"Oh! rather! She's going home now, said I was to tell you; said she'd save up and congratulate you in private."
"That so?" said Jake.
He disengaged himself from Bunny and went about his business, but the smile lingered in his eyes for the rest of the afternoon. And it was the smile of a man who grasps his heart's desire.
There was a white house on one of the great rolling downs behind the Graydown race-course, a low, white house with gabled roofs and dark green shutters. There were woodland trees about it, and a terraced garden bright with many spring flowers.
Behind it lay the racing-stables, also white,--model stables, the pride of Jake's heart. He seldom approached the house by any other route. But as he passed between the long, orderly buildings on that particular evening after his horse's victory, he did not linger. Straight to the house he went, and straight within, pausing only in the wide, square hall to threw down hat and whip ere he passed on, guided by the notes of a piano, to a room that overlooked the garden and the whole sweep of hill-side beyond.
She did not hear him enter, albeit she was playing softly, a dreamy melody that had in it something of dawning gladness and of infinite hope. Only Chops, the red setter, lying by the open French window, looked up and wagged a noiseless welcome. Then as he reached her, she caught the jingle of his spurs and in a moment she had turned to meet him with a vivid smile of eagerness.
"Oh, Jake, I am so glad--so glad!"
He put his arms about her as she sat, holding the flushed face upturned to his. "What's that you're playing, my girl? Not a pæan of thanksgiving!"
Her eyelids fluttered under his look. She laughed faintly. She offered him her lips with just a hint of shyness. He kissed her, but he continued to look at her with an intent glitter in his eyes. "You're glad, are you?" he said. "Real glad?"
Her arms clung about his neck. "Yes, real glad, Jake. I know you call The Hundredth Chance your luck. I was horribly anxious lest--lest he should lose after all."