"No doubt of it," Carlton Mackrell assured her. "Let me congratulate you."
Gay laughed rather nervously.
"Thank you," she said, "but not yet. Oh, look, there's something—Mrs. Wiggs, isn't it?—that's passing Silver Streak now. Why doesn't Tugwood go after her?"
The apparent catastrophe occurred on the back stretch approaching the turn. Chris, looking on, noticed it, and prayed that Mrs. Wiggs could not sustain the effort. He saw, too, that the pair had considerably decreased the leader's advantage.
"It's all right," Carlton Mackrell declared. "Tugwood will make his effort—an easy one, too—directly they get into the third lap."
And so it proved. Mrs. Wiggs' advantage was only temporary, and directly Tugwood asked Silver Streak to catch the leader, he did so in decided fashion, and Gay breathed a sigh of joy and relief as Tugwood put the issue beyond doubt fifty yards from the box, and jogged in, a two-lengths winner, in 3.36 from scratch.
"Oh! I'm so glad!" Gay exclaimed, and indeed she looked radiant, and altogether adorable, as she received from the two men congratulations so warm that Lossie's silence was quite overlooked.
The beauty was quite out of her element, and took no pains to hide the fact. How Gay could mix with such awful people she did not understand, and she registered a vow that this was the first and last visit she would pay to Waterloo Park, or any other of the Trotting Meetings.
It was adding insult to injury, too, for Gay to openly show her friendship with that vulgar person, Min Toplady. She looked angrily in the direction of the carriages, where the "vulgar person's" purple gown refused to be overlooked, and Min was clearly in her element as she dispensed hospitality with a lavish hand, while Bob conducted an earnest conversation with a professional driver.
"What's the matter, Lossie?" Gay inquired suddenly. "I'm afraid you're not enjoying yourself."