lady made a new will every three months or so, and he might do something specially idiotic to annoy her, it would be madness to bet on that chance.

Poor Frank would be safe, and less trouble—anyway, she had no intention of drifting into that grey life in which one is first with nobody, or worse still (for Aunt Lavinia's pension died with her), forming one of that hopeless army of incapables that is always "looking for something," and helpless, unbraced, expects a heaven-born post to fit it, not that it should learn to fit itself for a post.

Lossie sighed impatiently, and glanced across at Gay, who sat, needlework in hand, in the charming room that was feminine like herself, and fresh and sweet, with nothing whatever about her to suggest the Trotting or Race-course, and, as often before, she tried to analyse the irresistible charm of her cousin.

"A good sort" (from the women), "a darned good sort" (from the men), was the invariable verdict passed upon her, and even taking up vulgar Trotting, and doing things men hate their women to do, had not affected her popularity. "The first time you see Gay Lawless you'll hardly think her good-looking, the second you'll fall in love with her, and the third you'll ask her to marry you!" Lossie had once heard one man tell another—but as to beauty! It was true that Gay's eyes had a curious power of refraction, so that shades of feeling chased each other over them like shadows on a clear pool, and her skin had the clear transparency that goes with hair that not so long ago, as Gay confidentially told her men friends, was "carrots," though the laugh with which she said it, showing the loveliest little white teeth in the world, usually inclined the person addressed to a quite contrary opinion. But compared with what Lossie found in her own mirror, Gay had no good looks at all.

"He's not a beauty," said Lossie, with some irrelevance, but he was no favourite of hers, and, on his part, he had never found reason to alter his summing up of her on the first occasion they had met.

"His kind face is more distinguished than any man's I know," cried Gay with spirit. "I learn more from him in five minutes, than all the stupid people I've ever known put together!"

"Then the sooner you make yourself happy with this pattern of all the perfections, including a few millions, the better," said Lossie, who did not care who Gay married, so long as it was not Carlton.

Gay laughed. "Wasn't it Nathaniel Hawthorn who said that 'to have wealth beyond a certain point, is only to undertake the labour of living the lives of ten or a thousand men as well as your own?' And besides—can't you see, but of course you can't, that a man like that must have had his own ideal, his own romance, ages before he ever saw silly little me? There's a story in his life, and no mean one, I'll wager."

"Really," said Lossie, "I don't think your lovers are much comfort to you. One lets you in for a disreputable sport, another breaks your heart by half-killing himself, and the third string to your bow isn't in the very least in love with you!"

"So Mr. Hannen is going on all right," he said in a tone of great pleasure as he shook hands with Gay, and Lossie, with a vague wave of her hand, disappeared.

"Nice boy," said Rensslaer, as he sat down opposite Gay, and she gave him a few details of Chris's case. There were dark rings round her eyes—she looked really ill, and Rensslaer guessed that if Chris's accident had shaken her into a vivid realisation of her love for him, it had only the more convinced her that to see his life in almost daily jeopardy for five months out of the year, would be more than she could bear, and that this was the real parting of their ways.

"Couldn't you persuade him to give it up?" he said abruptly; it was not the first time he had startled her by knowing precisely of what she was thinking.

"You know," she said, "Chris is too tall for a jockey—he will train—and, apart from accidents, all the tall jockeys go out quickly. There was Archer—there are many others. It's sheer perversity in a man of six feet to want to be a jock—"

Her voice broke, and Rensslaer bent his head, and looked away—it struck her then that a man's silence is more decent, and worth more sometimes, than all a woman's sympathy, and talk, and kisses.

It might have enlightened him as to Gay's chances of happiness to know how at that very moment Chris, for the most part in bandages, was using almost his first conscious moments to have held up before his eyes by an unwilling nurse, his note-book of "fixtures" for the ensuing week, the while eagerly calculating his chances of being able to ride before the last day of the month, when steeplechasing ended.

Gay pulled herself together, but when Rensslaer spoke of her horses and their engagements, and the much-coveted Gold Vase, she felt that for the time being, at any rate, she hated anything to do with a race of any kind.

And yet it was no more than two days ago that she had told Carlton she would break her heart if it did not become hers, and he had by no means forgotten....

"You must let me drive you down to Waterloo Park," said Rensslaer, and then told her that on the Gold Vase day, he was for once entering a horse, and going to drive himself, though not in competition for the Vase.

Gay hardly heard him. She wanted to go to the telephone and get the latest news of Chris. The Professor, now taking some rest, was to go down to Epsom later in the day.

CHAPTER XV

THE GOLD VASE

It was not without protest on the part of the Professor that Rensslaer drove Gay to Waterloo Park for the race for the Gold Vase, and when, punctually to the minute, the latter appeared in Connaught Square with the road wagon and pair with which he was subsequently to win first prize in the "Road Rig Appointment Class" at Olympia, an animated colloquy was going forward, in which Lossie Holden bore an animated part.

"You and Frank can come down by train if you like," said Gay defiantly, as through the window she saw the pair of almost thoroughbred-looking seal brown mares, no white, with long tails and manes. Then, with no more ado, she walked out, and took her place by Rensslaer's side.

Mamie H. and Nancy Clancy, each with a record "low down in the teens," were in the habit, whenever their heads were loosed, of going along at a 2.30 gait, and on the way down to the races they went together like one horse, without pulling or shying, or being afraid of motors, passing everything on the road drawn by horses, and making it lively even for the motors.

They were harnessed a little differently to what they are in the show ring, as instead of collars, (which are obligatory in a pair horse "road rig" class) they had breast or "Dutch" collars, such as are used in Vienna for pair horse racing, with the object of giving horses more freedom, also the reins were of the Viennese style, which, instead of coming together at the coupling, have single hand-pieces, continued double all the way, there being four reins in the hand instead of two.

Rensslaer explained that the breast collars have terrets only on the outside, so that the inside reins come back to the pad terrets, and give a more direct pull on the reins than if the horses wore collars, and Gay listened with all the eagerness of the novice, who has the luck to get from an expert "inside" knowledge of which the public—and even Carlton Mackrell—knew little.

Many murmurs of "There goes Rensslaer!" followed them on the road. Some of the men wondered who was the uncommonly pretty girl with him, others, again, recognised her as the somewhat remarkable Gay Lawless. She wished that the drive might last indefinitely, but all too soon it was over, the horses averaging sixteen miles an hour all the way down from Town to the course.

The scene when they arrived was pretty enough, and the attendance unusually good, as it was known that Rensslaer was driving—an extraordinary circumstance that had raised the hopes of the Trotting fraternity sky-high.

The race for the Gold Vase is a handicap in mile and a half heats, the entries, sixty, being divided into six heats with ten horses in each heat, with two semi-final heats for the twelve horses who have been first and second in these preliminary heats, and a final heat for the first and second horses in these semi-finals.

Gay's and Carlton Mackrell's horses were both at "scratch," but were drawn to start in different heats, the first heat being with Carlton Mackrell's horse scratch.

Ten horses were in this heat, the limit horse a raw-boned, uneven-gaited trotter, ridden by a small boy in shirt sleeves, who, the moment the pistol went off, bolted with the boy, and tried to jump the rails, but was brought back, and finished the heat last, amidst the jeers of the public.

Mackrell's horse trotted very fast and steadily, his toe weights flashing in the sun, and without a slip or waver, without any urging, overtook one horse after the other, had them all beaten before the last turn, and jogged the winner in twenty lengths in front. Time: 3 minutes 30 seconds.

As Gay's horse had never been able to do a trial for the distance faster than 3 minutes 36 seconds (all out), she felt very despondent, much to the delight of Lossie, who had arrived with the ruffled Professor in tow, and who hoped that Gay would get such a beating that day as to sicken her of the sport for the remainder of her life.

Rensslaer and Carlton vied with each other in their attention to, and care of, the downcast Gay, as they watched the next heat, in which none of their party had horses. A hobbled pacer was the limit horse, and bore the name of Birmingham Joe, although he looked a typical common American, and English horses are not pacers; he won, after a most desperate finish, by a short head in 3.36.

This horse, therefore, was equal to Gay's in speed, and with a start of 200 yards over hers, would have a great advantage if he got into the final, as he would not have to come through his horses, and although he seemed very stiff and old, such horses often improve in speed in later heats, if they are kept moving between heats. Most likely, said Rensslaer, he had a low record in the States about "the time of the flood," and might get some of that speed back when he got warmed up, and worked the stiffness out of his old legs.

Between the second and third heats there was a curious exhibition of the Guidless trotter, Gold Ring by Wild Brino, Mr. Wilkinson, the owner, leading the old stallion out with a surcingle, overhead check, and side reins, like a circus horse, then taking him fifty yards down the stretch, turned him to face the starter, and walked away, the horse standing like a statue.

At the report of the pistol he darted off on a strong trot, and not cutting the grass corners, but keeping fairly on the track, he trotted the full two laps for the miles in 2.24, mane and tail flying, finishing with a spurt at his top speed.

As he passed the wire the bell was rung, when he at once pulled up, turned slowly round, and jogged up to Mr. Wilkinson, who was waiting for him.

"Isn't that pretty?" cried Gay warmly, and forgetting all her nervous fears as they went over to look at the big chestnut stallion, with very high action, that won the Richmond (Surrey) Horse Show Pace and Action Class some years ago.

"I have a good many young trotters by him," said Rensslaer quietly to Carlton; "he is so exceptionally well-shaped, and has a very low record."

The third heat was won easily by a pony with a long start, under saddle, in 3 minutes 42 seconds. (This pony got beaten in his semi-final.)

Between the third and fourth heats there was much excitement when Rensslaer drove Hettie C., the pacer (to establish a record for pacing mares for England on a half-mile track), in a Faber speed wagon. She was a thoroughbred-looking mare, but with rather a big head, dark chestnut, and he had two men out with galloping thorough-breds in jogging carts, one of whom stood his horse close to the outside of the track near the judge's stand, whilst the other cantered behind Hettie C. as she had a few preliminary brushes the wrong way of the track to open her pipes. She came out on a trot, and only got into her pace when she got beyond a 2.50 gait.

Hettie C. did not wear hobbles, or any of the rigging usually seen on the third-rate pacers usually imported into England, but only quarter and shin boots to protect her in case she stepped into an uneven bit of footing. She carried the lightest of racing plates, and a rubber bit and side check, and paced almost as upright as a trotter, with just a flip to her fetlocks, and knees and hocks stiff.

When she was ready, she came down for her flying start towards "Uncle," the galloper some four lengths behind her, but Rensslaer shook his head, and "Uncle" did not drop the flag (for this start was by flag, as the trial was on American lines), and Rensslaer gradually stopped the mare, and jogged back on a trot.

The second time the mare was going to his satisfaction, and he nodded for "Uncle" to drop the flag, and the trial had begun. The people had been asked to keep quiet, so as not to upset the mare, and nothing was heard but the "tapa, tapa" of the pacer's feet, and the "tip-a-tip, tip-a-tip" of the galloper.

They got to the quarter mile in 32 seconds, the galloper stretching out faster than a hunting gallop, but losing ground. Round the turn his driver hit him, and he did all he knew, closing up the gap, and getting to the mare's girths, the half being done in 1 minute 3 seconds. Here the second galloper joined in, and as they came to the third quarter, the first galloper was done, and dropped back, the second galloper taking his place alongside the mare. This quarter was done rather slower, in 32½ seconds, the time for the three quarters being 1 minute 35½ seconds, the mare beginning to tire on the heavy, sandy track.

Both drivers of the gallopers beginning to shout, the mare made a desperate spurt, and Rensslaer drove her out with the reins, not the whip, and she finished (with the second galloper head and head with her) in 31 seconds for the last quarter, making 2 minutes 6 seconds, far and away the best record for England. The first galloper cantered in behind, quite done.

There was great applause at this, the most sensational feature (so far) of the day, and then came the fourth heat—the heat where Gay's horse was in at scratch.

Her driver, a very good English one, manœuvred very well for a start, and got off well, the horse in front of him starting badly, so that he got clear of him at once, and sailed after the leaders, one of which, a very small pony with a very long lead, went zigzagging all over the track, so that every time he tried to pass it, the pony got in his way. Finally, however, when the pair of them were in the lead, it got into a bad break, and galloped under the wire, neck and neck with Gay's horse (of course being disqualified), the latter winning the heat in 3 minutes 40 seconds.

Gay's horse could have done the heat faster if he had not been so interfered with by the pony, but this interference had taken a lot out of him, and he seemed rather tired after the heat, and cooled out badly.

The sixth heat was won by two lengths (of course no horse of her party was in this) in 2.40 by "Our Tom" rather easily, and the winner therefore looked capable of going faster in the finals (this was the Trotter in the final heat).

Mackrell's horse was in the first semi-final heat, but not Gay's. Mackrell got a wonderfully quick start, and got very soon up to the leader, did not pass him, but kept just behind till they came into the stretch, and then passed him, and won in a jog by a length in 3.35.

Although he had won by only a length, so as to not expose his horse's speed too much, he had won so easily, that when the betting on the final came, he was the favourite at almost any price, as he seemed to be an absolute certainty.

Now came the second semi-final, Gay's horse at scratch. He got a very bad start, being half turned round when Uncle "loosed off," and he had a hard struggle to get up to the horse in front of him. As he did so, he and that horse got up to the one in front of them (who had made a standstill break), and Gay's horse being in the middle, his sulky got crushed between the other two, and though he drew in front, it was seen that his near tyre, the one on the outside of the turn, had come off.

Gay drew in her breath sharply, but Rensslaer soon reassured her, for with luck and a clever driver all was not yet lost.

The tyre had got jammed up in the axle fork, and also the wheel, which could not revolve in consequence, and dragged along the ground, but by trotting his hardest, the horse still kept gaining on the leader, although the wooden rim of the wheel got worn through by the friction on the track. As the horses came round the final turn, Gay's horse got level with the leader, and after a desperate drive won, the wheel just holding till the wire was passed, when collapsing, the sulky turned over.

As it did so, the driver, seizing hold of the harness with his left hand just above the crupper, lifted himself forward, and putting his right hand on to the pad, vaulted on to the horse's back, and stopped him.

When the driver returned to the paddock, he was cheered by the crowd for his pluck and skill, but Gay's horse was very exhausted, and all of a shake, as the stuck wheel made a terrible handicap on him in the race, he had also slightly cut his near hind fetlock with the broken wire spokes.

The betting, which originally had been on Gay's horse, now, as I said above, had veered round to Mackrell's; in fact the race was considered as good as over.

When the time came for harnessing for the final, Rensslaer, who had been looking after Gay's horse all the time, and found him in a very bad state, went as a final desperate remedy to the refreshment bar, bought a bottle of their best champagne, and at the risk of its being considered doping, he drenched the horse with the liquor. The effect in a few minutes was very marked; the horse brightened up, and seemed almost himself again.

But the trouble was by no means over. In the bar Rensslaer presently found, to his horror, that the driver of Gay's horse had been given drinks to celebrate his plucky driving with the broken wheel, so often, that the man was already dead-drunk, and of no earthly use to drive.

Rapidly seeking out Gay, and drawing her aside, Rensslaer briefly told her the state of affairs, and offered to drive for her, but like lightning she leaped to the longed-for opportunity, and whispered that if he would lend her his Faber speed wagon (in which he drove Hettie C. in her trial pace against time earlier in the day) she would drive the race herself.

Gay's horse was therefore harnessed to the speed wagon; she took her place in it, and Rensslaer tucked her well in with a light rug.

But all this took time. The moment of the start for the final was long past; in fact a stout young man had been shouting "Get on your marks," in a voice like a bull for some time, when suddenly Gay appeared on the track behind her horse, and after a moment's stupefied silence, a deafening cheer rang out, succeeded by another, and another.

CHAPTER XVI

GAY DISGRACES HERSELF

There was no time to warm up the horse; she had to trot down fast to her mark, overshot it some forty yards, and swung her horse round in a hurry, spurting to get up to her mark, as she saw "Uncle's" back with upraised pistol.

It was fortunate she did so, as at that moment the pistol went off, and she was at top speed on to her mark as the pistol was fired, Mackrell's horse being at a standstill at the same mark (they were both scratch mark horses, you may remember), she having the outside position.

Mackrell's horse was into his stride in a moment, however; Gay and Mac raced side by side after the leaders. There were, of course, only four horses in this final, one of the leaders being the old ex-American hobbled pacer, Birmingham Joe, who had 200 yards' start of Gay and Mac, the fourth horse being the trotter Our Tom, with 150 yards' start.

Gay's and Mackrell's horses trotted side by side like a pair, rapidly overtaking the two leaders, but Gay could see out of the corner of her eye that Mackrell was holding his horse, and could at any time draw clear of her if he liked.

At the turn he pulled slightly back, and let her take the inside, and there came an ominous jeer from the spectators when they saw him giving way, instead of keeping the advantage he had gained. The moment, however, they were round the turn, he drew up level again on the outside, when suddenly his horse made a most disastrous break (a horse noted for never breaking), and every time Mac tried to catch him, he went off into a worse break, till finally he cantered in a long way last, the horse refusing to trot.

Gay, of course, saw nothing of this, she only knew that Mackrell's horse had suddenly fallen back, and that she was gaining hand over hand on the trotter Our Tom in front. She passed him as she went round the track the second time, and calling on her horse, she saw him stretch out his neck still further, and lower himself till he seemed inches lower than his proper height, whilst he began to sway his head slightly from side to side, as he reached his utmost in each stroke.

She swept round the last turn but one at such speed that she found she must keep her eyes fixed on her horse's ears, as the least glance to the side made her feel giddy, and as if she would lose her balance, and now she got up with the pacer in the hack stretch, who was wobbling along in the regular third-rate pacer style, instead of moving almost as upright as a trotter, as Hettie C. the pacer did earlier in the day.

A really perfect-gaited pacer has very little roll in its gait, and if seen from the side could not be distinguished from a trotter except by an expert, but poor old Birmingham Joe was labouring along like a channel boat in a south-wester, and his hobbles were singing from the strain like an æolian harp. It was this strain, and the fact that poor old Birmingham Joe's master had everything old (including the horse), which won Gay the race.

The sulky was an old heavy metal one, made in England years ago, the hobbles had been patched and mended till little of the original hobbles remained, and as the two horses came neck and neck (Gay on the outside) round the last turn, the æolian sound of the hobbles changed to a sudden rending crash, and old Birmingham Joe turned a complete somersault, pitching his driver over his head, and landing on top of him, the hobbles having broken.

Gay jogged in a winner in 3.35, a second faster than her horse had ever trotted before, and whilst the driver of Birmingham Joe was carried in on a stretcher with a broken leg, Mackrell finished on a canter last of all, amidst the yells of his backers, that alternated with loud cheers for Gay Lawless.

In these cheers neither Lossie nor the Professor joined. They had not understood what Rensslaer meant when he had suddenly appeared beside them, and hurried Gay away. They had hardly understood what it meant when after a considerable delay (for they were at some distance from the stables) they had seen a woman's shape in a Faber, driving rapidly towards the track, and when in the first round Gay had swept by close to them, looking extraordinarily pretty and determined, her little feet planted firmly on the rail before her, eyes wide with excitement and courage, the Professor had all but fallen down in a fit, while Lossie rejoiced—even Carlton Mackrell's affection could hardly survive that.

On all sides kodaks had flashed; indeed in the event, nearly every illustrated paper made a scandalous feature of a sight common enough in Vienna. Min Toplady alone of the women clapped her hands, and cheered at the top of her voice; but the excitement now over, Gay herself felt shaky, and more than half inclined to burst into tears.

Even the presentation to her of the Gold Vase was by no means the ecstacy she had expected. It was by a desperate effort that she held her head up, spoke her thanks, smiled, and marched away with Rensslaer, who tucked the Vase under his arm as if used to such ridiculous impedimenta, and took her straight to her brother, followed by the cheers of the lookers-on, in which a nice ear might detect a certain note of familiarity. Possibly she detected it, but was quite unaware that Carlton was about having a very bad quarter of an hour, called as he had been before the Stewards, for an explanation of his extraordinary driving.

He declared that his horse lost a toe weight at the first turn, which caused him to break, and he could not, or would not settle afterwards, and when the horse was examined, it was seen that the near toe weight was missing.

While the discussion was still going on, one of the distance judges brought in the toe weight, and also the screw which held it, but instead of the screw being broken, or the threads worn, it was seen that the screw had only a head, and very short shank, and that the latter showed marks of its having quite recently had the end of the screw shank filed off, so that there was only a head, and a little bit of shank.

The blacksmith who was employed at the trotting track said that Mackrell borrowed a file of him before the final heat, and being curious as to what he wanted it for, he followed him at a distance, and saw him filing something behind a tree, after which he went to screw on his horse's toe weights.

The blacksmith went behind the tree and picked up the half of a screw (the point end), which he produced, and it corresponded to the screw which Mac's horse had lost with his toe weight.

Mackrell bowed, and withdrew with perfect sang-froid. He had pulled off what he intended, and if Gay had been made happy by getting what she wanted, he did not in the least grudge the price he had paid. But when he joined, or rather intercepted, her on the way to the gates, he found a pale, almost tearful Gay, and one glance at the Professor's and Lossie's faces convinced him that they had been baiting her cruelly, in spite of Rensslaer, who cool and imperturbable as ever, walked beside her.

"Hearty congratulations, Gay!" Mackrell cried, taking her hand. "It was the best done, pluckiest thing I ever saw in my life, and the Gold Vase is yours."

Gay controlled her voice to thank him, but Rensslaer shot a quick glance at the other's face—he had, of course, seen Mackrell's game from the first, and was also aware of that summons to the Stewards' room, to which there could only be one issue.

"I am astonished," said the Professor in quavery tones, "astonished and shocked at your congratulating my sister on the disgraceful, unwomanly exhibition she has just made of herself, and for which I am to blame, in not having put my foot down on this degrading sport from the first."

"Oh! put it down," said Carlton, who looked very handsome and determined, "and keep it there if you like. I'm going to take Gay home, and the quieter she is kept the better"—he turned on Lossie Holden a glance beneath which she quailed—"so you can travel back as you came, with the Professor."

He put Gay as he spoke into a waiting carriage, seated himself beside her, and drove off, Rensslaer having handed to Gay her coveted trophy.

"I believe," said the Professor, "that the indecency on wheels in which my unfortunate sister drove was your property, Mr. Rensslaer, and as she could not possibly have used it without your consent, I imagine it was at your suggestion she did so."

"You're right there," said Rensslaer encouragingly, "and I'm proud to know my Faber's been of use to the nicest, pluckiest girl, bar none, I've seen in England."

"Anyway," cried the Professor, trembling with rage, "I shall make it my business to see that she has no opportunity of disgracing herself and me again," and seizing Lossie's arm, he hurried her away.

CHAPTER XVII

TWO LOVERS

If God sends friends, the devil sends collaterals, for the former, in addition to their superior good qualities, at least have the civility to knock at your door, the latter walk straight in to torment you at their pleasure, and Carlton had hardly left the house when Lossie appeared, furious at the determined way he had carried Gay off, and more furious still at the rebuke he had administered to herself.

"You've done it now, Gay," she said spitefully. "Frank's raving mad—how I got him to town, I don't know."

"Let him rave," said Gay coolly, holding one little foot to the fire. Her eyes still sparkled, a lovely colour was in her cheeks, on a table near glittered the coveted Gold Vase, and though her arms ached horribly from the late strain on them, she cared no more for the ache than for Lossie's acrimonious reproaches.

"Toes turned out, first position," said Lossie, watching Gay's face cruelly. "It was something to be thankful for, I suppose, that your feet weren't further apart than they were!"

She had thought only of bracing her toes hard against the foot-rests, not at all of how they looked. Had she looked immodest after all?

"Lucky you had no feathers in your hat," said Lossie with a sneer, and at that injustice to her invariably neat racing garb, Gay rebelled indignantly.

"Did you ever see me befeathered on a race-course?" she said contemptuously, but Lossie shrugged her shoulders.

"It looks as if you'd dressed for the part, and went down with the full intention of playing it," she said. "That rug, too, outlining you like a sheath—that was ready also, strange to say!"

