“When the time comes for me to fix her up,” he said between thin lips which scarcely moved, “she’ll look like Washington Square in May—not like Fifth Avenue and Broadway.”
Nick Stoner continued to lead. Stull’s eyes resembled two holes burnt in a sheet; Brandes yawned. They were plunging the limit on the Sanford favourite.
As for Ruhannah, she sat with slender gloved hands tightly clasped, lips parted, intent, fascinated with the sunlit beauty of the scene.
Brandes looked at her, and his heavy, expressionless features altered subtly:
“Some running!” he said.
A breathless nod was her response. All around them repressed excitement was breaking out; men stood up and shouted; women rose, and the club house seemed 82 suddenly to blossom like a magic garden of wind-tossed flowers.
Through the increasing cheering Stull looked on without a sign of emotion, although affluence or ruin, in the Sanford colours, sat astride the golden roan.
Suddenly Ruhannah stood up, one hand pressed to the ill-fitting blue serge over her wildly beating heart. Brandes rose beside her. Not a muscle in his features moved.
“Gawd!” whispered Stull in his ear, as they were leaving.