“Will it make Mrs. Blair very unhappy if Jaybird wins?� he asked.
“Unhappy! It will drive Blair to the wall absolutely. He has acted like a madman all through. He has borrowed every penny he could lay his hands on to put on that black horse of his. Blair is a study to me. He is the most practical man in making money and the most unpractical man in getting rid of it I ever saw. Why, he makes more actual profit out of that place, Newington, than Skelton does out of Deerchase. Old Tom Shapleigh says he is the best farmer, stock-raiser, manager of negroes in the State of Virginia. If he could be driven from the turf he would be a rich man in ten years. But he’s got that racing vampire fixed upon him. God help his wife and children!�
This made Lewis very unhappy. He went about haunted with the feeling that he was Mrs. Blair’s enemy. He began to hate the idea of the race as much as he had once been captivated by it. This was not lost on Skelton.
Before that, the two boys had showed much elation over their coming prominence at the race meeting. When they met they assumed great knowingness in discussing turf matters, which they only half understood, and put on mannish airs to each other. Instead of “Lewis� and “Hilary,� as it had once been, it became “Pryor� and “Blair.� But afterward Hilary was surprised to find a great want of enthusiasm in Lewis. He spoke of it to his father, and Blair at once fancied that Lewis had shown the white feather. He told it triumphantly to Elizabeth, and adduced it as another proof that he had a “sure thing.� Elizabeth, though, was not so confident. She had seen too many disappointments come of Blair’s “sure things.�
Skelton had not intended to return Blair’s last visit until after the race meeting, but the conviction that Blair would lose the race induced him to go over one day in the early spring to pay a visit, thinking it would be very painful to seek Blair out in defeat. So he drove over in his stylish curricle. Hilary met him at the door of the Newington house, and Skelton mentally compared him to Lewis Pryor, much to Lewis’s advantage. Skelton, though, scarcely did Hilary justice. The boy had his father’s physique and Blair’s wide mouth and white teeth, and also a great many freckles; but he had his mother’s charming expression. He escorted Skelton within the house.
Blair at once appeared, and with much apparent cordiality led the way into the old-fashioned drawing-room, where Elizabeth sat sewing, with little Mary at her knee. An Arab hospitality prevailed among these people, and enemies were welcomed at each other’s houses.
They talked together very amicably without once mentioning the subject which was uppermost in all their minds, until suddenly Hilary, with that maladroit ingenuity of which boys seem peculiarly possessed, asked suddenly:
“Mr. Skelton, how’s Lewis Pryor coming on with Jaybird?�
“Admirably,� responded Skelton with the utmost coolness.
Blair had turned red, while Elizabeth had grown pale. Only little Mary sat and sewed unconcernedly.