"It was Mr. Rensslaer's," said Gay. "I suppose it was my fault that my driver got drunk, and someone had to be found at the last moment to take his place?"

"Mr. Rensslaer could have taken it, and would have done, if you'd let him—" And as this was true, Gay had no answer ready on that point.

"Anyway, I won it," she said, and tossed her pretty head, "that's the main thing."

"Because Carlton Mackrell let you," said Lossie. "Didn't you hear the crowd howling at him when he gave you the inside place? Or so a man told me who was watching the race through his glasses. Hark!"

"Well-known owner of Trotters expelled for unfair driving at Waterloo Park to-day!"

Lossie ran out of the room and downstairs, while Gay, her heart beating wildly, and very pale, felt her triumph turned to sawdust between her teeth.

Carlton's horse was a far better one than hers ... Rensslaer had told her so ... he knew how to drive, she did not.

"Here it is," cried Lossie, returning. Unfolding the sheet at the latest news, she read aloud a brief paragraph announcing that Mr. Carlton Mackrell had been expelled from the Clubhouse, and barred from ever driving again, for tampering with his horse's toe weights in the race for the Gold Vase, won by Miss Gay Lawless.

And he had not said one word to her of this. Oh! what had she done? For a whim, and in pure hot-headedness, she had taken up a sport suitable for men only, made herself notorious, inflicted pain on her brother and Chris, and, finally, made a man who loved her submit to disgrace, and deprivation of his favourite amusement, rather than she should be disappointed of a silly Gold Vase! Did Rensslaer know—had he seen it, and made no sign?

"Poor Mackrell!" she said, then dried her tears, as she would not have done had he or Chris, or Rensslaer been present. At that moment the distracted Professor came into the room, and Gay, with an impulse of pity, went up, and laid her hand on his arm.

"My driver was drunk, Frank," she said, "and it had to be decided all in a moment. It didn't seem to me wrong at all then—and even now I'm not sure that it was—it's Carlton Mackrell I'm worrying about—" then went away, and locked herself into her room.

She was very quiet when she got there, poor Gay, sitting on the side of her bed, with all the triumph of a few hours ago fizzled out. A debt of honour came before all others, and this was one of them.... Gay's heart was generous enough to realise that surely Carlton had never meant her to know, never meant to be found out, but he had bungled at his tricky work, as honest men will, and he meant her to have that Gold Vase, and she had got it—for what it was worth.

Suddenly the ugly, the sordid side of this sport she had taken up so recklessly, showed to Gay. She seemed to see the man carried away with his broken leg—yes, there were accidents at Trotting as well as at Chris's game—and the clamorous desire to win something, money or a bit of plate, or the success that is notoriety, took on its true colours—something loud, common, of no value to a woman of taste, whose true kingdom was her home.

She had all along fought her love for Chris because of the danger, the unhealthy excitement of his life, and deliberately she had emulated it, and was now tasting the bitter fruit of disillusionment, of disgust. It struck her then, as it has done so many others, that it is doing the things that we want to do, not those that we ought, that we mostly come to our ruin.

Chris Hannen, speeding slowly towards a perfect recovery, had succeeded in turning out his nurses, and Mrs. Summers, to her great joy, was now his sole attendant. Promoted to a sofa, he had opened eagerly the last evening special to see if Gay had won the Gold Vase, only to be confronted with a piquante description of her as she had appeared when seated in the Faber, looking as a man would prefer almost any other woman than his sweetheart or sister to look, as she steered her horse to victory.

He winced as he read, and when he came to Carlton Mackrell's summary expulsion, and the reason, his heart sank, for now Gay would consider herself bound in honour to reward the man who had not hesitated to disgrace himself, so that she might possess the toy after which she had so often hankered in his hearing.

Chris had always hated Gay's going in for Trotting, and yet, was he himself any better—risking his life for excitement, wringing Gay's heart? Why not be a sportsman?—ride for pleasure, not gain, though to be sure it was pleasure, and to spare to him!

"Serves Mackrell jolly well right for being kicked out," he growled, and did not pity him a bit—but Gay would, and there was the rub.

Rensslaer, too, had behaved badly. He was a much older man; he was under no illusions as to the status of the sport in England, yet he accompanied her to meetings—would probably go on doing so now that Mackrell was barred from the Trotting course.

Chris's meditations made him so feverish, and brought out such a hectic flush on his cheeks, that Mrs. Summers was seriously alarmed when presently she arranged his dinner on the invalid table slung before him. But looking shrewdly about for the cause, she caught sight of the paper on his knee, and though they had never exchanged a word on the subject, Mrs. Summers knew well enough what place Gay held in his heart, and that the young lady was racing her horse for the Gold Vase that day.

"Has Miss Gay won, Mr. Chris?" she inquired, and he nodded, but did not pursue the subject. Evidently, he thought, Gay had been carried away by audacity and high spirits, for of course he did not know of the driver's mistimed conviviality that had given the girl her longed-for opportunity. And now they were baiting her, no doubt, that spiteful Lossie, and the hysterical Professor, and he not able to stand by her—she wanted someone badly...

For a minute or two he racked his brains, then suddenly remembered Min Toplady, and leaving his dinner untouched, he turned to the telephone within reach, and picking up the book, found to his great relief her husband's number.

He was lucky enough to get on quickly, and to his "Are you there?" it was Min's cheery voice that responded.

"Yes—it's Chris Hannen. I want you to go at once to Miss Gay, she has had a trying day—no, you needn't say I sent you—only that you wanted to congratulate her on her success—you will go? Thanks—yes—she did it splendidly, you say? Never saw anything prettier? Rotten shame about Mr. Mackrell—something must be done—yes—you're going at once—good—'phone me to-night how she is, if possible—yes—good-bye."

He replaced the receiver, and returned to his half-cold dinner with more appetite than he had begun it. Min Toplady was a doughty champion, capable of routing Lossie or the Professor with great slaughter, and Chris grinned to himself as he imagined the passages-at-arms likely to occur.

Anyway, Gay would not stand alone, and with her own courage, and such a powerful backer, ought to pull through with honour.

His spirits rose. Mrs. Summers, coming and going, was delighted to find him in such good fettle; she thought Miss Gay's success in winning the Gold Vase had something to do with it, and though privately a little shocked at the young lady's sporting tastes, she was glad of anything that did her young master good.

But when she had left him, with his cigarette-case at his elbow, he got restless again; the quiet room, in which he had lived so much lately, got on his nerves, and a profound depression stole over him. He longed for someone to talk with; if he had not been such a confounded way from town, he would have called up one of his club friends, and got from him the popular opinion of the day's events at Waterloo Park.

Most of all, he would have liked to see Carlton Mackrell, and as if the thought had summoned him, the door quietly opened, and that gentleman, announced by Mrs. Summers, walked into the room.

CHAPTER XVIII

MIN TO THE RESCUE

"The very man I wanted to see," cried Chris as they shook hands. "You'll have some dinner? Mrs. Summers won't keep you waiting long."

"I had all I want in town," he said, sitting down opposite Chris. He look tired and ill; it is always easier for a dark man to look out of sorts than a fair one, and in spite of all that he had lately suffered, Chris had the advantage of the other at that moment.

"It's a rotten game, Trotting," said Carlton abruptly, "and I'm more than sorry I ever encouraged Miss Gay to go in for it. But she has won her Gold Vase, and now I hope she'll chuck the whole thing, especially"—he smiled—"as I'm chucked."

"When you think of the practices that go on at the game," said Mackrell, "how a man will win a race with a certain horse, then fake him, change his name, and enter him for another race under a different name, and that the Stewards spend half their time investigating 'shady cases,' it's almost an honour to be fired out—at least, I know Rensslaer would think so."

"You have laid Miss Gay under an obligation," said Chris quietly. "She is the soul of honour—as you well know—and she will pay it to the last penny. She gets her Gold Vase—yes, but you have played to get what is worth a million gold vases—herself."

Mackrell uttered an exclamation of anger and half rose, but Chris went on unmoved with what he had to say.

"Has it struck you that we are both rotters—both utterly selfish in our aims and pursuits—that neither of us is good enough for that dear little girl—that Rensslaer is a far finer sportsman, and better all-round man than either of us? He is doing real good with his breeding stables, and improvement of the breed of horses—he pursues a definite aim that the State should be grateful for—that is appreciated by almost every country but England—but what good are you and I doing? Miss Gay hates my profession as jockey—its danger, its excitement, its more or less unhealthy surroundings—yet I persist in following it, and when I come to grief, inflict pain on her.... And you, Mackrell, who lightly infect her with your own love for Trotting, who are mainly responsible for her taking up a rôle that few men would permit in a sister, are you much better than I am? You wanted her company, and you got it—and, as usual, it's the woman who has to pay."

"Damn it, man," burst out Mackrell fiercely, "you make me out a scoundrel, who offers a farthing doll as a bribe to get possession of a great treasure, but you're wrong, utterly wrong. Unless Miss Gay sends for me, I shall not go near her—"

"And she will send," said Chris grimly. Too late he now remembered that Min Toplady was with Carlton's suit heart and soul, and much too clever not to make ample use to-night of the opportunity given her by the day's events.

"I came to you for bread, and you've given me a stone," he said. "You make it impossible for me to ask Miss Gay to be my wife—and you know it."

"I think you did wrong to cheat, so that she might win what was practically valueless," said Chris quietly. "I repeat that you had no right to lay her under such an enormous obligation."

"I did not expect to be bowled out," said Mackrell sullenly. "Her dearest wish was to win the Vase—it was my earnest desire that she should do so—my thoughts went no further than that. If that infernal chap hadn't followed me, Miss Gay would have believed she had won on her horse's merits, for you may be sure I should never have undeceived her."

Chris silently held out his hand, and Mackrell, after a moment's hesitation, took it.

"Can nothing be done?" said Chris. "It's preposterous that you are to be made an example of like this! Have you seen Rensslaer?"

"No. I took Gay back to town—of course she did not know about me. Heavens! I expect they're tearing her to pieces at Connaught Square. It's on her account I'm here—I thought she might have 'phoned to you—told you how she was."

"Good old Min!" exclaimed Mackrell. "I'm sorry for anyone who attempts to bully Miss Gay in her presence."

"Have a drink, old man, and buck up," he said. "Unless I'm much mistaken, Miss Gay drove her first and last race to-day, and her horses will be "scratched" without delay. It wouldn't trouble me much if mine were," he added gloomily, "for I have no luck."

"Yes—yes—are you there? It's all right, Mr. Chris, Miss Lossie is gone—I've rated the Professor, and put Miss Gay to bed. There's been a lot of fur and feathers flying ... that Miss Lossie. I 'phoned Mr. Mackrell at his club, but he wasn't there. Miss Gay wanted him to call to-morrow morning first thing after breakfast—"

"Oh! it's you, Mr. Mackrell, that's all right—yes, I'll 'phone Miss Gay in the morning that you're coming. What ... you can't ... you're going to Paris! Miss Gay sent her love to Mr. Chris. Good-night."

Gay had made no reply to the frequent and irritating knocks on her door, but soon after eight had struck, a welcome voice issuing from the keyhole made her jump up, and promptly turn the key.

"My lamb," cried Min Toplady, folding her in a motherly embrace, and Gay, clinging to her, cried her heart out, and was comforted and made comfortable, and presently, with the blinds pulled down, a wood fire lit, and a dinner tray placed before her that the cook had carefully prepared, Gay was able to laugh at herself, and even enjoy Min's unconcealed delight at the brilliant style in which she had won her race that day.

"Never saw you more bewitching," cried Min, "and the dress and attitude were modest enough, it was only the idea of the thing, that prudes might call indelicate. Toplady says all the men were wild about you, for of course they knew about your driver being squiffy, and thought it the gamest thing out, your driving yourself. Of course," added Min, "your horse wasn't half good enough for you, my dear, or even as good as Mr. Carlton's—"

"Oh, Min!" cried Gay, "Mr. Mackrell has ruined himself that I might win that wretched Gold Vase!"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Min stoutly. "His toe weights were all right, and as to what that rascal swore to, there's not a word of truth in it. Why, one of that lot would sell his own soul for a shilling, and tell any lie for sixpence. Not but what he wanted you to win, Miss Gay, for he worships every hair of your head, but he was getting tired of the game, and ain't sorry to quit it. And, my lamb," went on Min tenderly, "you've had your bit of fun, and you've won what you wanted, and if I were you I'd leave it at that, now Mr. Mackrell won't be here to make things pleasant for you."

"Oh, Min," cried Gay sadly, "you also! Everyone is against me—even Mr. Hannen. He must have seen the papers to-night—what will he say?"

"It was Mr. Chris who asked me to come up and see you," said Min reluctantly, for Carlton Mackrell's chances with Gay had never seemed to her better than now, if he only followed them up quickly.

Tears sprang to Gay's eyes at this evidence of Chris's thought for her, and an intense longing to see, and speak with him, seized her. She had begged the Professor to take her on one of his frequent visits to Epsom, but he had always refused, very unkindly, as Gay thought.

"He knew Mr. Mackrell's being warned off would upset you, I expect," said Min, "also," she added with a sniff, "he may have thought Mr. Frank and that Miss Lossie would be getting at you, and you wanted protection."

At that moment a knock came at the door, and a servant appeared with a message from the Professor, requesting Mrs. Toplady to give him a few minutes' conversation in his study. With an ominous flounce, and toss of the head, but a reassuring squeeze of the hand to Gay, Min descended, full of fight, to find, as she expected, Lossie lounging by the fireplace.

"Good-evening, Mr. Frank," said Min beamingly. "I'm paying you a return visit, you see. Hope you got home all right that time?"

The Professor squirmed, and pushed forward a chair, upon which Min settled her ample person, then, affecting to see Lossie for the first time, remarked in a tone of lofty rebuke:

"You shouldn't sit moping so near the fire, Miss Holden—it makes your nose red—for you're no chicken, and it's sinful to spoil your chances of a husband like that! Now Miss Gay, with her outdoor life and sports, will never grow old, or want for lovers, bless her!"

"It's just about these sports that I wanted to speak to you, Min," said the Professor with nervous haste. "The—ah—shocking exhibition my sister made of herself to-day—"

"Wonderful driving for a beginner—won-der-ful!" said Min admiringly. "Did you ever hear such cheering? Trotting 'ud soon look up if you could get half-a-dozen Miss Gays to drive their own horses."

"I don't believe that out of all England you'd find one other such immodest girl as my cousin," said Lossie, "or one family that would permit her to do what she did to-day."

"How could I stop her?" cried the Professor irascibly. "I nearly had a fit when she appeared on the track."

"You could have stopped it at the beginning," said Lossie sharply, "before she had ruined Carlton Mackrell's career, and made of herself a public scandal."

"It must be a comfort to you, Miss Lossie," said Min silkily, "that you hadn't enough influence with Mr. Mackrell to make him do anything wrong. He just worships Miss Gay, and when he found she had set her heart on the Gold Vase, why, he took care that she should get it, like the true lover that he is!"

"This woman has always been a bad influence with Gay," Lossie said furiously to Frank, "and they make a combination that will be too strong for you, if you don't look out."

"I came here to talk to Mr. Frank, not you," said Min equably. "My motto is, 'let every tub stand on its own bottom,' and if I were you, I'd try and get some beaux of my own, and not be always grabbing at Miss Gay's."

"Insolent woman!" cried Lossie, with flashing eyes, but Min merely nodded in a maddening way, and said:

"You always hated Miss Gay because all the men loved her—what one man likes, the rest mostly do, and perhaps if you could have got hold of one, Miss Lossie, others might have come along too. At present it looks as if you'll have to put up with poor Mr. Frank after all, for you can't live without plenty of money!"

Having produced her effect, if the Professor's terror-struck face were to be trusted, Min proceeded to the discussion of the matter really in hand.

"You want Miss Gay to give up Trotting," she said, addressing Frank quietly, "and now she hasn't Mr. Mackrell to help her, I think perhaps she'll be willing. But if you bully her, Mr. Frank, she'll go on with it just to defy you, for Miss Gay has got a temper and a will of her own, for all that she's the sweetest, and best, and prettiest little lady in the world."

"What do you advise?" said the Professor quaveringly, for Min's reckless unveiling of Lossie's secret intentions towards himself (failing anyone else) had half-frightened him out of his senses.

"I advise you to let her alone, Mr. Frank," said Min, "and make that poke-nose"—she pointed an accusing finger at Lossie—"stop at home, and not come here meddling and interfering, for if Miss Gay wants advice, Mr. Rensslaer'll be the one to give it, and settle what's to be done about her horses. And now, Mr. Frank, I'll say good-night, as I'm going to put my lamb to bed, and if you want me at any time, why, you know where to find me, and any hospitality Toplady and me can show you, (one eye closed in an almost imperceptible wink) we'll be proud and happy, I'm sure."

"Good-bye, Min," said Frank hurriedly, as he opened the door for her to go upstairs, then skipping out with her, closed it behind him—and ran.

Min stood, shaking with laughter, as in the distance she heard the laboratory door shut, and the key turned.

CHAPTER XIX

"FIGHTING" GAY

Those who thought they knew their Gay, and that she was humbled, penitent, and willing to amend her "trotting" ways, speedily found themselves mistaken on this point, and the first to whom she gave a taste of her quality was the unhappy Professor, who entered the breakfast-room next day, gibbering, and extending towards her an illustrated morning paper.

Gay took it calmly from his hand, but a flush of anger rose to her cheek as she saw that, whether from spite or ignorance, the artist had maliciously altered the position of her feet, a pose emphasised by the devil-may-care look in the pretty, saucy face turned impudently over her shoulder.

"Somebody who doesn't like me, evidently," said Gay, sitting down at the head of the table, and commencing to pour out coffee. "Wonder if it's anyone Lossie knows?"

"Hardened! Shameless!" sputtered the Professor, walking to and fro and wringing his hands. Gay felt glad Chris was not there, as he used to get behind the Professor, and wring his in imitation, convulsing her.

"I insist on it," cried her brother, "that you wire your trainer instantly to 'scratch'—I believe that is the expression—your horses for all future meetings, and I will take you abroad till this shocking scandal is forgotten. Why, even there, we shan't be safe, for you will be lampooned on the boulevards—an English lady driving like a stable-boy—in a man's attitude"—his voice rose to a shriek as Gay walked to the chafing-dishes on the sideboard, and helped herself to bacon.

"Shouldn't wonder if I get mentioned as a 'horrible example' from a pulpit or two," she said placidly, "and probably there will be several fancy sketches of me driving really like a boy—in one of those old-fashioned sulkies where you can't even see your horse's head, and have to guide him by faith and a double squint. Have some kidneys, Heron? They're awfully good."

But the angry Professor waved away the proffered delicacy, and resumed his wind-mill antics up and down the room, thereby getting on Gay's nerves.

"Look here, Heron," she said quietly, "it may save trouble if you will just grasp the fact that my horses will not be withdrawn, that their engagements will be fulfilled, and that I shall be present at all the meetings, and if you don't care to chaperon me, I'll find someone who will."

"Lossie won't!" screamed the Professor, now almost beside himself at this flat rebellion, "nor Mrs. Bulteel either! You've never been able to persuade her to set foot on a Trotting course—even if she were willing, Tom Bulteel wouldn't let her!"

It was true, and Gay thought it horrid of Effie; then her soft little face hardened, and she shot her bolt.

"Then I'll go under Min Toplady's protection," she said. "I can make her do anything I like—and she shall take me—and jolly good times we shall have, too!"

"Good God!" cried the Professor, "my sister—my sister going to Meetings with public-house ladies in public-house traps"—he forgot that he had once censured Lossie for thus speaking of Gay's old nurse.

"I shall stay at the 'Trotting Nag' altogether, if you're going on as you are now," she said. "Lossie can come and keep house for you—no one could say anything on the score of propriety, you know," she added, with as much malice as her sweet temper permitted, "for she is a relation!"

The Professor shuddered. He had not yet got over the shock Min Toplady's remarks about Lossie had given him overnight. What would become of his specimens, his microscopic work, of him, if pitchforked into matrimony?

Lossie was a deuced pretty woman, of course, but she had a horrid temper, and original as Gay was, his natural selfishness, and sure male instinct, told him he was safer with the latter than the former.

"Well, well," he said, and sat down dejectedly. "A wilful man will have his way, they say, and now that my feminine little sister has taken up with a man's life and sports, I suppose she'll, like him, have her way, no matter who pays."

"Heron!" exclaimed Gay, suddenly contrite, and got up, and went round to him. For a moment she did not speak, and it struck her that she had shed more tears, felt more "sloppy," since she started Trotting, than in all the years of her life before—yes, and apparently done more mischief to others.

"Don't you see, Frank, that if I don't face the music, if I seem ashamed of all this hateful publicity—for it is hateful—I shall only be a coward, and make things worse? I don't promise that I'll give up Trotting, but probably I may—with poor Carlton warned off, I don't expect to take much pleasure in it again. And now, Frank"—she kissed him, and smoothed his hair—"you've got to eat your breakfast, and forget about all this for the present."

She helped him to kidneys, and rang, for fresh coffee. Presently, comforted against his will, Frank stole a glance at Gay, who seemed deep in thought, and indeed with one lover outlawed from his favourite sport, and the other absent, prevented for the time being, from following a dangerous profession that Gay hated, she felt at that moment very friendless indeed.

If Mr. Rensslaer would only weigh in, and race Trotters himself, she thought, but he wouldn't, and then she got up, fetched her little basket of keys, and waving her hand to Heron, set out on her usual morning tour of housekeeping.

The Professor waited till she had gone, then deliberately kicked the offending newspaper round the room (all men of science are childish), and departed, well-pleased with himself, to his study. Inflating his pigeon-chest, he said to himself that Gay was a dear little thing, if misguided—and after all she had him to stand by her. The escapade of yesterday would probably do no more than make a nine days' talk, then blow over, and when she married Chris, as the Professor had always felt sure she intended to do ultimately, she would be just a domesticated girl, with all this racing rubbish knocked clean out of her head.

At eleven o'clock, Rensslaer was announced, and Gay rose eagerly to meet him, for he might be able to give her news of Carlton, from whom she had heard nothing, and she put the question without loss of time.

"Well," said Rensslaer, "it struck me as ironic that one of the few men who had conferred distinction on the sport of Trotting in England, should be expelled the Club, when so many undesirables remain to disgrace it, so I looked in at St. James's Place just now to tell him so."

Gay opened her lips to ask how he looked, then checked herself, but in reality Carlton was not in the least disgraced. Everyone knew how he had lost a race purposely that a pretty girl might win it, but he did blame himself for encouraging Gay in her fad, and still more for the weakness that had at all costs determined her girlish wish for the Gold Vase should be gratified.

He had done her as ill a turn as a man can do the woman he loves, but he felt justly, that Rensslaer was to blame for the scandal of Gay's driving herself, that the latter should have dissuaded her, and taken Brusher's place, and had not hesitated to tell him so when he appeared.

"We had a talk over his plans for the future," said Rensslaer, "and I strongly advised him to race his horses in Vienna and Paris, and offered him every assistance should he decide to do so. But he didn't seem keen on it—promised to think it over, and let me know. Said he was taking a short run abroad for the present—would probably do a cure at Aix."

A look of keen relief crossed Gay's face, and at that moment a servant entered with an express letter. While Gay, asking permission from Rensslaer, read it, he thought how almost incredible was the amount of wicked, even dishonest, things that a dear, pretty little girl, honest as the day, could make a man do, and how ungrateful she could prove herself for his doing them.

"He who bends to himself a joy,
Does the wingéd life destroy,
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise."

"For it's that Hannen boy she loves, and he her. I've watched her face—still, as he won't promise not to steeplechase, and she won't marry him if he doesn't, I don't see what's going to happen."

"You're quite right," she said, "Mr. Mackrell is off to-day, and will not have time to call here before he starts. I told my brother this morning that my horses will keep the engagements for which they are entered, but after that—" She hesitated, and looked at him anxiously.

"After that, Miss Gay," he said gravely, "don't enter them for any more. It's not a woman's game—at least, for one so womanly as you are—and you'll never do any good at it over here."

