"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."
Gay reluctantly admitted the fact.