Layson, after Holton left, looked around upon the party with a worried eye. "I can't take this matter up, yet," he declared. "Until the race is over I can think of nothing else. Colonel, I'll look after Ike, and then we'll be off to the track."
"So we will, my boy," the Colonel answered, "so we will. Ah, what a race it will be!" As Frank went out, the horseman rubbed his hands with keen anticipations of delight.
"Oh, Colonel," exclaimed Madge, brought back by this turn in the conversation to contemplation of the most exciting prospect which had ever been before her, "won't we have fun?"
"Won't we?" said the Colonel, very happily.
But then Miss Alathea spoke. She had listened to all the talk about the fire, the incendiary, the pursuit, and its dreadful possibilities of lynching, with the keenest of distress. Now the Colonel's calm declaration that, presently, they would be off to the race-track which he had sworn forever to taboo, shifted her mind suddenly from those unpleasant topics.
"Colonel!" she exclaimed, in pained astonishment. "Do you forget your promise?"
"Er—er—" the old horseman began and became speechless.
Madge was all excitement. "Mr. Frank has told me all about it," she said gaily. "I kin see it, now—th' grand-stand filled with folks, th' jockeys ridin' in their bright colors, th' horses a-champin' an' a-pullin' at their bits—an' then—th' start!" The girl had dreamed about such scenes before she had so much as guessed that she might ever witness one, and now, when she was actually about to go out to the track, herself, and with her own eyes gaze upon the greatest race which old Kentucky had known for many a year, it seemed too good to be true. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, her feet danced as if they might be in the stirrups, her hands clutched on imaginary reins. "All off together, a-goin' like th' lightnin'!" she exclaimed. "Queen Bess a-lyin' back an' lettin' th' others do th' runnin', Ike never touchin' her with whip nor spur until th' last, an' then jest liftin' her in as if she had wings!"
"Stop! Stop!" cried the Colonel. "Not another word, or I'll drop dead in my tracks!" Then, cautiously, to Madge: "I say, little one, couldn't you let me have a word alone with Miss 'Lethe?"
The girl nodded wisely. "I understand," said she; and then, with a quick glance at Miss Alathea, who was not attending, and an earnest and imploring look at the poor Colonel: "Whatever you do don't you forget that we are goin' to th' races!" She left the room.