"Aren't those snapshots and sketches of me horrible?" said Gay in a whisper. "I'm looking forward with terror to the illustrated weeklies."

"It was a plucky idea, pluckily carried out," he said, "though Mackrell didn't mince his words to me just now—told me I ought to have prevented you and done the driving myself. But I don't think"—he smiled whimsically—"anything short of force majeure would have stopped you."

"Not even the devil," cried Gay, with sparkling eyes. "I sin with my eyes wide open, and I'd do it again this very minute."

"Why not?" he said equably. "As I said before, you must come over and drive for me in Vienna. I have won so many prizes there," he added quaintly, "that they don't like me to compete any more. Let me know the dates of any Meetings you have to attend, and no matter how far away I may be, I'll come back to escort you."

"Thank you," she cried, impulsively holding out both hands, and as he took them, the door opened, and Effie Bulteel came in.

When he had gone, and he went immediately, Effie flung her arms round Gay, and gave her a good hug.

"I don't care what Tom says, or how those horrid papers lampoon you," she cried, "it was awfully game of you, and I'd have loved to do it myself!"

"You're a trump!" cried Gay. "You see, the driver was tight, and I longed to do it, so when the opportunity came, I was like the teetotaler who joined the Blue Ribbon Army, because he thought it must be so delicious to be tempted—and to fall—and I fell!"

"Poor Carlton! But what a fool to be caught like that! Gay, if ever you want a thing done properly, get a knave to do it—"

"But I didn't want," cried Gay, "and as to that Gold Vase, it may be turned into a coal vase for all I care. He—he is going abroad at once—he has written to tell me so."

"Reculer pour mieux sauter," said Effie significantly. "Awfully good form of him, though, to clear out just now, instead of appearing like a tradesman with his bill made out, waiting for it to be paid, and a receipt given! And Chris out of the running, too! Poor Gay! You'll have to take the Trotting man after all."

"Only, even if I wished it, he won't take me," said Gay, and laughed at the epithet—Effie, like others, was still possessed of the entirely mistaken idea that Trotting was the be-all and end-all of Rensslaer's life, when in fact it was only one, and that by no means the greatest, of his hobbies.

"I don't believe in platonics, you know," said Effie drily, "and I intruded on quite an affecting little tableau just now. But now, Gay, what are you going to do? Tom says, of course, you'll drop it—the Trotting, I mean—

"I'd die sooner!" cried Gay, with flashing eyes. "Effie, if you've come here only to tell me that, then you are no real pal of mine. The least you can do is to stand by me, you and Tom—I can't attend the race Meetings alone, or with Lossie, who has been perfectly hateful to me."

"And Frank simply won't—besides, I don't want to be regarded as keeper to a lunatic. Failing you and Tom, I'll have to attend the meetings with Rensslaer or Min Toplady—or both! We don't want our friends when we are in the right, but to dig us out of holes that our own folly has let us into—though in spite of everything I'm glad, glad I drove yesterday!"

"But I don't think it goes far enough to make him attend, or consent to my appearing at, a Trotting Meeting. I believe he's really glad Carlton's warned off—a sort of being saved from the evil to come, you know."

"If the man I married, refused to perform an act of Christian charity for my greatest friend, I'd know the reason why, that's all," said Gay curtly.

Effie gasped. This was a new Gay, with whom she did not know how to reckon—evidently Trotting was spoiling her sweet temper....

"Didn't you say just now how you'd have liked to do what I did?" cried Gay in a rage, "and now you're jibbing at the consequences! I don't—I face them. And it's just a piece of snobbishness for Tom to turn up his nose at what is good enough for Rensslaer, and the very pick of American sportsmen!"

Gay's jibes had hit her hard, and she was wondering if it would be possible to persuade Tom...

Gay told her, and making a rapid calculation of dates and engagements, Effie exclaimed:

"There's no racing that day! Look here, Gay, I'll use every means of bribery and corruption to get Tom to drive us down—"

"Call it what you like. And if he does, we'll stick to you like burrs—anyone who cheapens you, takes on the three—"

"Thank you, Effie," said Gay quietly, but wishing all the same that her friend had done the right thing, without having the way pointed out to her so violently.

"Come out," cried Effie briskly—"come out and show yourself. My motor's at the door. Put on your smartest hat and clothes, and your best 'don't-care-a-damn' smile, and face the music."

Gay did, and by the time they had shopped in Bond Street, traversed Piccadilly twice, dropped in at Effie's club, and fooled round generally till lunch-time, then attended an At Home or two, winding up with tea at Rumpelmeyer's, it was the general opinion of those who saw her, that the person least ashamed of what she had done the preceding day, was Miss Gay Lawless.

CHAPTER XX

A TICKLISH MOMENT

Tom Bulteel, red-faced, blue-eyed, taciturn, with Gay beside, and his wife and Rensslaer behind him, tooled his bays down to the next Trotting Meeting, and tried to look as pleasant as the character of the big crowd and unwonted surroundings permitted. The attendance was a record one, the front of the track thronged with people, while the number of conveyances of all kinds, from waggonettes to nondescript traps, was altogether phenomenal, for it was the expectation of seeing Miss Lawless drive again, and also the possibility of Rensslaer doing so, that had brought down a strong contingent of the press. A multitude of snapshotters attended her every look and movement, those, however, who expected an Amazon, found a pretty, modest little girl, very quietly dressed, under the powerful ægis of the well-known Captain and Mrs. Bulteel, and the boisterous half-cheer of greeting from the Ring that broke forth at sight of her when the coach swept up, was somehow never finished.

Probably if Rensslaer had not been present at her recent new departure, and displayed such an obvious interest in her, no particular scandal would have attached to it, and Gay's driving herself been regarded merely as the bold freak of a free-and-easy young lady, who went in for a free-and-easy sport, and as such applauded. But his close attendance had focussed public attention upon her, inclining an eager trotting world to the belief that she had converted him to her views, and that shortly he would bring his enormous experience, superb driving, and splendid cattle to the sport, thereby giving it a tremendous leg-up. But in this also, as in Gay's case, they were disappointed, for neither then, nor at any subsequent time, did Rensslaer repeat his performance on the Gold Cup day.

Min Toplady was there, and greeted Gay with effusion when the latter went over to speak to her, but nervously, too, for those "snapping fiends," as she called them, who pursued Gay everywhere, more than ever brought home to Min the conviction that this Trotting business was a hideous mistake on the part of so young a girl, and that Gay's daring escapade had cheapened, and inflicted a distinct loss of prestige on her. Thanks, however, to the countenance afforded by Captain Bulteel and his wife, as they made a tour of the track, she was everywhere received with a silence that passed for respect, instead of the familiar badinage that Min dreaded, though if Gay appeared to notice nothing, she was really having a very bad quarter of an hour, and longing for it to be over.

Just before the second race, she and Rensslaer strolled quietly down to the rails to investigate the cause of a long delay, which was really owing to the drivers all jockeying for a good start, when the face of a little man in orange, driving a handsome pacer, suddenly became such a vivid study in emotions of fear, astonishment, and horror, as made Gay glance quickly at her companion for an explanation.

"It is only that he thought me in Paris," said Rensslaer drily, "so is driving my private sulky that I keep here for occasional use," and Gay's face changed as she thought of that delicious unlawful drive of hers, when Brusher Tugwood had, unknown to her, borrowed Rensslaer's wagon, and its owner by accident had seen her, and so a new and delightful friendship had come into her life.

Anyway, her mania had not been all loss—and then, as much against his will, owing to false starts, the guilty little man passed, and repassed them, a fresh expression on his face every time, and all intensely diverting, Gay laughed more heartily than she had done for days past.

"What will you do to him?" she inquired, wiping her eyes, when at last the horses had started, the lightness and grace of Rensslaer's wagon showing in favourable contrast to the clumsy make of the English ones, but he only shook his head; she knew well enough he would do nothing.

They leaned forward, watching the race, and soon it was apparent that a collision was inevitable, as the man in the orange jacket unfairly overhauled the leader; the next moment, the wheels of both sulkies locked, and the driver of the one "fouled," fell heavily on the track.

"Badly hurt, I'm afraid," said Rensslaer, and Gay turned pale as she saw through her glasses the faces of the crowd that had closed round the prostrate man. Almost at the same moment, a cheer rang out, for the driverless horse decided to race on his own account, pacing past in grand style, and going much better on his own, than when under control. It really was a remarkably pretty sight as he went round the course four times at the rate of 2.40 a mile, before he caught a wheel, and was easily stopped.

"There's nothing to beat it, really," exclaimed Gay with some of her old enthusiasm, for she honestly thought a trotter or pacer going his fastest, a far greater example of the poetry of motion than a racehorse. "But do go and find out if that poor fellow is very much hurt. It was a bad day for you when you came out, my little man," she remarked to herself as Rensslaer departed—"first to be caught, then to 'foul' and half-kill your rival"—for soon she saw a sad little procession winding away, and Rensslaer returned to tell her that the driver's injuries were very serious, and that he was on his way to a local hospital.

This damped Gay's spirits. She thought of Chris, began to think that she brought bad luck, and even her excellent prospects for the next race did not cheer her, though in the event her expectations were not justified.

The start was bad, and Gay's pacer went to a break, losing probably fifty yards. Miss Letty brought the field along for the first half at a merry gait, and Old Joker drew up to her, while Gay's horse was a long way behind. In the last quarter of a mile he stepped a terrific gait, and in spite of so much ground to make up, he looked to have a chance, but one hundred yards from the finish he went to a break, and Old Joker gained the verdict.

Winner's gait per mile, 2.20, as Gay saw by the stop-watch on her wrist that Rensslaer had secured for her (similar to those used by the judge and starters), which by pressure on a button, registers the exact number of seconds in which a race is won, also the time taken by the second horse.

Suddenly, as Gay watched her man place a cooler, with her monogram in the corner, over the horse and sulky, completely covering both, a great distaste, disgust even, for her surroundings seized her. All the bubbling joy that had attended her new pursuit right up to the time of winning the Gold Vase, was completely quenched in her, and Chris's indignant protests against Mackrell's encouraging her in so unsuitable a pursuit rang in her ears, as she moved about with Rensslaer, snapshotted here, stared out of countenance there, though with nothing worse than a tentative remark occasionally addressed to her by Trotting habitués, who regarded her probably as one of themselves.

"Better luck next time, miss," smirked one obviously public-house gentleman, but Rensslaer did not resent the freedom as Mackrell on her account would have clone. She had always been quick to note that he evinced no distaste when claimed in acquaintance by common persons in the crowd, who seemed to look up to him with almost supernatural admiration, and once again Gay admired the simplicity of the man, the entire absence of "side" that distinguished him, in whatever company he found himself.

Luncheon was taken on the coach, and Gay's second race, in which Maudie T. was successful, coming on soon after, it was comparatively early when Tom Bulteel headed his bays for town.

"Thank God that's over!" he thought with a sigh of relief, for disagreeable as the duty was, at least his presence, and that of his wife, had effectively saved Gay from overt impertinence, and the running fire of chaff to which only a coster-lady would have been equal in reply.

CHAPTER XXI

AUNT LAVINIA

Unhappy about Chris, worried at Carlton's self-expatriation, and deeply dissatisfied with her sporting experiment, Gay got into the way of going much oftener to the little South Street house than usual; she even accompanied Aunt Lavinia on some of her secret charitable errands, and found her own troubles recede to very trumpery affairs indeed, in the light of the real tragedy of the poor that underlies all, especially town life.

She began to question her right to waste money as she did on Trotting and otherwise, and her ambitions seemed puerile, even common, as contrasted with those of this dear little lady, who was always sowing as flowers in the King's garden, the loving thoughts, the helpful deeds, that unlike earthly flowers, would never fade. And as Lavinia was growing old, and time was short, she sowed as hard as she could, and unhappy, selfish people looking at her, always busy, always happy, wondered what her secret was—Lossie would never learn it, but Gay perhaps got some inkling in those visits to the poor, where her bright face and warm heart served her well.

It came as a great surprise to her to find that Chris, who in an unobtrusive way helped his less fortunate brothers of the pigskin far more than he could afford, assisted many poor people through Aunt Lavinia, and while she knew that racing men are proverbially generous, not to say princely, in their charities, she was greatly pleased at this new light on his character.

"Chris has the loveliest disposition, and the tenderest heart in the world, my dear—it's as big as an ox's," said Lavinia one day, when she and Gay were returning from a visit where they had poured sympathy into a bereaved creature's bleeding heart, and incidentally food and firing into her larder and cellar. "Carlton Mackrell hasn't—and it's such a pity, as he's so rich, and could help so much—but that's how it always is in this world, and always will be."

Gay turned her head aside to hide a blush of pleasure, for praise of Chris was very sweet to her—indeed, he was so constantly in her thoughts, that the merest shake brought his name to her lips.

"He's always doing something kind to somebody—except me," she said. "He knows it breaks my heart for him to ride, and he will do it."

"Poor boy," said Aunt Lavinia, and sighed, "he can't help it. That passion for horses is in the blood of his family. You can spill it if you like, but you can't get it out."

"But it's rough on other people," cried Gay. "Chris gets all the fun, and those who love him the sorrow."

"So you do love him, Gay?" said Aunt Lavinia, who for all her goodness had on occasion a most unsaintly twinkle in her eye, as at that moment.

"Auntie, who would love a man who keeps your heart in your mouth, and always—always in a drivelling state of terror that he'll be brought home to you in pieces, just alive in the biggest piece? I have a feeling that the mere thought that I expect him to have an accident every time, will bring about one! I'd rather be an old maid (I should never make a delightful one like you) and dry-nurse Heron for the rest of my life, than live in such a purgatory of hopes and fears."

"Well, Gay," said Aunt Lavinia, "he would die in the way he liked, wouldn't he? And real love consists, not in making others do what we like, but in wanting them to be happy, so long as it is in no disgraceful way, let us suffer what we may. I hate racing, as you know—but then I don't like your Trotting at all either, my dear"—and shook her head, Gay was on the wrong tack, but only going through the mill would set her on the right one.

Gay sighed. She had long ago found that Trotting, like marriage, "takes a lot of kidding," and the less she enjoyed it, the more she "kidded," but not to herself, being by now very sick of the fad that she had so light-heartedly taken up.

The horses themselves, the actual racing part, still appealed to her; she thought their action the prettiest possible sight, and never lost her pleasure in seeing them go—loved a close finish—it was the surroundings that disgusted her.

"Anyway, my fad is not dangerous to life—like Chris's," she said, then suddenly remembered the ugly fall she had witnessed from the tiny perch on Rensslaer's borrowed sulky, and the life-long injury to the back that ensued.

"Are you not both a little selfish, my dear?" said Lavinia. "Laddie, (her pet-name for Chris) won't give up his racing, nor you your trotting—but there is more reason in his asking the sacrifice from you, than your demanding it from him. His mother did not."

"Oh!" cried Gay passionately, "knowing what it must have cost her, how could he do it?"

"I believe there is a special Heaven to which good sons go," said Lavinia, softly putting the question by. "I don't say good mothers—that's natural—but to be a perfect son, and yet to be a man at all points—a man of the world even—like Chris—that's rare—rare and most beautiful."

Then Lavinia confided to Gay with a blush that the only reason she ever regretted not having married—and at times she regretted it intensely—was because she wanted a son—a son like Chris.

"Yes—if either of them could have any real friend but each other. They made the most delightful pair. Whenever you met them—and they were never apart except when he was racing—they were having no end of a good time, and cutting jokes together—what one said, the other thought, and it was always amusing. I remember her talking one day to Chris about something she would do 'when she was old and respectable,' and he said, 'you'll never be old, and you'll never be respectable,' and they both roared—it was a treat to see them together."

"Oh," cried Lavinia, "she was by no means perfect! 'Chris loves me for what I might have been—not for what I am,' she said to me one day. But cheer up, Gay, the dear boy will put on weight, and settle down quietly, and ride to hounds like any other country gentleman, once you are married."

But Gay could not see Chris jogging to hounds on a weight-carrier, and she worried a good deal in a quiet way. The world said there was nothing like taking up a man's pursuits to rub the bloom off a girl's face, and being so famous—or notorious—had by no means improved her.

Something of her snap and freshness had departed, and Min Toplady, who occasionally saw her at Meetings, observed with much concern that her young lady had grown thinner, quieter, that the radiant girl who had gone to Inigo Court with Chris, to applaud Carlton Mackrell when he won, had vanished, seemingly never to return. Min wished that gentleman would come home, persuade Gay to marry him, and settle down in the country as a sporting squire, with her for the Lady Bountiful that Nature had plainly cut her out to be. Of course Mr. Chris was a dangerous rival, but neither rich like the other, nor desirable as a husband, from the habit he had of risking his neck whenever he got a chance. And Min did not think Miss Gay would elect to live with her heart in her mouth for at least six months out of every year, so that the betting was at least even on Carlton Mackrell. Of course, that Miss Lossie was always waiting to cut in, and get the latter for herself, but, as Min vulgarly expressed it in her own mind, he wasn't taking any.

Fortunately the Professor did not worry Gay, for as if to make up for wasted time, and terrified of meeting Lossie, he had disappeared among his microscopes and tubes, and burrowed there. He seemed, as Gay expressed it, to be chewing the cud of ticklish experiments that wouldn't come off, and when he went down to see Chris, he did not offer to take her, nor did she propose to accompany him, for even while her heart yearned over the boy, she felt for him a curious anger, realising all that his love of steeplechasing cost her.

He also was having by no means a rosy time, either in body or mind, for by careful editing, she was made to furnish spicy tit-bits to the newspapers, and he raged at the accident that had put him out of the running in more ways than one, just when Gay had never so badly wanted all her friends.

Brusher Tugwood's disgust at Carlton Mackrell's expulsion had been deep and bitter. He always persisted in it that private spite was at the bottom of the affair, that his master had been too successful in beating the public-house pacers, and he also resented Gay's lukewarm interest in the sport she had taken up so keenly, and blamed her for not interesting Rensslaer in it to some practical purpose.

But now, to all lovers of horses, a new topic had arisen. There had begun to loom up in the public view, a forthcoming International Horse Show at Olympia, that was to eclipse anything of the kind ever before seen in England.

At first women took but a languid interest in it, and if anyone had predicted that all London would literally besiege the historic hall to catch a glimpse of the wonderful arena, and the brilliant equine contests conducted therein, he would have been laughed out of court. But when a whisper flew round that it was to be the big social event of the season, that the King and Queen were going, and it would be a place for one's very smartest frock and hat, also that at least six millionaires had entered the pick of their studs, and over two thousand entries were already made, public attention awoke; everywhere horses, and the sumptuous surroundings they were to have, became the principal topic of conversation.

It seemed that although Great Britain had all the time been the premier horse-breeding country of the world, it was only now that Englishmen in general had awakened to the fact—strange in a horse-breeding nation, that had for one and a half centuries, prided itself upon its devotion to, and its pre-eminence in, this all-important matter!

It was a surprise to Gay to find that Rensslaer took so much interest in it, for she knew him to be a rather severe critic of horse shows in general (he excepted shows such as Richmond, etc.), his criticisms being based on firm foundations, but she quickly discovered how completely his heart was in it, when he discussed animatedly with her the scope of the idea.

"You see," he said, "in England hitherto a horse show has been designed solely for horsey people—for those who desire to buy and sell; the scene is gloomy, and in consequence the spectators consist almost entirely of men, only the horsiest women attending them."

"I know," said Gay, making a little face, for she had attended one with enthusiastic Chris—to her sorrow.

"The curious thing is," went on Rensslaer, "that though horse shows undoubtedly originated in England, starting with classes for young breeding stock at the agricultural shows as early as 1840, the development of this idea is undoubtedly due to a book—Mr. Samuel Sidney's 'Book of the Horse.' From that time the movement spread in Europe, America, and the Colonies, and the International view was taken up by foreign supporters of horse shows, who held them in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, The Hague, Chicago, and New York."

"Especially New York," said Gay. "Is it true that the Madison Square Gardens Horse Show sets the American fashion for the year?"

"Yes—the public goes to view the show, but the show that it views is in the boxes, not the ring. The horses? Oh! there are some very fine horses shown, and the papers devote a quarter of a column or so to describing them. But it's a good thing all the same."

"It's time we 'bucked up,' for England was dropping behind a bit," said Gay confidentially. "But what can you expect with Free Trade, and the present Government?"

"She won't be behind this time. No such show will ever have been held in England. The great point is, that the thing has been so conceived that the most unintelligent mind on horsey affairs may be thoroughly interested. In those details where every other horse show usually bores, because of tedious routine, this one will appeal to the expert, and non-expert, and if you'll contrast jumps made of real turf, with the way other shows are done, with bare boards and dirty hurdles as the enclosure of the ring, you'll see the improvement. Then the natural disappointment among foreign visitors that there are no English gentlemen of the same class to ride against, is being met—no grooms will be seen in the ring, and a great effort is being made to get English officers themselves to ride."

"Of course it is a move in the right direction that gentlemen in appropriate costume should ride the jumpers, and not dirty stable-boys in hobnailed boots," said Gay, thinking of how Chris would have loved to ride, and how delightful he would have looked.

"It's astonishing how much better a gentleman sits, and in how much better form he rides," said Rensslaer, "so that the moment he commences riding, you can tell he is one."

"We hope to have picked out the best features of every International Horse Show," said Rensslaer. "The system of having appointment classes, will spare the public the ugly sight of seeing horses driven in quite inappropriate carriages, such as a fat hackney in an American speed wagon, and so on, thus a great impetus will be given to the carriage trade. Then there will be the ladies' 'George the Fourth' phaeton class, a low two-horse carriage with a seat for a servant behind, which is the proper carriage for ladies driving, instead of a high dogcart, or any two-wheeled carriage, which is only fit for a publican's wife out on a bank holiday."

"There is no doubt," he said, "that the show will do good, not only by welding the forces of breeders, exhibitors, and dealers together, but also by encouraging the breeding of the best type of the English horse, and thus help to remove one of the most serious objections to automobilism—the fear that it will result in the ultimate extinction of the horse. It will be the finest display of horse-flesh and of horsemanship that has ever been seen on so gigantic a scale in England, or perhaps even in the world."

"Well," said Rensslaer, "though the competition of America and the Continent will be strong, and meet with a certain amount of success, I think the English exhibitors will hold their own, and from whatever country the winners come, it is always the English strain that wins, though the fact is possibly more obvious to the foreigner than to ourselves. I want you and the Professor to come to Elsinore one day, and see what I am sending—"

But Gay declared this to be impossible; her brother had completely withdrawn into his scientific shell, and to dislodge him was impossible. Besides, Rensslaer had delayed so long in inviting them, a little to her surprise, that now she felt in no particular hurry to go, and he did not press the point. It was only later that she discovered in his apparent inhospitality, but another instance of Rensslaer's fine tact, how it was not until he knew her to be finally disgusted with Trotting as a sport, that he showed her the real thing, the game as it should be played, such Trotters as she had never dreamed of.

It would be hard to say why Rensslaer, in whose life women had no place, (though he had his own romance hidden away, as Gay had always suspected), took so much interest in the girl, gave her so much precious time, when in his many-sided life, and the multiplicity and engrossing interest of his hobbies, he had none to spare for his old friends, much less for society, which he despised.

But he liked her sporting spirit when first he saw her at Inigo Court, pitied her for the disillusion that her Trotting passion was bound to bring her, admired her pluck when things went wrong, found her true-hearted, honest and kind, therefore after his own heart.

Yet when he went presently away, he somewhat sadly thought of the careless, happy girl, enthusing about her Trotters, whom he had found on his first visit. Unconsciously he murmured to himself:

"Give her back her youth again,
Let her be as she was then!
Let her wave her little hand
With its gesture of command...."

Yes, even the lightest bruise on youth, splendid, unbroken, unconscious even in its selfishness, was a pity.

CHAPTER XXII

KING OF THE ROAD

Lossie, waiting in the tiny blue dining-room in South Street for Gay to fetch her, glanced round at the blue walls, the old copper prints, the bits of old Nankin, at the flowers on the table, blue also, and looking in the glass at those bluer flowers in her own head, felt a sudden nostalgia, a longing to have Carlton Mackrell beside her in her own milieu. It is what a woman in love always wants, and everyday her pain at the deprivation of Carlton's society became sharper, for there is no greater spendthrift in love than the selfish woman who has the full intention, bien entendu, of getting her own back, in one form or another.

