"Stuff!" was Gay's rejoinder. "Men who play this game are not so soft and brittle as you, old boy. There they are again," pointing to the left as the horses made the bottom turn. They were all on their legs still, and as the Professor fumbled with the glasses, he devoutly hoped they would remain so. For a surgeon he was a remarkably nervous man, though he could operate with skill and precision, with no thought but for the work in hand. But he could not look at an accident, or anticipate one, without infinitely more suffering—mentally—than the actual victim, and Gay wondered what he would do if, as sometimes happened, half-a-dozen men were all on the ground together ... which was precisely what happened, and it did not need the terrified squeal beside her to inform Gay, that under a mêlée of men and horses, had disappeared a certain scarlet jacket and blue cap.
If Gay had ever doubted which it was of the two men laying such close siege to her, she loved, she had no doubt at all when, through her glasses, she saw a small patch of colour lying perfectly still, and in the same moment discovered that the Professor had vanished.
If terror had wrung from him that involuntary squeal, all his professional instincts—and they were the keenest he possessed—were instantly aroused by a "case," and he precipitated himself from the stand with a rapidity that left Gay far behind, and never stopped running till he had reached Chris. No other doctor had yet put in an appearance, and with quick, clever fingers the Professor made a cursory examination, and issued his orders rapidly and to the point, here was the cool, astute surgeon, recognised as such and instantly obeyed, as he superintended Chris's removal. The list of injuries when tabulated proved a heavy one. There was no fracture of the skull, but severe concussion of the brain, a collar bone and three ribs broken, also a hip put out, but no internal injuries as far as could be ascertained. Epsom was nearer than town, and the Professor decided to take Chris straight home in an ambulance, and remain the night with him, afterwards placing him in charge of a local doctor, if no complications ensued.
This he presently hurriedly explained to Gay, who, though deathly white, was quite composed; her spirits rose even at the report, for though Chris had had few worse "outings" than this one, at least he was alive.
"No doubt Mrs. Bulteel will look after you," added the Professor, as he rushed away, and Effie did, knowing well enough that if Chris Hannen had lost his race, and almost his life that day, he had beyond all question only established more firmly his claim on Gay's heart.
CHAPTER XIV
A BEAUTIFUL CASE
"It was a beautiful case," said the Professor, looking rapturously at Gay through his glasses, and he fired off a lot of technical terms that she did not in the least understand, but inwardly shuddered at, for it was Chris's flesh and bones of which he was speaking, and he wound up by telling her of the cemetery so conveniently placed for jockeys under the hill at Epsom.
"When are you going to see him again?" inquired Gay, sitting down to hide a sudden faintness.
"I have placed him in charge of an excellent man at Epsom," said the Professor in the superior way in which one doctor speaks of another, "but I shall overlook him, of course."