"Great news," Gay replied with enthusiasm. "Mr. Mackrell has bought me a couple he got to hear of, a green Trotter who can go in about 2.18 called 'Silver Streak,' and a pacer with a trial of 2.13¼ named 'Maudie T.' And isn't it kind of him, he's going to lend me his trainer—sounds funny to talk of lending a man, doesn't it?—while the craze lasts, as he calls it. But you know, Chris, it isn't a craze, it's a—a—almost a disease now! I'm racing one at Waterloo Park next Monday, and oh! I do hope it will win, don't you?" she asked eagerly.
"With all my heart," Chris replied, with more enthusiasm than he thought he could work up over Trotting. "And may I be there to see. Monday, you said, didn't you? That will suit me to a T. I've got nothing to do till Wednesday at Kempton, so perhaps you'll return the compliment, and come over to see me bump round on Beeswing? He did well in a gallop this morning—better than I expected, in fact."
"Answered the question all right, did he?" Gay asked. "Does he represent a betting chance on Wednesday, with the eminent gentleman-jockey up—and is he safe?" she added, turning a little pale.
"Well, he's about as safe a jumper as an amateur"—he grinned, "that's what some of the professionals in their scorn for the 'leather-polishers' they call us, could wish to ride, and my head lad says he has so much in hand that he could stop to scratch himself, and then win," Chris chuckled. "Oh! hang Lossie!"
The stifled ejaculation was prompted by the entrance of a remarkably pretty girl, beautifully dressed in dark blue, who rustled across the room to Gay, and kissed her perfunctorily.
"How are you?" she inquired, but though her voice was affectionate, her eyes flitted from Gay to Carlton Mackrell—where they stayed.
"A1, Lossie, thanks. I needn't ask how you are. I never saw you looking better—(or more expensive)", she added to herself with a sigh, as her cousin shook hands with Carlton and Chris, and begged Gay to give her a cup of tea.
Frank Lawless ambled forward, and was soon busily juggling with milk and sugar basin, while Chris wondered what in Heaven was wrong with the girl, for if she always gave him the same displeasing impression, he could not possibly deny her beauty. Tall and dark, with masses of silky blue-black hair, she had eyes blue as heaven, and straight, delicate features that emphasised the irregularity of Gay's changing face, of which the chief charm, perhaps, lay in its expression.
She seemed a bundle of nerves as her slender foot beat a tatoo on the floor, while her wonderful eyes were never still, yet never rested long on any single object save Carlton, who was certainly well worth looking at.
It was Lossie's misfortune to have fallen genuinely in love with him, not for his money, though she liked that well enough, but himself. His was the Saxon temperament which veils the keenest pleasure, and the deepest grief under the same quiet, almost bored exterior, but she knew that his indifference concealed an ardent, even romantic temperament, that might be counted upon sooner or later to betray him into one of those follies so dear to the heart of woman, while Chris's gay, almost affectionate manner to the women he liked, argued a much greater warmth of temperament than he really possessed.