Turning to the window, she saw Gay drive up, and cheerily wave her whip to her—that was the disgusting thing about Gay, that whether really happy, or only pretending, she always pluckily tried to live up to her name, thought Lossie, as she went out, pretending to herself that she was a mere cat's-paw, to be used or ignored by Gay as occasion served, but really glad of the opportunity of displaying her lovely clothes.

"Aunt Lavinia's slumming," said Lossie, in reply to the other's query, as she climbed to her perch. "Why don't you start a motor?" she grumbled. "This Ralli car is so selfish—you can't give your friends any sort of a time with it, or take them any distance. Nowadays one must either motor or be motored—and I prefer to do the motoring myself."

"Thank you," replied Gay with spirit, "I'm like Roosevelt—when someone asked him the other day when he was going to buy a motor-car, he said not while there were horses! I think it's just splendid," she added warmly, "for the Americans to come over here, and revive our rapidly waning interest in horses, and if some of our English millionaires spent their money in the same way, then so much the better would it be for horses, and for us! The horse is our friend even more than the dog, and I'd like to see him kept for enjoyment, not degraded to rough street work—that's where the motor-car should come in!"

Lossie did not trouble to argue the point, she was better occupied in watching the effect of her beauty on the passers-by, and certainly the despised Ralli was very smartly turned out, as usual. The occasion, too, was pleasant, for they were on their way to see Mr. Vanderbilt's coach start from the Berkeley Hotel on its trial trip to Brighton, hence Gay's delight at the fillip given to coaching.

"You don't seem to have troubled much about your Trotters lately," said Lossie presently as they turned into Berkeley Square. "Yet here is poor Carlton hounded out of England, treated like any low welsher, because you fancied a wretched Gold Vase! I wonder you dare show your face at the Meetings as you do!"

"I shouldn't," said Gay with spirit, "if I had a face as sour as yours is at this moment! Really, Lossie, when I look at you, I feel thankful I wasn't born a beauty—it makes you leave everything else—manners, good temper, such lots of nice things, to chance, and the odds are forty to one!"

"Oh, we can't all be a dear, artless little thing, truckling to men's brutal prejudices—one reason you are so popular with them is, because you pretend you don't want women to have the vote!" cried Lossie.

"Nor do I!" cried Gay warmly. "I consider an excited, shrieking crowd of sober women clamouring for their rights, more indecent than a crowd of men drunk who don't clamour, and when it comes to slapping policemen's faces, padlocking themselves to railings, and rolling in gutters, it makes me ashamed of wearing a petticoat!"

"Brains never were your strong point, Gay," said Lossie comfortably, and Gay emphatically thanked Heaven they were not.

"The most rabid shrieker of them all would become mild as milk, if her own little baby were put in her arms, and she had her own man to love her," declared Gay. "And as there aren't enough men to go round, why don't the women emigrate, and fulfil themselves somewhere else?"

"All women are not so primitive as you are," said Lossie, sneering, unaware that it was the capacity to feel love as well as evoke it, that made much of Gay's charm; at the back of all her follies was a heart of gold, while a cherry stone represented Lossie's own assets in that particular, save where Carlton was concerned.

But there was no time for further argument, for they found themselves jammed in the midst of a crowd delighted at the recrudescence of the horse, with his grace, beauty, speed, and spirit, just as ten years ago a similar crowd had assembled to see start for the same destination, that marvel of power and ingenuity which was expected to displace him—the motor-car.

The glorious days of the "Old Times" coach seemed to be revived when, drawn by four beautiful greys, their manes braided with red and white ribbons, their heads decked with red and white camelias, a clean-shaven, eager-faced young man, with keen dark eyes, the correct blackness of whose attire was broken by his large red and white buttonhole, brought his coach up with a flourish, and followed by shouts and cheers and many cries of "Good luck," shortly sent it on its way.

Smarter than ever in his tightly-fitting coat, showing the neatly-folded four-in-hand tie, and segment of scarlet gold-buttoned waistcoat, Godden sprang from the leaders' heads, and climbing to his place, blew a cheery blast upon his coach-horn. And then began the American's triumph, for he could not have driven a hundred yards before he found the reward of his enterprise in the way the people, whether on foot or awheel, recognised, and gave way to him as king of the road.

Immediately the way was clear, and at a spanking trot, the coach went bowling along, every horse-drawn or motor-driven vehicle, effacing itself in honour of the fine team. The crowd's eyes sparkled with pleasure and welcome at the sight, policemen saluted, women fluttered their handkerchiefs, men cheered, the while Godden cheerfully chirruped a return of their welcome and good wishes, but of all the people in the streets, those to whom the sight of the splendid horses gave the most joy, were the cabbies, who took off their hats to a man, and waved them with ecstatic delight, shouting themselves hoarse, and nearly falling off their boxes in the process.

It was a royal progress from start to finish—from the time the greys, that had not turned a hair, were changed, and four browns substituted, to the mixed team of two chestnut wheelers, black near leader, and grey on the off lead, that in turn gave way to one of perfectly matched black-browns. At every stage there was a big crowd, till at Brighton it ended in an extraordinary demonstration of enthusiasm, and through dense, cheering masses that only left a narrow lane for the coach's passage, the Metropole was reached.

Blocked in the crowd, Gay inclined an eager ear to the cheers that ran down Piccadilly. She would have loved to go all the way ... her thoughts swerved sharply to racing, which was dangerous, wicked even—did not the poor horses often break their hearts, either dying on the course, or quietly after the race in their stables?

And Trotting was apparently disgraceful (in England), but to drive a coach with such horses as she had just seen—why, that would be at once heavenly and right, thought Gay, as she listened to the echoes, and tried to imagine herself handling the ribbons of the Vanderbilt coach.

She longed for someone congenial to talk with, and as if in answer to her wish, Rensslaer, ducking under the horses' heads, suddenly appeared at her elbow, and Gay's enthusiasm boiled over.

"Even if it is only a passing excitement for a man to whose great wealth the newest crazes and the most costly distractions are mere commonplaces," she said, "anyway its a more noble one than any of the other American millionaires have thought of, and Mr. Vanderbilt deserves all the credit as a true sportsman that is already his, or I'm much mistaken."

"Aren't you rather hard on millionaires," he said, "almost as hard as your favourite Roosevelt, who has a healthy hatred for the multi-millionaire,—says he is worse than a demagogue? He quotes some chap who declares that the multi's face has grown hard, while his body has grown soft, that his son is a fool, and his daughter a foreign princess, and his nominal pleasures at the best those of tasteless and extravagant luxury, but whose real delight, and real life-work, are the accumulation and use of power in the most sordid, and least elevating form!"

"Out of breath, aren't you?" said Gay. "Well, thank Heaven you're not a multi"—not knowing that Rensslaer was—"at least he would admit that you are doing good work with this wonderful Horse Show."

"By the way, I heard from Mr. Mackrell yesterday," said Rensslaer. "He is coming over for it."

Gay, looking between her horse's ears, waiting for the uplifted hand of the constable to fall, and release the traffic, turned pale. There are some debts of honour more binding than the friend's I.O.U. that is never presented, and Gay felt that Carlton's was one of them—a queer prophetic instinct told her that this Horse Show was to be the turning point of her life.

"I was glad to find Mr. Hannen so much better when I went to see him yesterday," went on Rensslaer. "He told me he hoped to be well enough to call on you next week"—here he ducked, and disappeared as the policeman's hand fell, but Lossie, whose ears were quick, was in the seventh heaven of delight.

Carlton was coming back; Chris, whose absence and misfortune had melted Gay's heart, thinned her body, and almost quenched her bloom, was appearing once more on the scene—everything promised well.

CHAPTER XXIII

AT ELSINORE

After all, it was chance that dictated Gay should go to Elsinore, or rather the accident of Rensslaer's having cut in just before the Professor, and obtained a certain rare edition that the latter greatly coveted. He would cheerfully have started for Kamschatka to read or borrow it; Elsinore was nearer, and when Gay mentioned the invitation, he jumped at it, and went.

So one fine morning in May found brother and sister in the train, and Rensslaer waited for them at the station with a pair of magnificent Trotting horses, harnessed to a light road wagon of hickory wood and steel. Inviting Gay to share the very small seat with him, he pointed out, to the Professor's intense relief, a sober open carriage for the latter's use.

"Take care, Gay," Frank cried quaveringly after her, as she squeezed in beside Rensslaer, and the next moment, her host's hands twisted into the loops of the reins, they were sweeping through the silent streets, and out on to the open road, the air whistling in their ears, the dust striking Gay's eyes and cheeks like pellets, the country almost indistinguishable as they flew past, and the sensation so thrilling that she surrendered herself to it in complete enjoyment.

Smoothly as a sleigh on snow, rode the frail vehicle of less than a hundred pounds, and record-makers both, were the powerful steeds that guided by the imperturbable driver with arms outstretched, swift as the wind, swept up hill and down dale, only once beaten by a motor that was afterwards overtaken, and then Rensslaer eased his steeds, remarking that they had covered five miles in twelve minutes.

By then they were in his park, and the horses went more quietly, so that Gay had leisure to observe the sylvan beauty of the landscape surrounding Elsinore, to notice the herds of deer visible in every direction, and also his Indian fighting cocks, who roamed his fields in intermittent warfare with the old English game. Somehow Gay felt that all were sharers in that instinct of friendliness which seemed to inspire his relations, not only with all his dumb retainers, but with his fellow-humans as well.

Original in his house as in everything else, Elsinore was an extended copy of a Russian peasant's cottage. Made of logs, with a great deal of carving in wood, and a big Russian stove in each room, the furniture was covered with linen, embroidered in blue and red by Russian peasants, the tiles of the stoves being incised in dark blue, red, emerald green, and gold with white, in true peasant style.

Simplicity was evidently his rule of life, but one room was filled to the ceiling with books, and to this the Professor naturally gravitated on his arrival. Leaving him perfectly happy among those rare editions of which at odd times Rensslaer was an inveterate collector, Gay and her host sauntered through the quaint house, singularly modest for the far-spreading park surrounding it, but containing many trophies of his skill, and to her utter astonishment, in other realms than that of sport.

The cases full of gold and silver medals, of stars and decorations, interested her very little, nor did Rensslaer trouble to explain that none of those prizes were for horses, but for a domain in which he stood alone as champion of the world. But she came to a full stop before the figure, raised on a pedestal, of a girl with strange barbaric head-dress above her sweet face, hands folded on breast, and the drapery a little blown away from the exquisite line of back and hips, and "Exhibited Allied Artists, 190-" written below.

"That's La Russie," he said. "The colouring and tinting are an exact reproduction of the actual dress and jewels."

"It's beautiful," said Gay, to whom the colouring mattered nothing but the idea was everything, and reluctantly she tore herself away to look at an Indian Chief in all his war paint, and modelled in silver, on a table hard by.

From the summit of his brow, and outlining his haughty back, his feathers made a regal silhouette that extended beyond his horse's tail, and the contrast of his grim impassivity, and icy air of detachment, with the horse's eagerness as it strained forward was marvellously rendered, making Gay declare that the horse was a dear, and that whoever did that, must love horses.

The same remark applied to a model of Ascetics Silver, winner of the Grand National 1906, his ribs plainly showing, his upward, proudly-soaring eye, dilated nostrils, and the veins standing out on his face and body, drawing from her a cry of delight. Beneath was written, "Exhibited Paris Society Animal Painters," and the name of the sculptor made the girl jump.

"And here is my Little Mermaid," said Rensslaer, and Gay knew that what she saw before her was dear to him.

"What a darling!" she exclaimed, and indeed it was a sweet little body, with childish, startled eyes, and hands impulsively put up to her cheeks. One could see the grief and horror in the poor little thing's face—for of course she was watching her beautiful human prince being married, and the tears seemed to be just coming.

It was a wonderful piece of work, and threw a new light on Rensslaer's character. Gay realised vividly how strong the love of beauty was in him, how great the power that enabled him to create it, how profoundly some human experience must have wrought in his mind to produce such results.

She was silent, shy even, as he showed her the picture of his grandfather, who had written a wonderful book on religion that had estranged him from his family, and that the Professor was even at that moment handling reverently in the library.

"And this is my great-great-great-grandfather," said Rensslaer as they turned from the inspired head, the tremendous intellectual force of the author, to an obvious Dutchman of quite another type, but just as remarkable.

"He was a famous Dutch painter—our present name is an ugly corruption of his. We can't help it," said Rensslaer whimsically, "we must all follow art in one form or another—" And this was the man who, by the irony of circumstance, was by the multitude supposed to regard fast Trotting as the be-all and end-all of life! Gay blushed to think of his amusement when she at first regarded him in the same light—it was perhaps to correct this impression that he had invited her here, but no, he was too modest, too sincere for that.

"I've never wanted to be a man till I knew you," said Gay a little enviously; "you turn perpetually from one thing to another, and there can be no dull moment in your existence."

Was there not? Across his brown eyes came a shadow that gave the lie to her words, and once again Gay wondered what the secret romance of his life was, this man whose ideals of beauty were of the highest, as his capacity for interpreting them, a conjunction that is very rare.

They were looking at an extraordinary collection of pistols of which Rensslaer merely pointed out the exquisite workmanship, and it had just occurred to her that she had heard somewhere that he was a fine shot, when a servant came to announce luncheon, and on looking for the Professor, they found him where they had left him. He had merely moved entranced from book to book that he had long coveted, and one rare edition had almost, as Frank confessed, slid into his coat-tail pocket, so that when Rensslaer asked him to accept it, his joy knew no bounds.

Yet, after all, Rensslaer's heart was in his horses, not books, as Gay discovered, when after luncheon, followed by the Italian greyhound that adored and never willingly left him, they walked towards the racing track, on the inside of which was turf smooth as a billiard-table, and surrounding it in the distance, a great belt of glorious trees.

Gay glanced round eagerly; there was no sign of a horse anywhere, no stables within sight or hearing, only a peaceful sylvan landscape. Perfect quiet prevailed as Rensslaer explained to her that his Trotters were practised, not on the track, but on grass, if they were to be shown where the ring is of grass, as otherwise a trotter would be apt to break.

"This grass is kept mown very short, and the turns are purposely not banked up," said Rensslaer, "as they never are at English horse shows, and the horses have to get used to it. I shoe my horses with spikes when showing, so that they shall not slip up, and have strong wheels made for my speed wagons, as the strain on unbanked-up turns, is apt to buckle a very light wheel, which is quite safe on turns that are banked-up.

He then showed her that on the half-mile track there were quarter-mile posts, and also eighth of a mile posts at the ends of the "straights"; the track was two "straights," of an eighth, and two turns of an eighth of a mile at each end.

"A horse's utmost speed for an eighth can thus be tested," said Rensslaer. "It is never advisable to put a horse at his utmost limit for more than an eighth."

Excusing himself for a brief minute, Gay next saw him in enormous goggles, bunched up on a slender sulky weighing about twenty-eight pounds, swinging round curves behind a Trotter that did half a mile in about a minute or so, and yet never broke into a gallop, and Gay realised that not so much in his Trotters themselves, as in the masterly driving of them, Rensslaer's pleasure consisted. He held his arms differently—he drove differently to anyone she had seen before, in its essence his was the same deep joy that Chris found in the riding at which he excelled.

Her heart warmed to him as she thought of how he had spared her the humiliation of knowing that Mackrell and she had been playing at a bad make-believe all the time, that the difference between their horses and Rensslaer's was, that his had quality, shape, and soundness—they looked like well-bred chargers, carried themselves with perfect balance, their hind legs well under them, stopping at a word without any pulling or fighting, and when the mile was finished, standing quite still. The sort of horse to which she and Carlton were accustomed, were mostly unsound old screws which had a fast record in America many years before, but having broken down, or being otherwise cheap, had been bought and patched up, then raced in England.

At first they had horrified Gay, these poor old raw-boned pacers with bent knees and hobbles, pulling all on one rein, with any amount of appliances to enable the man who was pulling for dear life to be able to hold them, or else little rats of Iceland ponies shuffling along, and only fit to be seen in a coster's barrow.

"And to think," cried Gay, in tragic tones, "that Carlton and I fancied ourselves—our trotters, I mean!"

"Of course," said Rensslaer, "although speed is the first essential, I will have no horse which is not absolutely sound, has not good manners, and does not have to wear boots (except as a precaution against accident when racing), and a light mouth."

Gay nodded. She had for the first time discovered how deceptive the long, raking stride of a record trotter is, for without appearing to move fast, he is yet making phenomenal time on the track, as drawing the light, four-wheeled racing wagon with rubber-tyred bicycle wheels, he glides smoothly along.

Then one by one, or in pairs, the finest animals in the stables were shown. Yet with so little effort did horse after horse, team after team, draw up under the trees in the background, and succeed each other, that they only blended with the beauty of the landscape, did not disturb it, and Gay presently gave a great sigh of delight.

"Oh," she said, "it's too much! I'd like the whole world to enjoy it—it's too good for poor little me!"

It was a lovely day, with zephyr breezes—the great charm of it all was, that there was nothing to suggest the circus or show ring, no crowd, no betting, no shouting hoarse voices to break the peace, only splendid animals full of fire, energy, and work, who were just going at their best for sheer joy in life, joy in their own swiftness, strength and beauty, delighted to run their race with the green sward underfoot, and the blue sky overhead.

Rensslaer had made her free of a new and glorious world—the world of horses, Chris's world. She longed for him to be there also, for though she keenly appreciated the daintiness of these thoroughbreds, their delicate legs and feet, the sheen of their satin coats, their perfection of grace and movement, she yet felt that she was not sufficiently a connoisseur to give to every point its full value, as Chris would so well have known how to do.

"Getting ready for Olympia," said Rensslaer, as a thoroughbred galloper was harnessed in a jogging cart, and accompanied the trotters at a hard gallop, often being put to his utmost stretch to keep up with them, after which Rensslaer showed her several "eighths" in 15 seconds, a two-minute speed for a mile.

"Just fancy if that dare-devil and Chris got together!" whispered Gay when there rode out from beneath the trees a superb horseman, young, cool as a cucumber, who, riding the centre horse, holding the two outside ones, put them at an obstacle that they cleared like birds.

"He has broken every bone in his body," said Rensslaer grimly; "the last time the doctor said it was his back, but he wouldn't admit it—and here he is, you see!"

The boy gave them a taste of his quality when presently his horse twice swerved aside from the jump, an American runabout luggage wagon, but cleared it the third time—and once more Gay thought of Chris, for the two men were alike in not knowing what fear was. The resemblance between the two physically, struck her at once—each was tall, and lean to a fault, each had the same dash and devilry, the same indomitable pluck, each took an "outing" as part of the day's sport, and with the fixed purpose to go on doing and daring, and as by a miracle each had hitherto escaped the clutching hand of death, and flown beyond its reach.

And yet—and yet, as Chris said, could one die better? She recalled Robert Louis Stevenson's query, "And does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas?"

Those two magnificent horsemen, Whyte Melville and Hughie Owen, went out at the sport that they loved, and save for those whom they loved, would they have wished to go any differently?

"I'm very proud of my jumpers," said Rensslaer, who was a keen hunting man, getting in his six days a week during the winter. "That horse"—he pointed one out—"was parted with by his former owner because he could not jump, and since then, he has cleared six feet ten inches high, and once a seven-feet jump. But the Belgians will win the high-jumping competition at Olympia—Belgian officers easily out-jump the world,"—and he related some notable feats of theirs, remarking with great approval that they govern their horses by kindness. "As you do," thought Gay.

"That," said Rensslaer, as the handsome rider of a beautiful roan gelding made his horse dance, and paw, and prance with extraordinary perfection, in all the tricks of the Haute École, "is the best show rider in Europe."

And so the "private view" went on, it was all quite effortless, and apparently so unpremeditated, then presently, as she and Rensslaer quietly chatted, Gay felt the peace accentuated, and glanced around. They had the wide, lovely park to themselves; the distant trees, beneath which had emerged the pick of the world's equine beauty, threw long shadows on the sward only, and Rensslaer, glancing at his watch, remarked that the Professor would think they were lost.

"Poor fellow! What he has missed!" said Gay, while Frank, wrapped in ecstasy, was oblivious of time and place, of everything but having the run of a treasure-house to which eternity itself could not enable him to do full justice.

Rensslaer showed her the polo ground, and part of the steeplechase course, two miles long, then proposed a visit to the stables that were so completely invisible from the park or house. But now he turned sharply to the side of the latter, and by a steep, winding path concealed among trees, they emerged on the great quadrangle.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN EQUINE PARADISE

In striking contrast to the simplicity of Rensslaer's house was the vastness of these outdoor belongings, where was celebrated the cult, the worship, the very apotheosis of the horse, and yet the atmosphere was one of rest; the sunlight slanted through the green boughs that overhung the wall, the water sparkled in the centre, there were no signs of hurry, and but few visible of the small army that served the beauties in their stalls and loose boxes. There must be magnificent organisation here, thought Gay, as she noted the noiseless, perfect machinery—when a man was wanted, he sprang up, when not wanted, was not to be seen, and without raising his voice, Rensslaer's orders were implicitly obeyed—even for the "show" arranged that afternoon he had merely dropped a few words to his stud groom, and the thing had gone by itself.

As she moved from horse to horse, each with his famous name on the wall above, and below, a print of one equally famous, and in the centre, a superb medallion in marble of a famous trotter going at full speed, Gay admired the way they just turned their heads to look quietly at her, like the true aristocrats that they were. But Rensslaer was another matter—they knew him even better than he knew them, and manifested the most lively pleasure when he called each by name.

"Look out!" he exclaimed, as Gay approached a veteran of twenty-one years old, who was only retired for old age, after racing till he was nine, getting a record at 2.15, and then being driven constantly hard on the road till two years ago. "He won't let anyone but me go near him," explained his owner, "he bites everyone else. Each of these horses has worn out five or six of the English carriage horses that did not have nearly so hard a life"—and he explained that the American horse can do the work of two hackneys, his legs being as hard as iron.

Amongst the old pensioners, (as their master had never sold a horse that had done him good service) he showed Joe W., a horse seventeen hands two inches high, who was nineteen years old. He had driven him on the road twelve years, had raced, and only now retired him because he was getting old, though his legs were still perfectly sound and he had never been lame, except once from an overreach in a race. He had not been coddled, but whenever he was driven on the road, was pelted along at twenty miles an hour, however hard that road might be.

Only the pick of the horses were stabled there—about sixty were at a place too far off for Gay to visit, and she got bewildered when she found that the stable sheltered scores of horses collected from all points of the compass—English hackneys, American, Russian, and Austrian trotters, polo ponies, hunters, exhibition leaping horses, and harness ponies, but Rensslaer did not go in much for steeplechasing, and for what was done, the boy who had ridden just now, was responsible.

Gay sighed. What a little heaven to Chris, and what would not he and that other boy do—a pair of dare-devils—if pitted against each other! She dreaded, while she longed for him to know such bliss, and herein lay her inconsistency—that she herself loved horses, was happiest near them, yet would put a limit to Chris's far greater passion, as if it were to be measured by rule of thumb!

It was in this spirit that she asked Rensslaer to get him down later, but on no account to let him and the other boy meet, and Rensslaer laughed, and promised. He had already decided on making Chris a certain offer, and had great hopes that he might accept it.

Resuming their progress, he explained to Gay that his horses did one thing only—the trotters only trotted, the jumpers only jumped, and the horses went through special courses of medicine, and special courses of food on a strict system. To train a horse so that he shall be both heavy and fit, requires a refinement of training to which only the Americans have attained, and at Elsinore the most elaborate system of discipline was carried out, but in a kindly spirit, and the horse prepared for the life he had to lead. He took her off to the breeding paddocks, that had a lot of both American ex-champion trotting and "Pace and Action" mares, and also prize hackney mares, all with foals by trotters and hackneys, his idea being to breed, besides racing trotters, for racing on the Continent, show horses which should have more speed and quality than the hackney, whilst retaining their action, and to this end he crossed the American trotter with the hackney.

