“No horse is too good for Miss Shapleigh,� answered Skelton, with gallantry; “but if she could be persuaded that another horse, with a coat as smooth and a tail as long as Alabaster’s, could carry her, I should like to see a match between him and that long-legged bay of mine—Jaybird, I believe, is his name.�
Now Jaybird was the gem of Skelton’s stable, and had beaten everything against which she had been matched since her début, so that to say that Alabaster possibly had too much foot for her, at once put the black horse in the category of great horses.
“If you can persuade Sylvia to let me sell him, I’d be delighted,� said old Tom, with his cheery laugh; “but I’ll not answer for your success with her. Women are mysterious creatures, my dear Skelton.�
“Undoubtedly they are,� replied Skelton gravely. “Miss Shapleigh wants Alabaster because she wants Alabaster. Nothing could be more conclusive.�
“You are quite right,� said Sylvia airily; “and when we cease to be mysterious and inconsequent we shall cease to charm.�
“Whateley, the old dunderhead, says,� began Bulstrode in his deep, rich voice, and with perfect seriousness, “that women are always reaching wrong conclusions from the right premises, and right conclusions from the wrong premises�; at which everybody laughed, and Sylvia answered:
“Then, as our premises are always wrong, our conclusions must be always right. Mr. Skelton, I shall keep Alabaster.�
“And my horse, Jaybird, will keep his reputation,� said Skelton, with his slight but captivating smile.
The instant Skelton said this Blair was possessed with the desire to own Alabaster. The idea of such a horse being reserved for a girl’s riding! It was preposterous. Racing in those days was by no means the fixed and formal affair it is now. It was not a business, but a sport, and as such each individual had great latitude in the way he followed it. Matches were among the commonest as well as among the most interesting forms it took, and a match between Jaybird and Alabaster struck Blair as of all things the most desirable; and in an instant he resolved to have Alabaster, if the wit of man could contrive it. He would show old Tom the weakness, the wickedness, of his conduct in letting himself be wrapped around Sylvia’s little finger in that way, and, if necessary, he would try his persuasive powers on Sylvia herself. Women were not usually insensible to his cajolery.
None of the women at the table took much interest in the talk that followed. Mrs. Blair saw instinctively that Blair’s passion for horses was being powerfully stimulated by Skelton’s presence and talk about the Campdown course, which she secretly considered to be the bane of her life. But she was too proud to let any one—Skelton least of all—see how it troubled her. She even submitted to be drawn into the conversation, which the men at the table were too well bred to leave the women out of, for by little references and joking allusions they were beguiled into it. Blair teased Sylvia about her unfailing faith in a certain bay horse with a long tail, on account of which she had lost sundry pairs of gloves. Mrs. Shapleigh reminded Mr. Shapleigh of a promise he had made her that she should one day drive four horses to her carriage.