"Take me when you go," pleaded Gay. "I could speak to Chris through the door, you know, and it might buck him up."
"More slang," said the Professor resignedly. "And—ah—Epsom Downs is not quite the place for a young lady, my dear—the air is so strong and keen, it nearly takes your head off—" And indeed he looked more alive than he had done any time these ten years.
"I wonder if his mother knows," she said, and her voice trembled. We seldom weep at things we feel, it is in the attempt to put them into words that we break down, and quite unexpectedly a tear rolled down her cheek.
A tear with Gay was so unprecedented an occurrence, that the Professor realised the severe nervous strain the girl had passed through, and that had kept her sleepless during the past night, but before he could make up his mind to try and comfort her, Gay had vanished, blaming herself for her lack of pluck.
After all, Chris lived, and that was everything; but oh! she hated sport—hated anything to do with horses. She had taken Chris's steeple-chasing more or less light-heartedly till the accident to which she had been an eye-witness, she had only heard of the others—become used to his disappearances while being patched up. But now she knew, in one lightning flash, that she could not bear to live with the constant dread before her of his being killed, or dragging out a maimed existence, and with her usual decision of character, came to the conclusion that Chris would have to choose between racing and herself.
She fell to wondering if Mrs. Summers would be offended if she sent down by the Professor some of her famous strong mock turtle soup, and she hoped his beef tea would be made properly, one part beef, one mutton, one veal. She was still thinking about it when her cousin walked in, unannounced, of course, as most undesirable things are.
"So Chris is going on all right," said Lossie, thus proving that she had already looked up the Professor. "Awful good sort, isn't he?" she added, in a tone of pretended warmth, for as she wanted Carlton Mackrell for herself, she never missed a chance of pointing out Chris's charms to Gay.
Gay nodded, and, in an effort to calm herself, took up a bit of needlework, and began to plant delicate, intricate stitches. It was significant, perhaps, that no one ever saw Lossie with a needle in her hand, and as she had no maid, how she got mended was a mystery.
"You look awfully bad," said Lossie frankly. "But if you feel like that, why not marry Chris Hannen when he gets up, and have done with it? Steeplechasing doesn't begin again till the autumn, and you may as well be his wife as his widow."
Gay paled. Lossie had brutally enough hit the right nail on the head. It was because she could not bear to own Chris, then lose him, that she must keep him at arm's length—be his comrade rather than his wife, which was by no means what Chris wanted!