"If my attempts to improve the English hackney by giving him some of the pace and action of the fast trotting horse should be crowned with success, I shall be satisfied," he told Gay, and he pointed out a foal that looked like a thoroughbred, and moved like a trotter with hackney action. In fact, most of these cross-bred foals looked the ideal carriage horse—good whole colours, great quality, long necks, very high action, great speed, and perfect manners, and there was never any difficulty in breaking them. Then came an inspection of the racing sulkies, which had an extra low seat so as to come round the turns better; then there were the long-shaft sulkies for a horse who has high action, and makes the ordinary sulky bob up and down, the jogging carts for exercising in, and the four-wheeled, single-seated racing wagons, called speed wagons, used by gentlemen driving in the States for Matinée or Amateur Trotting races. This obviates the necessity of spreading the legs apart on each side of the horse, and for some horses this does not diminish their speed, in fact they can go faster in a wagon than in a sulky, in spite of the extra weight, as it runs smoother, and does not hamper them.

Rensslaer next took Gay to the outdoor training school, which is specially designed for the education of jumpers, on the inner side of which was a platform from which the attendants controlled them, and she watched them run loose on the track, jumping heavy tree trunks, fences, and other obstacles, and if they failed in their riderless freedom to clear them, they gained experience in the tumble that ensued, which served them well later.

She was shown how a horse is made familiar with the trials and the terrors of the road, and is taught to understand them. A machine that makes a noise like a score of motors all going at once, convinces the animal that the hateful thing means no danger to him, and quick to take a hint as his nature is, he approaches with confidence and freedom the tasks he has to face in his curriculum, and is soon well-equipped to face the emergencies of his career.

Then followed an extraordinary exhibition of skill in which Rensslaer was evidently keenly interested, that consisted in the lassoing of a supposed vicious horse by long reins held in the hands of the Haute École rider, so that he is brought first to one knee, and then another, and rendered helpless, and the lesson taught him that force is of no avail against brains and cunning.

Gay sighed when at last they left the great quadrangle, steeped in the peace of the evening hour, and visited the yard where choice Belgian griffons and Pomeranians yelped in ecstatic chorus when Rensslaer approached their kennels—yet much as Gay loved dogs, she could not admire them like the beauties she had just left. Moreover, it was growing late, and they entered the house.

When she had dug out the Professor, still dead to the world, and asking nothing better than to remain dead, they had tea, and departed.

"Really a most remarkable individual, my dear," said the Professor, for a man who could do all the varied things his host could, and yet have the brains and taste to collect such books as the Professor had been gloating over, was not to be met above once in a lifetime. "In his case, success is not due to his wealth."

"In spite of it, you mean!" cried Gay. "If it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, it's a million times more difficult for him to live his own life, act up to his ideals, and fulfil the genius that is in him. The world won't let him as a rule."

"And to think that such a man as that should keep Trotters!" said the Professor, who, if he thought at all of what Gay had been doing that glorious June afternoon, concluded that she had enthused over something a trifle better than the weedy specimens he had seen at Waterloo Park.

But Gay sat very still, thinking. She had found herself admitted to a paradise hitherto undreamed of; it was as if, seeking a single diamond, she had found a Golconda, and something of Chris's passion for horses had been breathed into her ... they were so much, much more beautiful than humans, more clever even in some respects ... with one-half of her soul she worshipped, with the other half feared them, as the real rivals to her happiness.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TUG-OF-WAR

Chris looked very white and thin, but just as smart as ever, and completely unsubdued in spirit and intention, when he called in Connaught Square one afternoon late in May, and found Gay in.

She looks prettier than ever, he thought, if less rounded than of yore, and if he had expressed sorrow at causing her so much pain, Gay's tender heart would instantly have melted, but for all his delight at seeing her, his evident determination to treat his accident as a trifle not worth talking about, put her back up to begin with. And when he unblushingly asked her to condole with him on the number of good things he had missed, and roundly abused the Professor and his understudy, for refusing him permission to ride with an arm strapped to his side, Gay's patience gave way utterly, and the first little rift within the lute made itself known.

Poor Chris felt that coldness in the air, but had not the key to the puzzle, and he could not make Gay out. Instead of the jolly little girl, eager to hear all about his stable, to discuss his horses, his hopes and future chances, to buck him up as she had so often done when things went wrong, she did not seem to have a word to throw to him except about trivial matters that didn't in the least interest him—or her, formerly.

How could he tell that those moments in which she saw his colours closed in by a mêlée of struggling horses and men, had changed her from a careless, happy-go-lucky girl, who laughed at accidents, had scarcely flung a fear even to death, to a thoughtful woman whose outlook on life would never again be quite the same? In a word, what he did before had not mattered, but now that she knew she loved him, it did, yet this solution never occurred to him, nor was there anything in her manner to suggest it—quite the reverse, in fact.

He asked her a few questions about her horses, and what they had done lately, as the papers did not always chronicle their doings, and she told him of their failures and successes, quite without enthusiasm, and Chris came to the conclusion that experience and Rensslaer combined, had put her off Trotting. And if she did not tell him that her horses were entered for no more fixtures after the end of June, and that her brief connection with Trotting would altogether cease on her return from abroad, Chris saw, clearly enough, that she took no more interest in the sport into which she had so light-heartedly plunged, than she did in his.

If hitherto Gay's life had been regulated by a warm heart, high spirits, and quick wits, he knew that it was so no longer, and resented the change in her. Sunbeams might not fulfil any recognised place in the scheme of creation, but they were delightful all the same, and he had been quite satisfied with her as she was. If he had only known it, she loved him at that moment more than ever, realising now she was with him, how completely he had spoiled her for everyone else, that he was the one companion of whom she never tired, never could tire.

"Frank and I are going abroad early in July," she said presently, and Chris's face lengthened. Steeplechasing was over for the year, and until he began to train his horses at the end of August, there was only the flat racing he despised, very seldom took the trouble to look at—and now Gay, on whose precious company he had counted, was going away in a little more than a month.

"I shan't be riding again till autumn, worse luck," he said. "And I'm too late for Olympia."

Gay looked at him, half-angry, half-reluctantly admiring—here he was, a mere gaunt shadow of himself, after the worst outing he had ever had, with only one longing—to court another!

Chris was very sensitive, and his hatred of talking about himself was only equalled by his horror of being a bore. So although the change in her manner hurt him more than either he or she knew, he abruptly changed the subject.

"You'll let me escort you to your meetings now, with Lossie, of course," he added grudgingly. "Tom Bulteel will be jolly glad to be off duty, I expect."

"And Effie too," said Gay candidly. "She did detest coming with me so, but they both played up splendidly, even if Tom's temper has been perfectly horrid."

"And where is this wonderful Gold Vase?" said Chris, looking at the centre of the carpet as if he expected to see it installed there as tutelary god.

"Oh, I hate it!" cried poor Gay, with tears in her voice. "It's covered over with a piece of sackcloth—I mean silk—in my den. It was won by a fraud—paid for with Carlton's good name—the great mistake was his thinking I'd value anything bought at such a cost."

"He never expected that brute to follow him up and see the toe-weights trick," said Chris consolingly. "Honest men can't play the rogue, and that's about all there is to it. Heard from him lately?"

"He is doing a cure at Aix—for the sake of the scenery, you know!" she laughed. "I have had some cheerful, gossiping letters from him," and Chris nodded carelessly, as at a matter of no interest to either. Mackrell had played the fool, and must take the consequences.

Then there was a horrid pause—a pause between these two who usually chattered like magpies when they got together!

"I made a scrap-book out of the snapshots and sketches of you," said Chris, rather gravely. "By a moderate computation there are somewhere about thirty, and I divided them into groups—the decent"—he hesitated—"the—not nice—and the positively libellous."

Gay coloured warmly. If her escapade had brought her a succès de scandal, caused her to be surrounded wherever she went in public, and make acquaintances faster than she wanted, she knew well enough the subtle difference in men's manners towards her, since she had courted publicity.

"It wasn't such a very awful thing to do, really," she said, with a rebellious toss of her red-brown head. "It was only those spiteful wretches made it look bad."

"I'd rather see a picture of you as you look now," said Chris quietly, and Gay blushed again, the gentlest of reproofs always hit her hard.

"You see, Chris," she said earnestly, "I had always longed to drive myself—I had had two trial spins in private—and when I saw my driver was tight at the critical moment, of course I ought to have asked Mr. Rensslaer to take his place, but the temptation was too irresistible, and, of course, I fell."

"So, apparently, did one of the competitors," said Chris; "broke an arm or leg, didn't he? So, you see, Trotting people can have accidents as well as jockeys."

"Of course," she said, "such a fall may be anything from a scratched face up to being killed—one of Mr. Rensslaer's drivers had just such a fall, not from hobbles, but from the track being badly made, and the man did not hurt himself a bit, but he has known a man killed by it. Still, you may say that of every sport. Take hunting—"

"Oh, Lord," cried Chris, "don't compare our national pastime with Trotting, please!"

But Gay affected not to hear. "I can quite understand a man being fond of riding, or even of 'riding jolly,'" she said severely. "Our forefathers did—and on considerably more jumping powder than in these almost Spartan days—and it must be a lovely feeling that everything is plain sailing, that neither you nor your horse are capable of making a mistake—in that heavenly state of mind you do remarkable things over and over again that you never could do in cold blood—but that is quite a different thing to steeplechasing!"

"Quite," agreed Chris in a tone that made Gay turn away indignantly, thinking of Carlton, and what he had not hesitated to do for her. Yes, Chris was certainly doing his best to throw her into his absent rival's arms, while on the other hand he was cut to the heart by her reception of him, so utterly different to the one for which during long weeks of pain he had longed.

Unconsciously, he had looked for a little of that "mothering" that the best kind of woman knows how to give the man she loves, when in trouble, but Chris's pride was more than equal to his tenderness of heart, and he gave no sign of his wound.

"Mr. Rensslaer has asked us over to his place at Vienna—he is going to let me drive one of his Trotters for him. After all," cried Gay, becoming only the more rebellious under Chris's grave looks—Chris the gay-hearted, whom she had confidently reckoned on to think her right whatever she did—"why should a thing that is right in Vienna, be wrong in England?"

"Oh," cried Gay impatiently, "we know that vice and virtue are matters of climate and colour, that what is right in the east, is wrong in the west, and it's the same with Trotting—if I am satirised in England, I shall make up for it in the encouragement and respect I shall get abroad!"

She jumped up, and fetched some large photographs that represented an attractive girl driving one of Rensslaer's trotters, and Chris mentally compared this modest presentment of a modest woman, in an elegant conveyance, with the fiendish cleverness of a sketch representing Gay perched upon a shining skeleton wagon, with a charming leg stretched along a shaft on either side of it.

"You're too good for it, Gay," he said, "either there or here. Rensslaer is right—there is no future for Trotting under present conditions in England."

Gay shrugged her shoulders, and abruptly, contemptuously even, changed the subject.

"I suppose the jumping will be all right. I hear the fences are to be very much higher than any seen before in other shows in England, that gentlemen are to ride instead of stable-boys, is good."

There was a note in his voice that made Gay sigh impatiently, and turn her head away; here was the ruling idea, strong in death, or what was very near it.

"Rensslaer must have his hands full," said Chris. "Awfully decent chap—he has looked me up several times." He did not say that he had encouraged him, as bringing news of Gay.

"Oh, he's delightful," said she as tea appeared, and she began to pour it out. "His naïveté, his tremendous natural ability, whether he's revolver-shooting, or writing a play, or modelling, or driving Trotters, or judging horses, or nursing a cat, or taking a lot of trouble about a silly girl like me and my stupid fancies, there's no one like him!"

But Chris was not jealous, though some men might have misunderstood Gay's intense admiration of Rensslaer's genius and many-sidedness, and the pleasure his friendship had clearly brought into her life.

"You know the papers have engaged you to him?" he said, and thought of an extremely uncomplimentary snapshot of Rensslaer, crouched low on his seat, and made ferocious by his huge goggles, published in the papers side by side with Gay.

"Why?" she said incredulously. "Do you suppose that a man like that would care for a silly little ignoramus like me?"

"Men hate brains," said Chris grumpily, and his temper was not improved by being told that it was only boys who did.

"He wants you to go down to Elsinore," said Gay. "Oh, Chris, the peace of that great quadrangle—the luxury of those stables that yet compass the most perfect simplicity of service to those beautiful creatures—you'll be like a boy in a sweet-shop, running about from one joy to another and loth to leave any. To run through his hundred or so of horses, will take you approximately, I should say, a year of undulterated bliss!"

"I don't know that his stable will interest me so much," objected Chris. "You see, he doesn't go in for steeplechasing—it's driving he's great at."

"Why, he loves his horses," cried Gay indignantly. "It's his humanising influence in the stable—loving the dear beasts, not for what they do, and the money to be made out of them, but for what they are—that's so lovely."

Chris sighed. To love horses, and live among the world's pick of them as Rensslaer did, was a lot that the most fortunate man alive might envy.

"Aunt Lavinia has been a great comfort to me while you were laid up." Chris smiled—it was a sign of grace in her that she had need of comforting.

"I didn't know till she told me—how—how charitable you are. No wonder you're always hard up, when you give away most of your winnings in helping poor, wretched people!"

"Often—about not making me happy. And it would be so easy, and so—er—so pleasant," said Chris, with the lines that meant mischief wrinkling his young eyes.

"You know," said Gay hastily, "somehow my ambitions seem common to me when I look at that dear little lady, who lives entirely for others, and I question my right to waste money as I do on Trotting and otherwise. Oh, I'm not a Socialist"—

"I should hope not," said Chris significantly. "It just means that you make another man work for you while you idle, and then curse him because he does not make enough to give you luxuries."

"Oh, I'm idle enough," said Gay remorsefully, "but I do feel a burning desire to see the rich enjoy less, and the poor and unfortunate suffer less, and I know perfectly well that I ought to sell my horses—

"They wouldn't fetch much," said Chris, chuckling unkindly. "But there's nothing I'd enjoy more than putting 'em up at Tattersall's—if they're good enough for Tat's."

Gay turned very white, and a flash like steel came into her grey eyes—few people had ever seen it, but it meant mischief.

"And I to see you put up yours," she said quietly. "When you drop racing, Chris, you may talk to me about Trotting—not before."

Chris too had turned very pale, he understood now. He was to tear out what was in the very blood and fibre of him—what had been in countless generations of his hard-riding, sporting forefathers...

"You ask me for my very life itself," he said heavily. "Even my mother never asked me that impossibility. She placed my deep happiness in riding before her own peace of mind always."

Yes, his mother had known how to love him better than that.... He must possess great qualities to love, and be so beloved by his mother, that their love went on, unbroken even by death. After all, Gay asked herself, was it not she who was selfish, not he?

Had Chris but looked at her in that moment of insight, of revelation, each might have been spared much sorrow, but he was staring straight before him, his face set and stern at the impasse to which he and Gay had come—he thought he knew now the real reason why she had refused him at the Ffolliott's dance.

At that pregnant moment the door opened slowly, and a timid face came round the corner, like a rabbit peering from a burrow; since Min Toplady's visit, the Professor always looked first to see if Lossie were there, before entering.

"Are you alone, my dear? Ah, only Chris, I see," and the Professor came forward, and shook his 'case's' hand warmly. If only the boy could be weaned from steeplechasing, there was no one he would like better for a brother-in-law, though of course it must be a long—a very long engagement.

"I wish," he said presently to Chris in his tactless way, "that you would persuade Gay to listen to reason, and give up Trotting."

"He had better get the whip-hand of himself before he tries to manage others," cried Gay; then looking at Chris, white, wasted, invincible in his weakness, her heart was pierced with cruel pain. He looked like slipping through, without the help of any more accidents, and what would life be worth to her without him?

As she moved to the window, and stood looking out, she lived again those awful moments at Sandown, yet when she came back to the two men, her face told nothing, for if Chris had pluck, she had grit, and the latter wears best in the long run.

"Each to its own, Heron," she said—"you to your books and microscope, Chris to his racers, and I to my Trotters; there isn't a pin to choose between the selfishness of any one or us!"

And Chris, when presently he said good-bye, thought grimly that she was about right.

CHAPTER XXVI

CARLTON'S "LITTLE BILL"

It was characteristic of Carlton Mackrell that he should turn up unexpectedly in the Park one afternoon, looking his usual unruffled self, and greet the little party sitting under a tree, as if he had only parted from them a few hours earlier.

No thought of the presentation of his "little bill" cooled the warmth of Gay's welcome; Lossie paid him the tribute of nearly fainting from excess of joy, while Chris, who knew his only real rival with Gay to be his own passion for steeplechasing, was cordiality itself.

It was one of the few sunny afternoons in a summer that was the very abomination of desolation, and Carlton, who looked very brown and well, was clearly glad to be back in the world—his world, that never enthused, or got excited, or asked questions, but took everything for granted in its own delightful way. He liked its indifference to the non-essentials of social intercourse, its tranquility and spacious forgiving humours, its freedom from conventions, and disdain for little things—yes, with all its charms and vices, English society alone had the art of life. Even Rensslaer, who was a cosmopolitan in his tastes and habits, had once admitted to Carlton that he had made his home in England because, as he frankly confessed, London had his heart.

"When I am here, I always feel that I am at the centre of things—right at the heart of all there's happening," he said. "You don't feel this in any other city in the world—but London is the whole world itself, squeezed into a few square miles."

Gay, if she were nervous, did not suffer it to appear, but chaffed Carlton mercilessly about his rheumatism, inquiring if he had found its cure at the Aix gaming tables, and in those dolce far niente drives on the old Roman roads that she herself adored.

He laughed, looking very happy, and very handsome—indeed the quartette were in such high spirits, and of such conspicuous good looks, as to attract an unusual amount of attention, Gay heard one woman murmur in passing them, "three angels—and an Immortal," the latter with a glance at Chris that sent a pang to her heart.

Carlton was genuinely shocked at Chris's looks (for which Gay was almost as much responsible as his accident), but delighted to find that there was no understanding between the two. Daily during his stay abroad he had expected to hear the news of their engagement, and if nothing had happened in all these weeks, well, the presumption was, that nothing would.

It wanted a good week to the Horse Show; town was at its very best, and Gay, who was always restless now, gave her whole mind to frivolity, greatly to Lossie's delight. The four young people filled the days, and the greater part of their nights, with amusements of every kind, so that, as the Professor declared, Gay only used her house to sleep in, seldom to feed.

With two of the party happy, for Lossie was in triumphant beauty, and quite satisfied at the way things were going, and the other two playing up brilliantly, they made the gayest possible quartette, and more than once, either as host or guest, Rensslaer joined them, to Gay's manifest pleasure.

It was not surprising that Carlton quite wrongly attributed Gay's welcome change of front about trotting, to Rensslaer's influence, for although that sport was the one tabooed subject with them all, he knew from Tugwood, who had insisted on keeping him well posted, that she seldom took the trouble to see her horses run now.

But he was equally correct in thinking that her friendship with Rensslaer had developed a side of her character that up to now, no one had been aware of, and with some mortification realised, that neither he nor Chris had allowed for the spirituality that is in every woman worthy of the name, and that Rensslaer so fully recognised.

While just as original, Gay had wider sympathies, read more, thought more, and that she had a very genuine and even warm affection for Rensslaer, no one could doubt who saw them together. She displayed an eager pleasure when they met, that neither of the two younger men by any means evoked—it happened, therefore, that Carlton came to entirely misunderstand the position, be as certain that the man was in love with Gay (for a lover always thinks the whole world is in league to want what he wants), as he suspected Gay, out of sheer perversity, to fancy herself in love with Rensslaer.

With men of Carlton Mackrell's type and position, brains are never admitted, or if possessed, they are sedulously hidden—it would be bad form, make uncomfortable other men to use them, and he had never seriously considered their value till now, when he saw the mental hold that Rensslaer had taken on her. But the more complex a man is, the better he likes a woman to be purely normal, and like Chris, Carlton by no means approved of the change in Gay.

He thought of the sweet perfume of the wild hawthorn, of how the cultivated, double variety, beautiful in shape and colour though it may be, has none, and he missed the wildness and spontaneity, yes, and the wilfulness that he loved in Gay, and longed to have it back again.

It was curious with what jealous iteration in conversation between Carlton and Lossie, Rensslaer's name cropped up, and that the man should display such incredible blindness to the real position of affairs between Gay and Chris, appealed to Lossie's sense of humour. She only bided her time to undeceive him, and the opportunity came at Ranelagh on the Saturday preceding the opening of the Horse Show, when somehow the two couples had got separated, as often happened. It was a significant fact which seemed altogether to escape Carlton, that uneasy as Gay and Chris seemed to be when together, it was impossible to keep them apart.

Sitting under the trees, Carlton and Lossie talked trifles till, as was inevitable, Rensslaer's (to Carlton) abhorred personality intruded, and the reason of his influence over Gay was debated.

"I can't see his charm," said Carlton, who, like many other very handsome men, quite unconsciously exaggerated the power of good looks over women.

"He's got a mind," said Lossie significantly, "and that lasts longest in the long run."

"So has Gay," said Carlton, "and that is the point d'appui between them. She could never put up with poor Hannen, who has but one idea in his head—horses."

A red flush showed under Carlton's dark skin, and he looked at Lossie sharply, suspecting her of playing her own game, but if there is one thing more than another that confounds a man, it is the purity of the outline of a woman's cheek, as opposed to the deep artifice and dissimulation of her soul.

"They are à tort et à travers!" he exclaimed. "It's only because there is no steeplechasing on, and Hannen is at a loose end, that he sticks it."

"She would marry him to-morrow if he would give up racing," said Lossie, "and he won't. Neither will give way—and there's the rub. And she's a fool," she added softly, "for a woman who loves, loves to submit."

"Gay won't," said Carlton, as he returned Lossie's gaze full. Good Heavens! how lovely she was, with her forget-me-not eyes, and silky masses of blue-black hair, framed in a wonderful hat and gown of royal purplish-blue chiffon, that would have killed most women. He wondered that Rensslaer had passed her by for Gay; for himself, of course, it was different—he knew Gay's good qualities so well, her disposition inside out.

"And a heart," said Lossie significantly, "that runs away with her head. You see, Chris looks so ill, and you so—so provokingly well—" Her gaze lingered on his face warmly like a caress, and indeed he was very good to look at. "There's something awfully maternal about Gay—not to say 'sloppy'—wanting to help everyone, like silly Aunt Lavinia, you know. It makes you so cheap," she addedly rashly, and saw her mistake when Carlton, who liked Lavinia—as who did not?—frowned, and suggested that they should join the others.

They found them silently looking on at a game of polo—if there were a horse anywhere near, Chris gravitated naturally towards it—and for a while they discussed the players and the cattle.

"But Mr. Hannen will see better at Elsinore to-morrow," Gay said to Carlton a little nervously. Each day, each hour seemed to bring nearer to her the presentation of that "little bill," and there was a dangerous spark in his eye that foretold trouble in the near future. Indeed, as they stood quietly chatting about the wonders of Elsinore, Carlton suddenly realised that Lossie had told him the truth, and with a mad, hot rush of jealousy, that for the moment blinded him to all sense of honour, he inly swore that he would obtain Gay at all hazards, her love for Chris notwithstanding, using the steeplechase difficulty as a means of accomplishing his desires.

Lossie, reading him like a book, felt her heart sink. Yet, after all, would it not be better when he had put his fate to the touch, and realised once for all that Gay was not for him? He would take it badly—very badly. He would go away again, but some day he would come back—and even if he knew that she loved him, Lossie had not committed the one sin that to a man is unpardonable, the sin of boring him.

CHAPTER XXVII

A MODUS VIVENDI

Chris returned from Elsinore decidedly quiet, not to say subdued in manner. Gay thought it was because in the enchanted world of horses he had entered there, the steeplechaser found his true level, was only one of many, not the be-all and end-all of existence; she also concluded that Rensslaer had kept the dare-devil young rider, who had given Gay a taste of his jumping capacity, out of sight, as indeed he had. Oddly enough, Chris seemed more struck with Rensslaer's personality and marvellous shooting, than anything else, and waxed eloquent when he reported to Gay at dinner that night, all he had seen and done during the day.

