Gay stamped her foot.
"Don't be absurd, Frank," she cried with spirit. "None of my friends interfere with you, and you needn't shed the gloom of your depressing countenance on the scene if you don't want to. I expect Lossie as well, and I've no doubt she'd much prefer talking science (ahem!) with you, to listening to us talking horses."
"I appreciate Lossie's attitude towards sport as thoroughly as I deplore yours," he said with unexpected energy.
"That's all right, then," Gay replied cheerfully. "You two ought to make a match of it. Why don't you?"
The Professor actually blushed, and to cover his confusion, ambled away towards his laboratory, while Gay puzzled over that blue pencil mark of interrogation, in vain.
Later in the afternoon, as she sat in the drawing-room awaiting the arrival of her visitors, she looked very different to the little tomboy who so lately had driven her horse round the racing track. Dressed as usual in white, and almost buried in the depths of a saddle-backed chair drawn up close to the fire, it seemed impossible to associate her with the keen sportswoman, who openly declared that she would walk ten miles to see a steeplechase or a trotting race, and who rode and drove equally well.
Or so, indeed, thought Rensslaer, as he followed Carlton Mackrell into the room—possibly his expression showed a little of the surprise he felt, for Gay laughed as they were introduced.
"I suppose the women on your side don't do such outrageous things as own Trotters, do they?" she said demurely, as Rensslaer shook her hand heartily.
"I always admire a straight 'sport,' man or woman," he said, looking into Gay's grey eyes, "and I am proud to meet you."
"Thank you," she replied simply. "Do sit down, and tell us all about Trotting in America. I had no idea until lately that you were so keen on it over there."