“Burke!” contemptuously. “Burke weighs at least twelve stone. His riding days are over. Why not suggest Mark at once?” with a supercilious smile.
“Could you not get some substitute?”
“No. Pray why should I? Campell has asked me to ride—I have consented. Voilà tout.”
“But,” she urged, nervously twisting her bangles, “I do wish you would have nothing to say to him. They say the reason Captain Campell could not get a jockey was that the horse had such a bad name. Say you will not ride him,” she pleaded brokenly. “Do, for my sake. I will tell Captain Campell that he must find another jockey, as I will not allow you to ride.”
“I don’t know on what grounds you should ask me to do anything for your sake.”
A silence.
“As to not allowing me to ride,” he continued with polite irony, “I’m afraid I cannot admit your authority.”
He felt he was brutally rude; but in rudeness was his safety. Another such look as she had just given him and he was a lost man. The farce of “Ward not Wife” would be played out, all his stern resolutions thrown to the winds, and he would have to surrender his pride, his self-respect, his word of honour. She was so close to him that he could feel the perfume of the roses in her hair and see a stray eyelash on her cheek. He moved to one side and, steadily looking at the floor, said:
“I could not break my word to Campell. If Tornado wins to-morrow he has promised me to give up his stud. If he loses, he will be ruined, and will have to sell out. Besides, it is not a steeplechase, only a flat race. Nothing very alarming in that, is there?”
“Not quite so bad; but bad enough. The horse did kill one man, why not another?” looking awfully white.