"He's a fine chap," said Chris, "and a good sportsman—does some good with his money. By Jove! you should just see him shoot on horseback! He's out of his element, an anachronism, in the garb of civilisation, but in his shirt and breeches, he's an athlete, and a model of skill and strength, while his mare is a marvel. I followed at a distance on a pony, and to see him drop a stag with a right and left, is a caution."

He happened as he spoke to catch the eye of the Professor, who stiffened visibly.

"Dangerous things, firearms," he said. "I never have anything to do with them myself, and as to shooting on horseback, I told you once before, at the Ffolliott's dance, I think—that while a good horseman in my youth, ahem! my riding days are now over."

The Ffolliott's dance ... the hectic of excitement sank in Chris's hollow cheeks ... how long ago it seemed ... and a dear little girl faltering out that she wanted time ... crying her youth ... when all the while she had made up her mind not to marry him because he loved horses too well; yet how adorable she had been, how different from the little shrew who was looking angrily at him at that moment!

Yet poor Gay thought she had some reason for complaint. Was his talk never to be of anything but sport in one form or another? Rensslaer the artist, appealed to her much more than Rensslaer the champion shot ... and then her thoughts went off with apparent, but not real, inconsequence to Carlton Mackrell, whose aimless, pleasant life had always annoyed her, but who had yet proved himself capable of a romantic action for which few would have given him credit, as few would themselves have committed it.

There was the fresh, bright room with its heaps of flowers, just the same as ever; there was Gay, prettier than ever, but no longer the bright mortal whom one of her friends had christened "radium," so continually did she carry sunshine about with her. There was little enough warmth in the eyes that met Chris's, and how was he to know that it was only by a violent effort she curbed the longing to put out her hand, and touch the sunny head so near her own?

He too was changed. Formerly nothing had been a trouble, and nobody was a bore; he simply lived to please those he loved, and of these Gay was chiefest, but ill-health probably, and heartache certainly, were ruining his temper and his disposition for the time being. He thought Gay very hard on him, and she thought him hard on himself—as did Aunt Lavinia.

Presently Chris sprang up, feeling that he could bear it no longer, and pleading that he was tired with his long day at Elsinore, he left early for Epsom, with more to think of than Gay guessed, and dispirited to a degree she had no idea of, or perhaps she would have bid him good-bye more kindly.

As he thought of the once cheery little comrade who in former days had been wont to accompany him downstairs, the chilly aloofness of her struck Chris to the heart, though what of Gay, who was already in her own room, weeping passionately, when the slam of the hall-door came?

"If his mother could see me," she thought, and almost looked round for invisible whips.

In the train Chris recalled his quiet chat with Rensslaer before leaving Elsinore, the latter having thrown out a word of inquiry as to his future plans, and Chris had lightly sketched his autumn programme—a sufficiently full one.

"There's no money to be made at racing as you practice it—the surroundings are not healthy, either morally or physically—there is too much excitement, too much bodily waste. It may wreck your manhood in the long run—you weigh a couple of stone less than you ought—and"—Rensslaer hesitated—"it's not fair to Miss Gay."

"In short," said Rensslaer, and smiled, "Bagehot knew what he was talking about, when he said that the 'natural impulse of the English people is to resist authority.' What you want is discipline."

Chris uttered an exclamation, and his eyes flashed, for as he took no liberty with others, so he allowed none to be taken with him, but Rensslaer took no notice.

"I am old enough to be your father," he said; "let me for once speak to you as one. The fault of your character is not so much want of purpose, as the need of one worthy of you—bend those talents which I know you to possess to some definite object, and embark without further delay on some worthy career. What you want is work, which is the salt of existence; the pleasure you take in horses should be for moments of relaxation—a refreshing pause to make your step all the quicker, your mind all the more braced for the serious business of life."

"I shouldn't call the job of schooling and making horses exactly a sinecure," said Chris coldly. "I have work enough and to spare, and it is the work that I love."

"It is because you love it so well that it's play, and it leads nowhere—except over broken hearts," he added in a lower tone, and Chris winced. "Did you see what that German who has lived for thirty years in England says about the deterioration in English character? He speaks of that increasing section of our people, whose guiding principle in life gives the lie to that strenuous rule of sturdy self-denial, and initiative, on which our Empire was founded, and by which alone it can be preserved."

"I suppose no one will deny that there's plenty of self-denial in my profession," said Chris drily.

"As I said before, you do it for your own pleasure," said Rensslaer gravely, "and to others' sorrow. Whether you merely kill, or only mangle yourself, it's self-indulgence pure and simple. Discipline, self-sacrifice for the State's sake, are the qualities that the modern Englishman needs to cultivate. But I'm afraid that selfishness, and an inordinate love of pleasure, with a corresponding contempt for, and hatred of all that savours of restraint, are the prevailing characteristics of the heirs to the most Imperial inheritance that history has ever known."

"And by the State," said Chris quietly, but inwardly furious at having to import Gay's name into the discussion, "I presume you mean Miss Lawless—to whom I am not doing my duty?"

"Yes. Be my land-agent," said Rensslaer abruptly. "There will be a lot of hard work about it, and you'll have to learn the business, but on the other hand, you can have the pick of my stable for riding and driving in the ordinary way—no 'schooling,' which is just as dangerous as steeplechasing, but as much hunting as you choose. If you would think a thousand a year sufficient—and there is a really charming house on the estate that I feel sure Miss Gay would like—"

"You take it for granted Miss Gay would care too," said Chris, the thunder-cloud leaving his brow. "Thank you, sir. It's most awfully good of you—and I know more on Miss Lawless's account than mine—but it's an offer I can't possibly accept."

Yet if Gay were not positively brutal to him nowadays (or so poor Chris expressed it) he would have felt more remorse at throwing away her happiness, and, his passion for horses notwithstanding, what his better self told him was his happiness also.

Deeply disappointed as his host was, he said no more, and that Chris was so enthusiastic about him to Gay, showed that they had parted the best of friends. Indeed, the boy's sunny good humour, the incorrigible pluck and charm of him, the blending of heart and breeding, and taste, of all those qualities, in short, that go to make in the real sense of the word, a gentleman, had long ago endeared him to Rensslaer, as to all others.

But the spirit of perversity that had seized Chris when he last dined at Connaught Square throve apace, and he made no effort to dislodge it; whatever he did, or did not do, he could not please Gay. He had deliberately talked shooting to her, that he might keep his tongue off the raptures of admiration into which Rensslaer's stable had plunged him, and that was wrong—like everything else.

Well, if she wanted a lady-like fool, who took no risks, to play round with—for thus he rudely designated Carlton—she had better take him, and the sooner the better. Chris's usual good manners were going by the board under the strain of mingled ill-health, and mental irritation combined, and altogether he was in a very bad way indeed, when on the day before the Horse Show, he went to see Aunt Lavinia, whom he had somewhat neglected since his recovery.

"Dear boy!" she exclaimed in delight as she got up from her writing-table, "how nice you look, and how lean!"—for she could not abide fat on a man—and she kissed him fondly.

Chris's bright hair, his smile, and general smartness stood him in excellent stead on all occasions when he wished to hide his real feelings, but Lavinia knew him very well, and after some talk, and the transference of a small cheque to her for her poor, the little lady roundly taxed him with having something on his mind.

"Too much money," said Chris, and chuckled. "Are you going to Olympia? We have all been buying tickets on our own—Rensslaer, Mackrell, Bulteel, and myself—and it seems to me, between us all, we can live there the whole week if we like, with intervals for food and sleep."

"It's out of my line, Laddie," she said, "even if it did not mean a new frock—which would make me miserable. But it will be a pretty sight. Is it because you are not riding, you have the hump?" she added, looking at him shrewdly.

"Of course I should like it," said Chris, "but there are lots of other fellows who will do it better, of course."

"It seems to be a rule of life," she said, "that one can only be happy at the cost of others' unhappiness—and your disappointment probably means that Gay is happy."

"I think it would take a lot to make her that nowadays," he said drily. "But isn't it a pretty rotten world when such a state of things prevails, that we are afraid to even admit that we are happy—and rub a piece of wood to give our admission the lie?"

"There are so many ways of happiness," she said, "but practically only one of misery. There's self-control, Laddie"—she hesitated, and glanced at the boy's handsome head, a little bent already in anticipation of rebuke—"what is life, after all, but discipline?"

Chris thought that Rensslaer, as well as Gay, must have been getting at her, and turned restive—there seemed no comfort for him anywhere.

"Why don't you say all this to Mackrell? He deserves it quite as much as I do. He never does anything but what he likes; he doesn't even break his bones."

"Ah, my boy," she said sadly, "it is only these we love, that we take trouble about, and there's sterner, deeper stuff in you than poor Carlton; besides, Gay loves you, not him."

"Dear Laddie," said Lavinia softly, "you are fighting for prizes that when obtained are utterly valueless, for victories more fatal than the most inglorious defeats, and all because you have not the strength of mind to break away, to assert your will-power. Nothing in this world can remain stationary—if you are not improving, you are going back—and don't you suppose that she knows it? For there is no death," she added softly; "she is living, but not here—is listening to us at this moment, for all we know."

"She always hated my riding," he said, and in those painful, heart-searching moments, realised that often the real influence of an unselfish life does not begin till it is over.

Lavinia said not one word, only looked at him with the dear blue eyes in which life, its sins, its virtues, its passions had been transmuted into a pure and utterly comprehending humanity, and at something in his face, not so much unyielding as unconquerable, because quite beyond his control, she sighed deeply. She had seen the struggle so often, and it had always ended in the one way.

"Oh! why is it that we love best those who have never done anything for us—have even cost us much sorrow—and are cruel and ungrateful to those who have sacrificed themselves for us—as Carlton has for me?"

Lavinia knew that Gay was in a dangerous mood, and in a moment of impulse and anger against Chris's selfishness, might wreck her own, and two men's lives. She had a temper, and a will of her own, and a generous heart also, that could not fail to appreciate a delicacy that with Carlton was as great as his devotion. Yet Chris did not look the sort of lover that any girl would turn her back on, when he kissed Lavinia and departed.

"When the Horse Show is over," he said to himself, with a sense of relief at the postponement of the struggle, then he would fight out the burning question of which he could best live without—steeplechasing or Gay.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE EPIC OF THE HORSE

Rensslaer had taken half-a-dozen tickets for the Royal day, and any special shows that he thought would appeal to Gay. Tom Bulteel had liberally provided for the Harness classes, Carlton had concentrated on the Trotting, Chris on the jumping, which came last in the evening, so that the united tickets practically covered everything worth seeing at Olympia.

The little party, Gay, Effie, and Tom Bulteel (save when the latter were at Epsom), Lossie, Chris, and Carlton, took the Show easily, like a picnic, saw most of the good things, and missed those not so good, though when the jumping was on, Chris remained glued to his seat, deaf, blind, and oblivious to all around him, save what was passing in the arena.

The Professor had been invited, but declined—to the immense relief of everybody, as his squeals might have astounded the neighbours during the high jumping. Gay found it delightful not to have to be told after squeezing in (as happened to many other of her friends), that their cards admitted them to the building only, and seats must be booked inside, of which there were none to be booked.

The stables amused her immensely. She thought it must have astonished the cart horses to find themselves ensconced between draperies of crimson and gold, others in a delicate shade of pearly blue, with huge baskets of flowers floating over their heads, or in bowers of hothouse blooms, and upholstered in green and white—the whole scheme changed to a royal blue on the day of the King's visit. The woodwork of Rensslaer's boxes was plainly but handsomely covered in cloth, while each horse's name and its record appeared over its stall in an ornamental gilt frame.

Several of the Continental army officers in their bright uniforms strolled between the arena and the stables, chatting and keeping an eye on their splendid mounts, and Gay noted approvingly that these men seemed to be the personal friends of their horses. The tall, clean-limbed animals, although they treated the stablemen with contempt, pricked up their ears, and thrust their proudly-poised heads over the stall doors, every time one of the well-known uniforms came near.

It was a quaint sight to see the women in their delicate summer gowns walking past the stalls over the dusty asphalt floors, and peering into the horse-boxes, for an extraordinary number of women were present, every one of whom had apparently put on her costliest clothes for the occasion.

The fact that the Epsom Meeting was not over, appeared to have no effect on the attendance, for faces well-known in the world of sport were to be seen—it was an "indoor Ascot"—Ascot Cup Day so far as the dresses were concerned, mingled with the paddock on Derby Day, with its multiplicity of languages—Ascot with magnificent horses, and instead of racing on the flat, jumping, trotting, and tandem driving.

The gowns showed fairly well in the Ambassadors and other boxes, but Lossie justly complained that it was like a too dense wood, where you can't admire the foliage for the trees, and that every woman requires a special clearing to herself to be shown off properly, which she certainly had not here.

Yet Lossie herself easily made her presence felt in the immediate vicinity, and drew many an envious glance on her exquisite harmony in blue, and bluer eyes, though Gay's frock of white worked muslin, with a great cluster of crimson roses at her girlish breast, appealed to both Carlton and Chris far more.

But as usual in the quartette made by the young people, it was to Lossie that Carlton fell, and very content and lovely the girl looked as she sat beside him, while on his part, he did not find it difficult to make himself pleasant to her, even if Gay apparently had forgotten her quarrel with Chris, laughed, and was happy. The two criticised everything, and discussed with zest the charming coup d'œil presented, which was vivid, and full of interest, life and colour.

Overhead, the rays of the sun streamed through the glass roof, and were caught by the festoons and panels, ornamented with the flags and heraldry that emphasised the international nature of the show; roses in long, drooping curves connected the chief parts of the ornamentation, so that there was not one bare, unsightly piece of woodwork in all the vast building to offend the eye, and beneath, the Belgian landscape gardeners had worked marvels, creating a veritable fairyland of delight.

May trees in full blossom, a fresh green lawn, flower-beds, shrubs, everything possible to banish the show-ring, if scarcely to suggest the paddock or hunting-field, had been done, and beyond a ring banked with marguerites and scarlet geraniums, rose row upon row, English, French, Belgian, and American women, tiny splashes of colour that mostly represented the hopes and fears, impending pride or disappointment in the horsemen who competed for their countries' honour.

The pink hunting-coats or uniforms of the riders, the picturesque dress of the attendants, and the sleek, shining horses, all blended into a picture perfectly harmonious in tone, while the black coats of the little group of tall, well-bred men in the arena who acted as judges, somehow struck a note of distinction in the midst of the uniforms, and the gay kaleidoscopic surroundings.

Horse shows in England are apt to be too leisurely entertainments—this was too rapid for many spectators, for the expedition with which everything was carried out in the ring, was a revelation in expert management. Seeing that in one jumping class there were a hundred and twenty entries, it was clear that only by the full-tilt methods of the old tournament, could the events be carried through in time, so when one competition was over, a blast on the coach-horn, and, hey presto! the great doors at the end of the hall flew open, and in swept the next competitors, and jumping or other apparatus vanished as if by magic. There was a neatness and despatch about the whole affair that made the show go as quickly as a well-arranged theatrical performance, though the noise caused by the joint efforts of Lord Lonsdale's band, and the liveried youth in the ring occasionally provoked some amusement.

The vivacity of the scene was undeniable, but Gay, like many others, experienced the greatest difficulty in identifying any particular competition when two or more classes were in the ring, and when afterwards she tried to remember the right sequence of the things that most delighted her, she was not able to, so rapidly had they succeeded each other. She remembered vividly Rensslaer's beautiful little Peter and Mary, under eleven hands, and to her one of the prettiest sights was when a tiny Shetland pony only seventeen inches high, took a prize in a class with big horses, quality, not quantity, winning, the attendant having to kneel down to pin the rosette on the tiny creature.

The tandem teams that moved like clockwork delighted her, and she shared Chris's admiration for the Stansfield Cottin Battak ponies, that bred in Sumatra, with handsome heads set on high-crested necks, full of spirit, and simply balls of muscle, had all the fire and beauty conferred by the Arab strain, together with the hardness and endurance of the Battak breed, the description "miniature Arabs, with more bone than their ancestors" fitting them exactly.

She loved the magnificent team of Suffolk Punches that appeared precisely as they do in the field, in harness adopted from all time by Suffolk agriculturists, drawing an old-fashioned Suffolk wagon, while the fact that they were led by men in smock frocks instead of being driven, and thus perfectly in character, and representative of "Old England," appealed strongly to the public, who cheered them to the echo.

With perfect simplicity the Suffolk farm hands demonstrated how heavy horses harnessed in twos, may be made to wheel in mazy figures by just talking to them. In true old country style, the man walking beside the leading animal, shouted in broad Suffolk his commands to him, "t'other waa," and "th' iver waa" (my way), the man walking beside the third horse repeating the commands, and at every order, round came the four in perfect style, not a hand on their harness to steady or lead them, wheeling their great wagon in wonderful evolutions, amid thunders of applause that would not be silenced.

From the horse-lover's point of view, the horses for mail and other phaetons was a noteworthy event, and closely watched by Tom Bulteel.

A most stirring competition of the nation was seen in the pairs. Mr. Vanderbilt entered three teams; Rensslaer drove his own horses, and the French appointments, for which 50 per cent. of the marks are given, were extremely smart. Such a show of pairs, or anything like it, had never been collected in any ring; indeed, said the experts, never had so perfect a class been brought together, and the work of the judges was herculean. The excitement was intense as the twenty-two were reduced to a select eight, including two of Rensslaer's, two of Mr. Vanderbilt's, and one of Mr. Bates'.

Lossie ever after viewed Rensslaer with more respect as the owner of the superb pair of carriage horses, named after a couple of popular sporting peers, that never appeared without creating a furore of admiration—she would above all things have liked them for her own, and Carlton to sit with her behind them.

He on his part viewed them with indifference, but gave unstinted praise to the class for American Trotters with records of 2.30 or better; fleet as Atlanta, slenderly beautiful as greyhounds, they were a revelation to him of what a horse could look and be, and he and Gay laughed heartily as they compared them with the quadrupeds that in all seriousness they had called Trotters, and he understood better now Rensslaer's prejudice against the sport as practised in England.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Chris, "he can drive!" as Rensslaer, for some time last of the competitors, crept up to the front, Storm Cloud beating them by the way he went round the very small turns at top speed, passing Sensation, and thus forcing the other to a break, and afterwards, when he had won, being driven round at full speed with his checker-rein, and over-draw bit taken off, so as to show what manners he had.

This was the same horse that displayed great speed in a pair in the parade before the King, being the only pair capable of taking their turns fast.

Yes, Gay decided that was her favourite day, when the sweetest and loveliest lady in all the land, sat with the King in the Royal box, and frankly showed her love for horses by the delight she evinced in their performances, and the frequent applause she gave them, laughing as heartily as Gay did, at the humours of the donkeys in the coster's show.

As if in answer to Tom Bulteel's pertinent remark that the saddle classes could not be satisfactorily judged, unless the judges took a turn in the saddle, one of them, himself a consummate horseman, rode the chargers in turn to judge of their capacities, and the public applauded loudly when he mounted Rensslaer's bay roan gelding, a charger so perfectly trained in the pretty action and deportment of the Haute École, that it performed a step-dance with all the precision possible in a creature with four legs.

Gay declared that horses, like children, have an inborn tendency to dance to the sound of music—not horses trained to the Haute École either—and that in their grace and tapering limbs, they made her think of some exquisite exponents of the ballet, as compared with the unwieldy bodies and heavy legs of ordinary clumsy human beings.

It interested Gay to watch these men, the keenest judges of horse-flesh, and riding and driving in the world, who chatted quietly, nodded appreciatively now and then, criticised, admired, condemned, evincing no concern when a frightened horse scattered them to right and left. She was greatly amused at a big, striding bay horse named "Teetotaler" that, though built on galloping lines, proved himself inferior to "Whisky," who made short work of his opponent in the 15 stone class; then there was a Belgian horse named "Timber-topper" that thoroughly lived up to his name.

Tom Bulteel found much to admire in the horse and gig class, a purely American affair, that being rather a novelty in this country, was greatly approved, but laughed heartily when, in a four-in-hand class, the coachman had to have assistance to turn his leaders in the ring. He naturally took keen interest in the park teams, which, supported by the Four-in-hand and Coaching Clubs, by private individuals and professionals, ensured the judging being watched with the closest attention. Then there were Mr. Vanderbilt's famous team of greys, which he drove himself, though it was only by a shade that he wrested the prize from the well-known browns of the Old Brighton Coach—an English turn-out that gradually absorbed most of the audience's attention, and whose driver, though he lost the blue rosette, was greeted with loud and prolonged applause.

"Where is your motor-car now?" cried Gay triumphantly to Lossie. "Talk of a chauffeur indeed—as if his finest, most daring and sustained feat, could rival the sympathetic dexterity shown a hundred times here by English and American whips!"

"Just as no rivalry between mechanical contrivances can hold a candle to the struggle among the field of beautiful high-bred horses, sweeping over the turf towards the winning-post," said Chris, "for in the mechanical contrivance, the driver is the only sentient element, in horse-racing there is both horse and jockey to reckon with, and the animal enters into the spirit of the contest just as keenly as his rider."

Inconsistent Gay frowned, and turned her head away, devoting herself to Tom Bulteel, who did not want her. He was intently watching the class for a quick change of four-in-hands, marks being given for the speed and swiftness with which the harnessing and unharnessing was managed, as well as for the eight horses and the horsemanship, and some extraordinarily smart work was being done, which he fully appreciated.

Effie, watching the game, sighed, for Gay's spirits and temper varied with every succeeding hour, the "class" witnessed, being the barometer by which her emotions were set. When there was only driving, and Chris's attention entirely given to her, she sparkled, and was happy; when jumping was on, and he became absolutely engrossed in his favourite passion, leaning forward, his soul in his eyes, and his eyes where his body panted to be, Gay existed no more for him than that vast circle of spectators of which he formed a part, and her brightness was eclipsed. Then Carlton scored—he had not watched Gay and her attitude towards Chris during the progress of the Show for nothing, and each day saw his hopes rise higher, Lossie's fell.

To Effie, who was a shrewd observer, this was something more than a great Horse Show, it was the picturesque mise en scène for the playing out of the comedy (or tragedy) of four lives, and of which she, and unhappy Lossie clearly foresaw the end.... Chris and wilful Gay were throwing away their happiness with both hands, and much as she loved them both, she was powerless to prevent it.

CHAPTER XXIX

LOVE OR STEEPLECHASING?

Chris's enjoyment reached perhaps its culminating point in the round-the-course jumping competition, that took the place of the high jump—a real good, stiff and varied steeplechase. He noted keenly the solidity of the obstacles—post and rails, park-palings, high park gates, and push-over gate, a Suffolk "squeeze," with a barrier of high hedges and thorns; a bank, both abrupt and sloping; a Leicestershire bullfinch, and the novelty of the Continental triple bar, consisting of three high bamboo bars on movable trestles.

These could be arranged at any required distance from one another, which meant that the horses had to clear a good 20 feet. Then there was the celebrated sheep-pen jump, in which the rider had to leap into the pen, and out on the other side, the finish and most difficult feat being the bank, which was a turfed embankment of five feet high, the horse having to leap, not over it, but on top of it, and descend the slope on the other side.

The bringing in of the fences was in itself stirring. White-wigged postilions of the old style, rode in pairs of grey horses harnessed to capacious wagons, and in a few minutes all was complete.

Decidedly the drama of the exhibition was the jumping, while the riding of the foreign cavalry officers, who had not before been seen in England, was one of the sensations, for there are no finer horsemen in the world, unless from among the Cossacks and the cowboys, and their talents are especially distinguished in taking the banks and big, stiff fences at full speed.

Through the heavy wooden and iron doors there trotted in one by one, French, Belgian, American, and Spanish horsemen, who were to teach the English how to high-jump, over forty coming to the post, their brilliant uniforms adding the last touch of colour to the scene.

The first horse touched the triple bar, but otherwise did a perfect course, though at the five feet bank which finishes the latter, he slid along the platform prone, and on all fours, and, like many of the English horses, could scarcely recover his legs.

