Gay shrugged her shoulders, and abruptly, contemptuously even, changed the subject.
"I am looking forward tremendously to Olympia," she said, "aren't you?"
"I suppose the jumping will be all right. I hear the fences are to be very much higher than any seen before in other shows in England, that gentlemen are to ride instead of stable-boys, is good."
There was a note in his voice that made Gay sigh impatiently, and turn her head away; here was the ruling idea, strong in death, or what was very near it.
"Rensslaer must have his hands full," said Chris. "Awfully decent chap—he has looked me up several times." He did not say that he had encouraged him, as bringing news of Gay.
"Oh, he's delightful," said she as tea appeared, and she began to pour it out. "His naïveté, his tremendous natural ability, whether he's revolver-shooting, or writing a play, or modelling, or driving Trotters, or judging horses, or nursing a cat, or taking a lot of trouble about a silly girl like me and my stupid fancies, there's no one like him!"
But Chris was not jealous, though some men might have misunderstood Gay's intense admiration of Rensslaer's genius and many-sidedness, and the pleasure his friendship had clearly brought into her life.
"You know the papers have engaged you to him?" he said, and thought of an extremely uncomplimentary snapshot of Rensslaer, crouched low on his seat, and made ferocious by his huge goggles, published in the papers side by side with Gay.
"Why?" she said incredulously. "Do you suppose that a man like that would care for a silly little ignoramus like me?"
"Men hate brains," said Chris grumpily, and his temper was not improved by being told that it was only boys who did.