As soon as she had got over her surprise, Gay found she was gaining very rapidly on her teacher, and close to the first quarter pole. Glancing hurriedly at her watch, she found, to her horror, that the quarter was done in 35 seconds, a 2.20 gait, so she said, "Hoo, girl," and took a steadying pull at the mare, who came back to her at once, although by the way she shook her head, she did not seem to like it.
As Gay drove, she thought that, as she had made up 2½ seconds too much in the first quarter, she should drive the next in 40 seconds to make the proper average, but when she got to the second quarter mile she found she had overdone it, and Rensslaer was sailing away a full half of the track in front of her.
She therefore determined to rely on her own judgment of how fast she should gain on him, and gave a gentle click to Marvellous, who instantly lowered her head, and began to strike out, gaining rapidly on Rensslaer; as she came into the back stretch the third time she was just behind him.
Round the last turn she drew up to him on the outside, and, in spite of the much greater distance her mare had to go in turning, held her place, and passed him just as they came into the straight. The mare shot out of herself, and drew so rapidly clear of Rensslaer that Gay thought she would make a close finish of it, and took back her mare sharply. This was a fatal mistake, as Rensslaer shot up alongside, and before she could set her mare going again, he had won by a head, in 3.45½.
She looked so taken aback that he controlled a smile as he told her not to be disappointed, as it would be a good lesson to her, never to slacken speed enough to let herself be caught in that way, but he also told her that it was bad tactics to be alongside another horse at the turns, as it takes so much more out of your horse.
Here ended Gay's first Trotting lesson at the hands of a great expert, and if she had been too ignorant, too excited even, to appreciate the marked difference between "Marvellous" and the Trotters owned by Mackrell and herself, she had yet realised that this last experience of driving herself was something very different to that first essay in which Rensslaer had surprised her. For many a night after, she would wake up, throbbing with excitement, hoping that she would find her dream, in which she re-lived those glorious moments in a real race, a fact.
"Oh! if I only dared!" she thought, but the plain truth was that she did not dare. There was the Professor—the world—and—yes—Chris ... though she scarcely owned it to herself, Carlton's opinion did not count.
CHAPTER XIII
SANDOWN GRAND MILITARY
"Heron," cried Gay, waving a letter at him, across the breakfast table one morning early in March, "I've got an invitation for you! Effie and Tom Bulteel are taking their coach down to Sandown to-day, and they want us to go with them. I heard all about it the other night," she confided laughingly, "but I knew if I told you of the treat that was in store, you'd plead an engagement, or shuffle out of it somehow, and I do so want you to come! A day in the open will do you no end of good, and you'll get a ripping lunch (the Professor's face brightened a little), though you'll have to do without your afternoon nap, you know, unless you get inside the coach."