It was a remarkable sight to see the string of horses take the gates, bars, bushes, and fences in the glare of thousands of electric lights; the row of wooden posts was an ugly jump always. The terrible triple-bar, most risky of all the Continental jumps, now introduced to English horsemen for the first time, was constantly crashing down, amid half-sustained shrieks from the women in the audience, as the riders were thrown, or jerked on the necks of their steeds, and it was here that all the British officers came to grief, though they took their fences with the abandon and dash of a quick burst in the shires. Indeed their riding was remarkably clever and plucky, considering that they had never before been through such a performance, and were all riding green horses. The latter broke into a gallop as they approached the sloping bank, with a deep and abrupt fall on the far side, swinging sharply to the left, and took at tremendous speed the circle of jumps, each distinct from the rest, then finished down the middle, taking this time, not the slope, but the wall of the bank, and so disappeared through the gates into the stables.

All the other obstacles fell when the horse collided with them, but, as one of the competitors remarked, "There's no give in that bank," and it was here that nearly all of the mishaps occurred. A Lifeguardsman went at the bank as if he were charging an army, but the horse sprang short, and his rider was shot high over his head. He turned a complete somersault, and fell on his back on the top of the bank; the horse followed, and appeared to jump on the prostrate rider. Ring attendants and judges ran towards him, but the lieutenant picked himself up smartly—he had not released his hold of the reins—and mounting the hunter on the top of the bank, rode it down the slope, and out of the arena, amid enthusiastic plaudits for his pluck.

England was not alone in the matter of mishaps. One of the 2nd Chausseurs à Cheval, of the Belgian Army, although a splendid steeplechase rider, also fell at the bank. He went round the course at a smart gallop, and cleared everything without registering a touch. His beautiful bay gelding went at the bank at full speed, but appeared to make no attempt to rise at it—the animal's chest struck the vertical side of the embankment, his rider shot into the air, and he too fell on his back. The lieutenant landed on top of the bank, and the horse remained below.

A mettlesome bay mare from Belgium, ridden by an officer who wore the gorgeous uniform of the 2nd Belgian Lancers, refused the first obstacle, and ran round it; refused the second, and dashed among the judges, scattering them right and left. After five minutes' display of temper all over the arena, she was ordered out, and eventually, with some persuasion, went, having jumped nothing but the judges' table.

Many of the horses had never jumped inside a building before, and used to the open showyard, were made nervous, almost frantic, by the colours, the music, the people, and the general strangeness of the surroundings, intensified by the glare of the electric light, and the unfortunate illumination of the trees. So greatly were the nerves of some of the best-known leapers affected, that often the judges and messenger boys were sent scurrying when a nervous horse refused his jump, and careered at full speed round the ring.

So for an hour, in quick succession, followed each other the best horses and horsemen of Europe—some conspicuous for a close, immovable, jockey-like seat, the English hunters for dash, and the Belgians for coolness and neatness. The difference in the way the men of foreign nationalities sat their horses, keenly interested Chris, for they did so, if not as gracefully, at least more effectively than the average English rider in a jumping competition. Some of them began, continued, and finished the course crisply, and at high speed, with an unmoved seat, even when heavy men. He noted that the foreigner rides with long stirrups, and more by balance than the Englishman, though there was one exception, his stirrups were as short as a jockey's, his knees crooked high, and pressed very tight—so steady and sympathetic a seat Chris had seldom seen.

No one could help admiring the Belgian officer's riding, how he never touches his horse's mouth, but sits as if he were part of the horse, even if it jumped a little slowly, or "stickily," as we should say. More than once, delightful instances of the kindness of these officers to their horses were given. When a fence was refused, no rough words were used, or resentment shown—a pat of the neck, an encouraging whisper, and the horse tried again, succeeded, and seemed even happier in his success than his gentle master.

One of the most interesting figures in the jumping competitions, the champion jump rider of Belgium, appeared in a finely-fitting uniform, with black coat, and blue riding breeches. A lithe figure with the moustachios of the Continental officer, he had a perfect seat, and took the jumps, and rode his horse at top speed at the high jump instead of at a canter, as is usually thought necessary for high jumping. Chris was also keen to observe how the horses threw up their heels with a curious sharp jerk, or wriggle, when in the act of topping an obstacle, the result of their being trained to clear bars which are slightly raised as they take their leap.

After all, thought Gay, it was very like steeplechasing, with the sinister ambulance and perfect medical arrangements in the background ... that was why it interested Chris to the exclusion of herself.... She watched his face closely, as the reckless boy she had seen at Elsinore, time after time appeared, and after more than one crushing fall, limped from the arena, only to reappear, indomitable as ever, and going at the stiffest obstacles with an unconcern that Chris himself could not have beaten. Both rode for the sheer zest and love of it, both counted accidents as mere incidents that did not seriously interfere with their pleasure; yes—they would have made a pair of dare-devils to ride against each other, and there was keen envy in Chris's eyes as he watched the other.

The only round without a mistake was to the credit of Belgium and Holland, and though a famous Dorset yeoman rode the fastest, and one of the most faultless courses on a superb horse, undoubtedly the honours were with the foreigners. They must have got quite a wrong impression of our hunters ridden by officers, for whether it were that the horses were unaccustomed to the scene, or that the riders felt awkward, and communicated their nervousness to their horses, they gave a very different account of themselves to what they would do any day in a cross-country run.

"Just fancy that out of us all, there is only one Englishman who can compete with our visitors!" exclaimed Gay ruefully to Rensslaer, who had joined them towards the close of the steeplechase competition.

"And what can you expect?" he said quietly. "A young horse-owner in this country either hunts or plays polo, or both, but he never troubles himself with showing horses, except occasionally at the semi-private shows of Ranelagh and Hurlingham. You see, the English no longer regard horsemanship as a national sport—the foreigners do; we are all wrong in that respect."

"There's far more of the circus than of legitimate sport about the sort of thing we have just seen," said Tom Bulteel; "in short, it doesn't appeal to the hunting man at all. Who wants the high jump, or the wide jump for horses? English jumping is practically confined to the hunting field, and the steeplechase course, and all the best hunters, if well ridden, can be taught to cross all reasonable country, while the 'chasers' are schooled to jump what is known as the regulation course."

"This high jumping is a trick—and the horses who do it, mustn't on any account be hunted, or they lose the knack of flinging themselves over a high bar—and personally I prefer a clever hunter. In fact, the so-called champion hunter class is a misnomer, and putting the qualified hunter classes in the evening is a huge mistake. Of course a hunter ought to be able to jump these fences, as far as height or width are concerned, but it's no part of a hunter's business to jump over white fences under the glare of electric light."

"All the same," said Rensslaer, "I confess that I should like to see the Army devoting itself to the art, as the Italian Army does, and it would be to the good if private and public schools provided ponies, and taught the young idea how to ride, as well as how to shoot. A troop of boy rough-riders would be a lively accompaniment to the corps of sharp-shooters multiplying under Lord Roberts' organisation. The Army here, in buying horses, demands from the farmer horses already highly trained, which is obviously impossible. How different the behaviour of the Italians and the Belgians! The horses they ride are almost exclusively Irish. The dealers resident in Ireland are continually shipping young Irish horses, which go straight to the colonels of the several regiments, who get them trained; the officers buy and train their private horses in a similar way, and regard the education of a horse as one of, if not quite, the best of sports."

"Anyway," grunted Tom Bulteel, "if England has something to learn from Continental rivals in methods of training, we may find consolation in the fact that it is from British equine flesh, bone, and blood that competitors abroad have been able to produce the splendid animals that are winning the judges' encomiums to-day. Their clean action in harness, and over the sticks betrays their British origin, whatever may be the nationality of their owners."

"And so I repeat," said Torn sturdily, "that it is not fair to judge us in a place ringing with noisy demonstrations, that are dead against a high-class hunter giving his best form. The foreign or American show hunter is used to such conditions, and the consequence is, that many a moderate horse gets forward simply on account of his jumping abilities. Far too much importance is attached to what is after all trick jumping, and, as I said before, it is by no means necessary in a hunter."

And so with ups and downs, principally downs with Gay—and her face as she sat ignored at Chris's side told more than she knew—the time passed, and the last and "championship" night of the great show arrived.

It was a scene of extraordinary brilliancy, and even more than the rest of the spectators, Chris was wrought to the highest pitch of excitement during the high-jumping contest at the close of the evening, when gradually twenty-two horses were fined down to two—the one ridden by the Dorset yeoman, the other by Belgium's champion jump rider, who had acquitted himself so grandly throughout.

When Lord Lonsdale offered a prize to whichever could clear 7 feet, and the Belgian's horse came along like lightning, and with a mighty spring into the air, cleared the obstacle with an inch or two to spare, Chris felt the blood course like warm milk through his veins—in fancy he rose to the jump, and the ecstacy, the oneness of horse and man in those moments, were his.

The Englishman put his horse at the bar, failing at the first attempt, but succeeding at the second, going over beautifully. They both cleared 6 feet 9 inches, but neither succeeded at 7 feet, and were declared tied, the prize being divided, and the two horses parading round the ring amid a scene of the greatest enthusiasm. Suddenly Chris turned—in that moment of expansion, he wanted Gay to share it with him, but she was not there. She and the others had slipped away without his noticing; no doubt they had all gone down to the stables, and he rose eagerly to follow them.

He wanted to congratulate Rensslaer on his triumphs, to tell him that he accepted his offer of St. Swithin's, and if he got no opportunity of speaking to her to-night, next morning he would call on dear little Gay and tell her that his love for her had triumphed. If she had only known it, Chris was proving his right to the title of hero, for this was his real farewell to the sport he so intensely loved—if he had seemed to neglect Gay, when she knew the reason, she would forgive him....

CHAPTER XXX

TOO LATE!

Rensslaer appeared immediately after breakfast next morning in Connaught Square, and Gay, warmly congratulating him on his victories, heard that the result of the great show worked out in cups, championships, and prizes in the following order:

"And everyone thought the Belgian champions were going to sweep the board!" cried Gay. "After all, the foreigner by no means had it all his own way, for of the three champion cups awarded, two were secured by a Kentish man, the third going to America."

"It was a good show," said Rensslaer, looking very pleased, as well he might, but, though Gay did not know it, more on her account than his own; it was not to rejoice over his own triumphs, but to share her happiness that he had called thus early. But as she gave no sign, he offered no congratulations, and they chatted about the Show for awhile, agreeing that the keenest competitions, both from the international aspect, and that of individual merit, were undoubtedly the high jump, and the four-in-hands, and he told her that they hoped to persuade the Italians to come over to the next Horse Show, adding that they were the finest riders in the world.

"Captain Bulteel says that never before have so many high-class animals been on show in this or any other country. You must be awfully proud, Mr. Rensslaer. You were certainly one of the most popular of the exhibitors, and your successes were cheered to the echo."

"I will venture to offer you the pick of my horses for your wedding present," he said, and Gay coloured brilliantly; how on earth could he know already of her engagement?

"I am very glad," he said warmly, and got up and went over to her, kissing her little hand so beautifully that she felt sure he had often done it before.

"He is the best fellow in the world," said Rensslaer. "I never saw two people more exactly suited to each other. His giving up what is really a passion with him, is a proof not only of his great love for you, but a moral victory, revealing the real strength of his character."

"Oh, he never really cared for it," said Gay in some surprise, "and you see he had to give it up, whether he liked it or not."

Rensslaer was silent, a little chilled and disappointed. Surely this was not the Gay that he thought he knew....

"I think you will like the house," he said. "It is very quaint and old—some distance from Elsinore, but within the park—"

"Has he spoken to you already about a new country place?" she said. "Carlton has several, you know, but no house in town.

"Why, who else are we talking about?" exclaimed Gay in astonishment, but she had gone rather pale.

Gay's brows were raised; some of the hot anger that burned in her against Chris overnight, burned still.

"Love him? Love a man who doesn't even see me if a horse is around—who is deaf, dumb as a stock-fish, blind to everything save an animal that can jump?"

Unconsciously Gay had put up two distracted hands to her face in the precise attitude of Rensslaer's "Little Mermaid," but it was indignation, not grief, that distorted her features.

"Done? All the passion that is in him goes into horses—and where do I come in? Better a thousand times Carlton Mackrell's devotion! Oh, he wasn't afraid to sacrifice himself for my pleasure! There's a grain of romance in him somewhere, to do what he did—and Chris without a qualm, sacrifices me."

"But does he?" said Rensslaer, getting up from his chair, and walking, more perturbed than Gay had ever seen him, about the room.

"Does he?" said Gay witheringly. "Oh, it was bad enough right through the Show—there was thunder in the air all along—but things came to a head last night with the high jump competition." She paused to smile ruefully as the suitability of her comparison struck her. "He forgot my very existence—didn't even hear when I spoke to him!"

Rensslaer shook his head, tried to get in a word edgeways, but failed; Gay was wound up, and meant to go on.

"Oh, I can speak to you!" she cried passionately. "You will understand, as some men can't, how last night in a sudden revulsion of feeling, I turned from selfish Chris to devoted Carlton, who was looking at me, thinking of me only, as always—he had never presented his little bill—well, I would honour it to the full, even before it was presented. If Chris had looked at me then ... but he did not. When I got up, and we went out to the stables, it was all over really, and outside one of those preposterous chiffon stalls Carlton asked me, and I said—'Yes.'"

"It's all right," said Rensslaer consolingly, "only you said 'Yes' to the wrong man. Now, if you had waited a little longer—"

"A little longer! Hasn't this Horse Show been going on for a week, and has Chris Hannen had one thought, one word, when jumping was on, for me?"

"He was charming to you whenever I saw you," said Rensslaer. "You seemed completely happy together, and admirably well suited, as always."

"And I think St. Swithin's, with congenial work among my horses, would have suited Mr. Hannen very well," said Rensslaer quietly. "No steeplechasing, of course—that was in the bond—but plenty of legitimate riding."

"I don't understand," faltered Gay, but all the same she was beginning to do so, to realise what her mad fit of temper had cost her.

"He couldn't help being interested in the jumping right through—he has never seen anything like it before—and he rides magnificently himself—I believe could have done anything the others did. Naturally he didn't want to miss a single point of horsemanship, or any foreign wrinkle—and can you blame him? He was watching others do what he knew he would never have the chance to do—what he longed intensely to do only he loved you more."

"More?" said Gay faintly, and into the young face that he had first seen so careless and happy, came a look of misery that pierced Rensslaer's tender heart.

"Yes. I offered him a thousand a year, and a house at Elsinore, on condition he gave up steeplechasing, and he came to me last night after the Show, and said he accepted my offer, and was coming this morning to tell you, and ask you to marry him. You had left, or I feel sure he would have asked you then."

"Oh, poor Chris!" breathed the girl, her arms falling to her sides, her grey eyes looking straight before her.

"No—poor Mackrell," said Rensslaer quietly, "for you will be doing him a great wrong if you marry him, loving the other man as you do. And I don't wonder"—he smiled—"for Chris Hannen is the nicest boy I ever knew. Tell Mackrell it's all a mistake, and as a man of honour he must at once release you."

"I never break my word," said Gay. "A pretty rotten sportswoman I should be if I did. If Chris came straight to me on leaving Elsinore, and talked of nothing but your shooting, without saying a word of the splendid chance you had given him, he deserves to suffer for such criminal carelessness as regards his own welfare, and my happiness—"

"He will," said Rensslaer drily—"so will you, for I'm afraid the aimless sort of existence Mackrell lives, won't appeal to you at all, unless you live abroad, and he goes in seriously for Trotting."

"As if I would leave Frank like that!" cried Gay indignantly. "Of course it will be a long engagement—years and years!"

Rensslaer smiled. In that case Chris, who was no laggard in anything he undertook, might be trusted to readjust the position, but that there would be a stiff tussle over the girl there was no manner of doubt.

She looked worth any man's love in the short skirt, striped cambric shirt, and mannish tie that she affected of mornings, her eyes full of battle, and her heart of trouble. Then she made a great effort, and pulled herself together.

"I am very selfish," she said, "and have not half congratulated you on all your successes. It was very very wonderful, of course, but I'd rather have that afternoon at Elsinore over again—the peace, the loveliness—I was thinking of it the whole time at Olympia."

"It is waiting for you," said Rensslaer quietly, "and as often as you like, when you come to live at St. Swithin's Court—"

Gay turned aside, to hide the tears that rushed to her eyes at the thought of all she had thrown away, and at that moment the door opened to admit Lossie, who was deathly pale, waiting with ill-disguised impatience for Rensslaer to make his farewells, and depart. Left together, the two girls faced each other, but it was Lossie who spoke first.

"That Carlton asked you last night, that you said 'Yes'—Oh! I saw it in his eyes—in yours—"

"Oh, my God!" cried Lossie, and beat her hands together. "You are doing a great wrong to yourself and Chris—ruining your own life, and breaking two men's hearts—you and Carlton are utterly unsuited to each other—and all for a bit of temper—because Chris paid more attention to the horses at the Show, than he did to you!"

"But it can! Do you suppose Carlton will take what has been flung to him in a moment of pique—like a bone to a dog? Doesn't he deserve to be loved just as much—and more—than Chris does? Oh! he could love a million times better—you have never troubled to sound the depths of his heart—and you are committing a cruel wrong—a crime even—if you go to him, knowing that you love Chris!"

"Come to my den," said Gay sharply. "Carlton may be here at any moment, and must not find us quarrelling over him," and she led the way, followed hastily by a woman who had lost all regard for appearances, and who in her godless selfishness recognised no rights but those of her passions.

"It is not a matter for your decision or mine," said Gay, when the door was shut, "but for Carlton. If he holds me to my promise, I shall keep it."

Gay shook her head. She was very angry with Chris, and his playing the laggard that morning, was the finishing stroke to his utter inconsiderateness and folly. She deeply resented his having spoken to Rensslaer first, accepting his offer, and thereby taking it for granted that she was ready to fall into his arms—Gay forgot that she had given him no chance of doing so, as she had left the building before the performance was over.

With a sudden womanly comprehension, born of her own pain, she turned to her cousin, no radiant apparition as of yesterday, but trembling, haggard, dishevelled almost in her excitement and agony, yet more beautiful than ever in that abandonment.

"I wish he loved you, Lossie," cried Gay breathlessly. "I do wish it with all my heart, and it is quite true what you say—that you are much better suited to him than I am."

"Give me the chance," cried Lossie, clasping her hands together in desperate entreaty. "He can't know how I love, how I adore him; if he did, and that just as I love him, you love Chris, he couldn't help loving me."

"But I don't love Chris like that," protested Gay, shrinking a little from this woman whose eyes, lips, voice were passion incarnate; instinctively she knew that a man prefers to find most of the vehemence himself....

A servant knocked at the door, and announced that Mr. Mackrell was in the drawing-room, and the impulse, swift as a bird's homing flight, that took Lossie half-way across the room to go to him, startled Gay—just so would she have sped to Chris had all been well between them—and had not love his rights; was not Rensslaer only but now insisting on them?

"Lossie," she said, "if you can convince Carlton that your love will make him happier than my"—she hesitated—"affection can, go to him now."

"I daren't," she said in a whisper, "it must come from you. He would never forgive me—only if you were Chris's wife, I might have a chance.... Oh, Gay, I've been a beast to you often, but you've had all the luck, and I've had none"—she was like a passionate child clamouring for the toy that she coveted, thought her cousin, it was a bright, expensive toy that Gay did not want herself, she only wanted her dear old rag doll, for so she at that moment absurdly designated Chris.

"Carlton must decide," she said, and went with lagging steps to the drawing-room, where her lover very quickly did, for he stepped up close, held her fast, and kissed her—kissed her like a man who had long starved for that moment, and could not take enough.

As she tore herself away, she could have wept to think that the first kiss of her lips was not for Chris, and the contrast of Carlton, supremely handsome and happy, with the girl she had just left, revolted her. Her voice was strange as she said,

"Will you go to my den? I will follow you there immediately," and turned aside that he might not see her face.

He coloured with disappointment and surprise, but of course there would be greater privacy there... Without a word he went.

As the door closed him in with Lossie, Chris came flying up the stairs, taking three steps at a time, a young god in his swiftness, strength and joy, bringing all the best gifts that life and love can bring to the beloved woman—too late.

CHAPTER XXXI

A DEBT OF HONOUR

It was not until Chris had caught Gay in those long, muscular arms of his, and lifted her clean off her feet, only to find her fiercely fighting his kisses, that he realised how completely his feelings had run away with him, how he had taken everything for granted, and he begged her forgiveness as he set her gently on the ground.

"Had a bother in the stable—one of my horses gone clean off his head," he said in his boyish way, "or I should have been here with the morning milk. I've got grand news, darling, Rensslaer has given me a berth and house at Elsinore—I'm giving up steeplechasing, and we're going to be happy ever after!"

"Are we?" she said; it did not sound like Gay's voice at all, and she was rubbing her lips with a tiny pocket-handkerchief as if she were trying to rub something out.

"Oh, nothing," cried Gay, reckless in her pain, "only that so far as I am concerned, you are welcome to go on steeplechasing for ever—it's no concern of mine."

"Dear little girl," said Chris remorsefully, "I did neglect you shamefully last night, but that wonderful jumping—you see those jumps represented all the most ingenious obstacles invented by Continental riders, and naturally it's intensely interesting to a man who 'chases—even if he doesn't do it like them, over trick fences. And then the riding," he burst out reminiscently, "such riding as you don't get in a century of good riders, at any rate, all assembled at the same time and place."

"Oh, spare me!" cried Gay, so angrily that his face fell, and she felt a brute as she saw how she had wiped all the brightness out of it.

"Anyway," he said pluckily, "we shall get plenty of hunting, Rensslaer says, and a stiff run is almost as good as a steeplechase. He has a horse that will carry you beautifully."

"I shan't be there," cried Gay, and stamped her foot. "How dare you take it for granted that I shall go where I have not even been asked?"

"Well," said Chris wrathfully, "didn't I ask you at the Ffolliott's dance—didn't I ask you again in this very room after my accident?"

"No, you didn't," said Gay. "It was I who said I'd give up Trotting, if you would racing, and you wouldn't!"

"But it was a perfectly understood thing," said Chris, "that if I dropped steeplechasing, you would marry me, and I have—and what more do you want?"

"Nothing," said Gay point-plank. "While you've been shilly-shallying, I've been making other plans—that's all."

"You have certainly been a little wretch to me," said Chris gravely, "and really, Gay, you must try to control your temper better, if we are going to hit it when we're married."

Gay gasped and sat down; so did Chris, though he kissed her first before she knew it—how fearfully quick he was in everything—but Carlton could be quick too.... She put her handkerchief away; she did not want to rub out that last kiss....

"My dear little girl," said Chris, and his young face, very near hers, was so handsome, and true, and tender, that she looked away from it, while a dreadful ache came into her heart, "I am doing for you what I would not for my mother, God bless her, and all we've got to think about now, is to be happy—" He alone knew at what immense cost to himself he had gained at last the victory, took it for granted that Gay would appreciate, and reward it accordingly.

"It's too late," she said miserably. "I am bound twice over to Carlton—once by a debt of honour—once by my word—"

"You are nothing of the sort," said Chris, who was far from realising the situation. "Mackrell played up well certainly about the Vase, but his motives were interested, and he'd be a rotter if he regarded you as being in his debt. I don't wish the poor chap any harm, but I'm afraid he'll have to put up with Lossie, unless she changes her mind."

"He—he is with Lossie just now," said Gay nervously, "but he may be here at any moment—"

"Not if he accepts her," said Chris, chuckling, "for I imagine there's something in the wind."

"Wouldn't you like to run down and see the Professor?" she cried eagerly. "He's always so delighted to see you!"

"I'm quite happy where I am," said Chris, smiling broadly. What a shy little thing she was, and what ridiculous ideas she got into her head; it was a relief to find she could be silly after all! "You are looking very pretty this morning," and he looked her over admiringly. Gay blushed—somehow she never did look nice without wishing for Chris to be there, and see how nice she looked.

"I hear St. Swithin's Court is charming," he said—"the place where we're going to live, you know—and the work Rensslaer's giving me will suit me down to the ground. Just fancy living in the midst of that paradise of horses! And he's giving me a thousand a year—rippin', ain't it?" and he kissed Gay again before she could stop him.

