"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.