"Now, can't we be married early next month, go abroad for a bit, and be home in good time for the shooting? Morning, Mackrell!" as that gentleman came in, and Gay half rose, her heart beating wildly.... With a sick sense of despair, after one glance at his face, she knew that Lossie had failed.

"We were just talking about St. Swithin's, the little place that goes with the berth Rensslaer has given me," said Chris. "If the birds are all right, we'll be very pleased if you'll make one of the guns on the First—won't we, Gay?"

"I'm afraid there's some mistake. Gay is engaged to me for the First—and for many other Firsts, I hope."

Chris's glance flashed from one to the other, even in that moment he lived up to his motto, "Never show when you're hit," but his jaws gritted together, as, with an upward jerk of his bright head, he said:

Both men were standing, and at what Gay saw on their faces, she rose also, and stood between them.

"I am engaged to Carlton Mackrell," she said to Chris. "Will you please go away now?"

After one long look between her eyes, without a word Chris went, his proud young face impassive as Rensslaer's Indian; yet Gay felt as if there had been murder done, when the door closed, and involuntarily she stretched out her arms towards it.

"Oh, my God!" she whispered. "Come back, for I love you, Chris ... I love you."

Carlton heard—but this scene was a mere anti-climax to the one he had just gone through, and as he had held to his purpose in that one, so was he resolute to hold to it in this, where so much more was at stake....

Even if she loved Chris Hannen, what then? Gay must be protected against herself—made happy in spite of herself—a man always thinks he can make a woman that, in spite of all observation and experience to the contrary.... All these weeks of his absence, Chris had had his chance, and lost it. That the boy liked Gay well enough, Carlton knew, but not so much as horses. His behaviour throughout the Horse Show had proved that—and even if Rensslaer had given him a berth in his stables, where did Gay come in? The more superb the horses, the greater Chris's facilities for breaking his neck; anyway, there would be no comfort or peace of mind for the girl, and it was pure selfishness on Chris's part to want her to sacrifice herself to him.

In the few moments that Gay's fate trembled in the balance, she stole a glance at him, and saw his face pale, ravaged by the ordeal through which he had just passed, by this even fiercer one with scarce a breath between.

"You promised me, Gay," he said quietly, and she bowed her head, slipped to the door, and left him to the full bitterness of his triumph.

But when she had locked herself into her den, she glanced round the room as if the drama, lately enacted there, still palpitated, living in the air.... To a manly man there can be no hour more painful, than when his rights are invaded, and the impossibility demanded of him of a love where no love is; but it was of Lossie's passion and humiliation that Gay was thinking, of the uselessness of it, not Carlton's pain ... and then Chris's haggard, white, proud young face as it had looked just now, came—and stayed.

CHAPTER XXXII

DEAD SEA APPLES

It was late October, and Chris was riding harder than ever, and on the principle, as he told himself grimly, of "lucky in horses, unlucky in love," was having success after success, not only as a jockey, but a trainer, and bid fair to have a good stable of his own before long.

Gay had gone abroad with indecent suddenness immediately after her engagement, dragging the Professor with her, and forbidding Carlton to accompany them, because "she wanted a little time with Frank, since she was so soon to leave him." Yet, when at last she came back, after three months' absence, and then only because her brother insisted on it, Carlton was never able to get a moment alone with her, try as he might.

The devices she had used to stave off his proposal she used with fourfold skill to avoid being alone with him, she who had detested society, surrounded herself at all hours with it; even when she had to choose the decorations for the house he had taken in Norfolk Street, she took Effie Bulteel with her; the jewels he gave her, she never wore.

She treated her new tie as a purely nominal one, appeared careless and fancy-free; but she meant to go through with her bargain all the same, and a date in December had been actually fixed for the wedding, when the Professor with his usual inconvenience, fell ill.

Gay always declared that the trouble began with his discovery of a wonderful new microbe, that after due blazonment in the medical press, turned out to be something quite different to what it pretended to be, and, as she expressed it, sat up on its squirmy tail, making insulting faces at its non-discoverer. Frank took the matter so much to heart as to be at first hesitatingly ailing, then with considerably less hesitation, and as it entailed no effort, really ill for some time.

Nature was exacting her toll for his unhealthy, sedentary life, with its late hours, and lack of exercise, and all the tenderness for which Gay in those days had no other outlet, expended itself on him. She was a most devoted nurse, but to Carlton it almost looked as if, like the little boys and old Sam Weller's coach, the Professor had done it "a-purpose," when he lingered so unconscionably long a time over his convalescence, and the beautiful house in Norfolk Street still lacked a mistress.

It would be a cold, practical mistress, who never gave its master a kiss, or word of love, or welcome, and who as wife might reasonably be expected to be still more the "woman with no nonsense about her," that Gay evidently nowadays aspired to be.

Some men like brilliant women, hard and bright, others prefer hearts warm and tender. Carlton was one of these last, for, as Lossie had divined, there was a great capacity for romantic love in the man. Sometimes when most starved for sympathy, for appreciation where he had the right to expect it, he remembered the hot flood of devotion, of passion, that Lossie had poured out on him, and shivered in the isolation to which Gay from the first had banished, and rigorously kept him.

The heart makes its own decisions—Gay's had made hers in that passionate cry, "Come back, for I love you, Chris," and Carlton had thought that he knew better than her heart what was good for her, and reaped his reward in an automaton that talked, and smiled, and conducted itself with perfect grace and decorum, but that was not Gay.

It was the other Gay he wanted—the girl so full of life, and charm, and sparkle—the girl who could give brave kisses, and love with the thoroughness she put into everything that she did, the delicious comrade, the trusty counsellor, the dear household fairy who had the knack of creating a home wherever she might be, and that he had not hitherto found.

Well, he would not find it now—"for without hearts, there is no home"—and his town and country houses would be well ordered by a capable house-mistress, cold and uninterested, when the Professor, who seemed to be in no hurry, set her free to assume her duties as wife.

Oddly enough, Lossie seemed the happiest of the three, and having made her supreme appeal to Carlton, had apparently forgotten all about it. She met him without embarrassment, was friendly without effort—sometimes he rubbed his eyes, and thought he must have dreamed that vivid scene with her in Gay's den; yet he found himself thinking of it more often as time went on, and sometimes searched her intensely blue eyes for even a trace of the memory of it. But he found none—if Lossie, indeed, were playing a game, she played it magnificently well.

She neither sought nor avoided him, was quite pleasant, but profoundly indifferent, when they met at Connaught Square or elsewhere, and, most damning proof of all that she had ceased to value his opinion, permitted herself slight lapses in manner, and carelessnesses in dress before him. She even yawned occasionally in his face, treating him, as he said angrily to himself, like some damned old woman rather than the man whom she most wished to please—but did she?

He came to the conclusion that her outbreak had been a fit of nerves, combined with an interested desire to share his very handsome fortune, and that having failed, she thought no more about him, but decided to turn her attention elsewhere, the opportunity for doing so occurring very shortly after his own engagement.

For the unexpected had happened. Mrs. Elkins was being dressed by her maid to go to her lawyers, there to sign a fresh will she had made, by which she left everything to her favourite of the moment, and away from George Conant, who had annoyed her, when in the mirror, the woman saw the old lady's face contorted, terrible, with the most ghastly look of fear in her eyes, and though she struggled and fought dumbly for hours, she never spoke again.

George flew to Lossie the moment he was certain of what he had to offer her, and she accepted him on the spot, to his intense joy, while Gay so warmly encouraged the pair at her house, that Carlton one day complained bitterly of the ubiquity of that "grinning idiot," George Conant, who certainly since his accession to fortune, was more than ever like a Cheshire cat.

"He is an excellent match," said Gay coldly, "and what is better, he adores Lossie—I don't see why they should not be very happy. She will be the prettiest woman in his regiment, and have no end of a good time."

Could this be Gay speaking—Gay who at one time had been all heart and no head, who was now all head and no heart?

"I should have thought," he said, "that love might have some voice in the matter. No woman, surely, could love George Conant—

"Oh," said Gay bitterly, "when a girl can't marry the man she loves, she may just as well marry the man who loves her"—and Carlton winced.

He knew that he had taken a mean advantage of Gay, and was deeply humiliated, not only in his honour, but his pride, for by way of being a vain man, the simultaneous and utter indifference of both girls, hit him hard. Lossie had only wanted him for his fortune, going to extremest lengths to obtain it—Gay had wanted neither him nor his money, and accepted him only in a fit of passionate anger against Chris, of which she had instantly repented. Yet there was a tenacity of purpose, as of love, about the man, that forbade his throwing up the game.

As at every turn Lossie and Captain Conant seemed to cross his path, the one all beauty and (affected) happiness, the other all grin and possessiveness, a sombre rage, with more of heartache in it than he imagined, seized him. For many a man only misses a slighted love when, barred from his own hearth-fires, he turns in his extremity to it, only to find cold ashes, and Carlton in those days felt very chilly and lonely indeed.

Aunt Lavinia had been anything but well lately. One day, speaking to Gay of the Professor, who, like most doctors, was very nervous about himself, she said:

"Ah, my dear, when we are young, we only fear we have complaints, when we are old, we hope so."

"Do you find life such a grind, auntie?" she said, rather falteringly, knowing whose fault it was that "Laddie" was riding more recklessly than ever, and how Lavinia suffered over it, for he was the dearest thing in the whole world to her, as perhaps now she was the dearest thing to him.

"Well, my dear," said Lavinia quaintly, "life goes on with ups and downs, with long oases of worry, stagnation, and brief thrills of pleasure, until one day, we suddenly awaken to find people packing up in all directions—some have gone without our noting it, or saying farewell, others are in too great a hurry to think of us. Then in a panic, we decide to call together our friends of long ago, to come and make merry with us, and half the invitations come back to us, with 'gone away' scrawled across them. Then we rub our eyes, and realise that our going away time is near also, and henceforth we don't trouble much about the affairs of life, only how to get ourselves off decently, and in order."

Gay stooped and kissed the sweet little face, but was far from understanding then.

Rensslaer had been away during the autumn, hunting at Spa, then he had been shooting grizzlies in one place, and lions in another, but with late November, he was back again, and the first thing he did was to persuade Gay and the fairly convalescent Professor, to come and stay with him at Elsinore, where Frank spent his whole time in the library, save when dragged out for a drive.

Gay was abroad all day, either hunting with Rensslaer, or about those stables of whose inmates she never wearied, and once she found her way alone to St. Swithin's Court, going soft-footed over the house that was to have been hers—hers and Chris's....

It was very quaint, and old, and beautiful, and she peopled it with happy folk, and happy voices, not all grown up. Standing in the empty rooms, with doors hanging melancholy on their hinges, she saw it a nest of warmth, and love, and laughter, heard the cheery voice, the ringing tread that made the sweetest music in all the world to her—felt with a passion of longing, Chris's arm round her shoulder, and his hard, lean young face pressed close to hers....

She came to herself with a start, and there rushed over her the memory of a big house in town, all swept and garnished, waiting for her to walk in, and take possession.... She covered her eyes with her hands as if to shut out the face of the man who would share it with her.... strange that what held all Heaven to Lossie, should be so hateful to herself ... for both would have regarded the world well lost for the man they loved, yet the world, not that particular man, was to be their portion.

The girls were better friends now than they had ever been, greatly to the delight of Lavinia (who held a brief for unsatisfactory people), for generous Gay had come to understand Lossie better now, discovered how much worse her bark was than her bite.

Selfish she undoubtedly was, and in some things unprincipled, but, like many other idle, clever women, who have no hobby to occupy their time, no great love, no real work to sweeten their lives, she had turned her unused energies into mischief, talked scandal, done spiteful things, mainly for want of something better to do.

Certainly she had many things to embitter her that Gay had not, for by her own recent experiences, Gay knew that suffering of a certain kind does not ennoble, on the contrary, it tends to deteriorate the character, and ruin the temper. With the ease of mind that wealth brings, Lossie might develop into a very different woman—and yet—and yet—now and again would come to Gay flashes of insight, in which she seemed to see poor blundering George Conant, a mere hopeless pawn in the game that Lossie was playing with such consummate audacity and skill.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE GODS DECIDE

Rensslaer never spoke of Chris, but one night, when Carlton had gone back to town after spending the day at Elsinore, he said:

"Then he had better cut out Captain Conant, and marry Miss Lossie himself," said Rensslaer quietly.

These two always understand one another, almost as well, Gay thought, only differently, as she and Chris did. And Gay knew his story now, shyly suggested rather than told, a story of self-denial, of self-abnegation for the sake of one loved only too truly and well.

"They are admirably well suited to each other," said Rensslaer. "She adores him, and your coldness, and his male dislike of Captain Conant, are impelling him naturally towards her—a little push, and the thing is done."

"I will ask them down without Captain Conant," said Rensslaer, and he did, and somehow he and Gay managed to lose them in the park, and as it was some miles in length, and Carlton especially absent-minded that afternoon, this was not difficult.

"Gay looks ill," Carlton said abruptly, revealing the direction his thoughts had taken, when they turned to find their companions vanished.

He spoke sharply, with an intense feeling of humiliation. Lossie, turning to look at him, thought a little cruelly of her bitter hour; it was his turn now.

"Can't you see that she is utterly wretched," she said, "and thinks it her fault that Chris Hannen is trying to kill himself harder than ever?"

"It's the behaviour of a moral coward," said Carlton sternly; "but he was never half good enough for her."

"Oh," said Lossie, "it isn't what is good enough for us, but what we want, that matters!"

He turned to look at her—eyes, lips, hair, every bit of her, warm with—what? And he was cold, so cold, bleeding in his pride and self-esteem, it was Gay he wanted, but she had gone far to freeze out all the love that was in him....

"And is it George Conant you want so badly?" he said quietly, but with a sensation of stealing warmth in his veins to which they were of late unaccustomed.

"I am going to marry him," she said contemptuously, "and there will be five miserable people more in the world, including Chris!"

"Why should you be miserable?" he said, but his voice was not very steady, and his eyes were trying to force hers to meet them. "I'm sure Conant will not be."

"It is not his happiness or mine, that counts with you, but only Gay's," said Lossie, quietly.

He did not deny it, and a pang ran through the girl. He would never love anyone but Gay; still, did that matter? Lossie had enough love for both—through suffering she had come to know that the fulness of joy is in loving, not in being loved.

Involuntarily both had stopped, and in the wintry afternoon, with skeleton trees all about them, they were looking in each other's faces—in that moment Carlton saw his way clear, saw the road that led to Gay's happiness, if not his own—and took it.

Lossie had never looked so lovely in her life, or Carlton so manly, if frightfully pale, than when, after an hour's absence, they came in, and Gay got Lossie up into her bedroom, shut the door, and turned round to remark:

That she did not say "Poor Carlton!" was part of the tragedy of the whole thing—for him.

"Oh, Gay," cried Lossie, "I didn't ask him this time"—she blushed warmly—"but I've been doing pretty much the same thing in a different way."

"Poor Conant!" said Gay again. "As Chris would say, he'll be all top-boots and no grin!"

"Oh, he is young—he will get over it," said Lossie. "I never pretended to care for him, and as to suffering, haven't I gone through enough?"

"And pray," said Gay, who felt a great desire to turn head over heels a great many times in rapid succession, just as she had done when she was a child, "when is Carlton going to tell me that he has—has"—she pretended to weep—"jilted me?"

"Gay, he knew that you loved Chris too much for there to be the smallest scrap of love in your heart left over for him. He said that life without love was like the sky without sun—that he had been a selfish brute to think he could make you happier than Chris could."

"He's quite right," said Gay, who had recovered all her good looks in a moment, and with them the old charm and gaieté de cœur that had so distinguished her, "and if you'll get Mr. Rensslaer to show you his sculpture and medals presently, and leave Carlton and me together, I'll just tell him that he's a dear—and that I love him."

Gay never told Chris, nor Carlton Lossie, what was said during that brief interview in the Elsinore drawing-room; but Gay, to her shame, realised then, how consistently Carlton had played the game of love, how if he had been greedy once, he had sacrificed himself twice over for her, and tears fell from her eyes that night, before she dropped into the first dreamless slumber she had known for months.

The Professor was delighted that her home with him was to remain her home still, and everyone was happy except George Conant and Chris. The latter knew nothing of the change of partners, and went slogging away at his failures and successes, seemingly quite unable to break his neck, though he took every opportunity of trying to do so. Even when he did hear the news, he made no comment, lowered his proud shield of reserve to no man or woman either. It was no affair of his, when Gay had "chucked" him; she had done it for once and all, and he did not go near her.

There was not an ounce of vice in Chris, but she had sent him further on the road to the devil than anyone but himself, and perhaps Mrs. Summers knew, and the devoted old woman waxed more bitter against Gay day by day. It did not require the removal of certain photographs from his rooms, to indicate who was responsible for the change in him.

"As if, knowing how he misses his mother, she oughtn't to stand by him through everything," said Mrs. Summers indignantly to herself, and tried hard to make it up to her dear Mr. Chris in extra attention. But it did not seem to do him much good; he was beginning to think that there was a curse upon him, and that is a fatal thing for a man, making him sometimes reckless, sometimes bad, but seldom mentally, morally, or physically better.

But he turned up at Mackrell's wedding in December, and if each man surprised in the other's eyes, a look that told how to both there might be many women, but only one Gay, and Chris suspected a supreme renunciation in Carlton's taking Lossie as the only way to Gay's happiness, he had no idea of screwing himself up a second time to the sacrifice of all he held most dear.

Gay made a delightful bridesmaid, and Chris was the smartest, most sought after man there. He had always the air, the gay address, the charm of one of Charles Lever's adventurous heroes, belonged more to past times than present ones, and Gay, defiantly flirting on her own account, was appalled to see how easily and naturally he could flirt also—with one very lovely young married woman in particular, who had long tried to annex him. If he took a savage delight in paying Gay back in her own coin, inflicting a little of the pain on her that she had inflicted on him, was it not very natural—though not natural to Chris?

The most lovable nature is the easiest ruined, the most unmalleable, when it has once turned against what it loves. Whether it were that having made his one grand renunciation in vain, Chris felt himself incapable of rising again to such heights of self-sacrifice, or that the capacity to love, as he had once loved, was forever scourged out of him by Gay's failure to him at a supreme moment, the fact remained that he could not, and never meant to forgive her. She had belonged to Carlton first; it was Carlton who had had the first kiss from her soft young lips, and many others. Chris could not know that all the kissing had been on one side only, and very little of that—the tactics Gay had practised when she desired to ward off Carlton's proposals, were equally successful in preventing his enjoying the privileges of an accepted suitor.

The world, looking on at the meeting between Chris and Gay, said that between two stools she had fallen to the ground, that she had been a fool to be cut out by her cousin, and what was worse, it pitied her....

She had made a complete failure of Trotting, (her horses were sold, and the sport was quite given up), of matrimony, of everything, said that same world, but Min Toplady rejoiced to see the light come back to her darling's eyes, the spring to her step, and the merry ring to her laugh, to know her prettier, happier than she had been for months past, her perpetual anxiety about Chris's precious neck notwithstanding.

Rensslaer too was satisfied. St. Swithin's still waited, the post he had offered Chris was open still—so was Gay's heart, and all would come right in time....

The Professor was still made exquisitely comfortable by his sister, and pursued the selfish tenor of his way. Lossie reigned, quite good, and quite happy, the triumphantly lovely mistress of the house in Norfolk Street, and divers other places, and Carlton, if not happy, was at least resigned, and very proud of her.

Rensslaer pursued his various hobbies with his usual quiet persistence, George Conant had started a racing stable, and was squandering the Elkins' thousands at a great rate, but all that Gay ever heard of Chris now, was gleaned from the papers. He had been devoted to Lavinia, as usual, when they met at the wedding, but had not since been near her, and she thought his keeping away a good sign, and a proof that he was ashamed of his own stiff-neckedness. But Gay knew that by her failure in courage at a critical moment of her life she had lost him, and that he would give her no second chance.

Oh, what was honour, what was duty, compared with love, when love had called her with Chris's voice as it had done that morning? There must be some coward blot in her, some bad strain of blood that prevented her being true to herself ... in pluck, in love, in loyalty alike, she had failed ... she had only to say to Carlton, "It is all a mistake; I accepted you in a fit of pique—under a misunderstanding," but she had humiliated Chris alike as a man and a lover in the presence of his rival, and a man of the most sensitive pride, he could not forgive her.

He had not turned his back on her when she committed her mad escapade, got herself talked about; angry as he was with her, he had not shown it, only remonstrated quietly with her, and in vain. He had put up with all her tempers without a murmur; his lovely disposition had never once been at fault, or broken down under the strain. Finally, he had been prepared to give up for her sake the profession he so deeply loved, and she had thrown his renunciation back in his face; if he met with a fatal accident, she alone would be responsible for it.

She held her head as high as ever, and only Carlton and Lavinia guessed what she suffered, but with the end of the steeplechase season, relief came, and she drew a free breath. For six months at least, Chris would be safe, and as in the nature of things, he was bound to be oftener in town, it was inevitable that sooner or later they must meet.

And at last they did. One day they passed each other close in Piccadilly, Gay driving herself, and Chris in a hansom with the Mrs. Guest who had been at Lossie's wedding. They produced a flashing impression of youth, gaiety, and good looks, and so completely wrapped up in each other were they, that they did not even see Gay, who drove on with the furies in her heart.

So that was the reason that he could not forgive her, because another woman had taken her place in his heart... Jealousy, overpowering, terrible, racked poor Gay from then onwards—never had she loved Chris so much, never was it more impossible by look or word to try to call him back to her.

It was equally certain that Chris was resolute not to put himself within reach of such calling. In proportion to a man's love for a woman, is her power to influence him for good or evil, and Chris owed her a secret grudge for inflicting on him an injury that had done him no more good, morally, than Carlton's rejection of Lossie's love had once done her. The Mrs. Guest episode brought him little pleasure, and was not precisely of his own seeking—considerably to his surprise, too, his present existence did not satisfy him as it had done, and at odd times he thought of that other life which he could so pleasantly have lived at St. Swithin's.

He felt a brute to keep away from Lavinia, but in the frame of mind he then was, knew himself to be no fit company for her. Yet in the event, just as her life had been one long occasion of making opportunities for others, so by her death were the two hopelessly alienated people she loved best in the world, to be at last brought together.

In June came the cruel, mercifully brief illness that had threatened her so long, and Gay was constantly at hand to help her bear it, but it was to Chris she clung, who on his part plainly dreaded to be parted from her, realising too late, how lonely he would be, when the one woman who had so good an influence over him was gone. Had he been her own, the son that Lavinia had coveted, he could not have been more to her than he was, displaying qualities that made Gay admire and love him more with every hour. Watchful and devoted, the full tenderness and manliness of his nature were revealed with a fulness that only made the more marked his attitude towards Gay, to whom he remained cold, courteous, and completely indifferent always.

Once it half broke her heart to hear him, when he thought her absent, give Lavinia a message for his mother. Gay loved the simplicity of belief that never doubted the old friends would meet, suspected Chris's longing—who knows?—to be going himself to the one he so loved, and had never ceased to want.

"It will please her better that I can tell her you are very happy, Laddie," said Lavinia, who by a light invisible, saw what he did not. "And, you know, after all there is only one thing that matters, one first, last word—Love"—but he did not seem to hear her; there was a hard little kernel of bitterness in his heart against Gay, that nothing seemed able to remove.

Chris was standing in the sunny blue dining-room, staring straight before him, seeing nothing, when a slight sound at hand made him wheel suddenly, it was only a tired girl, weeping with bowed head on her hands ... how many nights and days had she been watching, and now needed to watch no more....

Something in his heart gave way, and with it all his fierce pride and unforgivingness towards her, as he uttered her name, she looked up...

Haggard they were, and sad and worn, as their eyes drew them together, with little of comeliness in their young faces, till love broke through, and flooded them with beauty ... perhaps it was of the message to his mother that Gay was thinking, as timidly she framed his face in her hands, and softly, as if she feared to bruise his lips, kissed him.

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