Ah, there was Diablo, the very number Allis had said carried no dread for her, thirteen. What a strange coincidence! What a cruel twist of fate it would be if he were to win!—he looked equal to it. A man sitting at Allis's elbow suddenly cried in a voice enthused into the joyous treble of a boy's: “Look at that big Black; isn't he a beaut? Number thirteen. That's a hoodoo number, if you like; it's enough to give a backer cold feet.”
“I thought you weren't superstitious, Rex;” this was a woman's voice.
“I'm not, an' I'm going straight down to back that Black, thirteen and all.”
On Allis's other side one of the party was ticking off the horses by their numbers as they passed; “One, two, that's White Moth; they say she'll win; three, Red Rover; four, what's that? that's George L.; five, six, seven; just look at that little runt. What is it? Oh, Lucretia. Might as well run a big calf, I should think.”
“She's just lovely,” declared a lady in the party. “She's as graceful as a deer, and I'm sure she'll run as fast as any of them.”
“Can't live in that mob; they'll smother a little thing like her,” declared the man, emphatically. “Where are we—ten, eleven, The King, that's the winner for a hundred. Look at him. He carries my money. It's all over now; they can't beat him. That's a fine looker, though, thirteen,—Diabo, eh? What's that horse Diablo, George?” turning to one of the men.
“No good—a maiden; I looked them all up in the dope book; how they expect to win the Brooklyn with a maiden gets beyond me.”
Somewhat tortured, Allis listened to the voluble man on her left, who was short and fat, and red of face, as he graded, with egotistical self-sufficiency, the thirteen competitors for the big Handicap. Lucretia he had passed over in disdain. Crude as his judgment seemed, arrogantly insufficient, it affected Allis disagreeably. Now that everything had been done, that the last minute of suspense was on, she was depressed. The exhilaration of preparation had gone from her, and the words of the captious man on her left, “that little runt,” hung with persistent heaviness on her soul. All the vast theater of the stand was a buzz of eager chatter. Verily it was a race; it was the Brooklyn Handicap. Lips that smiled gave a mocking lie to drawn, strained faces, and nervous, shifting eyes, that told of the acceptance of too deep a hazard. The weeks and months of mental speculation embodied in heavy bets would have their fruit ripened and plucked within a brief half hour.
Allis's gaze dropped to the grass lawn in front of the stand for a minute, her eyes seeking repose from the strain of watching the horses as they went down to the starting post. How fretfully erratic were the men who dotted its green sward with gray and solemn black! The deeper interest Allis had over there on the course where was the little mare, seemed to lift her to a great height above them. How like ants they were, crossing and recrossing each other's paths, twisting and turning without semblance of an objective point, creatures of an impulse almost lower than instinct, devoid of this well-directed governing motive. Yes, they were like an army of ants that had been suddenly thrown into confusion. She saw one of them come hurriedly out of the paddock, talking impetuously with bended head—for he was tall—to a short man in gray tweed, beyond doubt a trainer. Suddenly the tall man broke away, hurried to the rail which separated the lawn from the course, leaned far over its top to take a last look at the horses, and then with a queer shuffling trot he hurried to the mob that was surging and pushing about the bookmakers. Allis noted with minute observance each little act in this pantomime of the last-minute plunge. Just beneath where she sat two men were having a most energetic duel of words. A slim, darkskinned youth, across whose fox-like face was written in large letters the word “Tout,” was hammering into his obdurate companion the impossibility of some certain horse being defeated. Presently the other man's hand went into his pocket, and when it came forth again five ten-dollar bills were counted with nervous reluctance and hesitatingly made over to the Tout. Tight clutching his prize this pilot of the race course slipped from Allis's sight and became lost in the animated mass that heaved and swayed like full-topped grain in a harvest breeze.
Within all that enclosure there seemed no one possessed of any calm. To the quiet girl it was a strange revelation; no one could have as much at stake as she had, and yet over her spirit there was nothing beyond the lethargy of depression. No; no one is calm, she thought. Ah, the assertion was too sweeping. Coming up the steps, just at her right, was a man who might have been walking in a quiet meadow, or a full-leafed forest, for all there was of agitation in his presence. A sudden new thought came to Allis; she had never seen that face distraught but once. The collected man was Philip Crane. A tinge of almost admiration tingled the girl's mind. To be possessed of calm where all was nervous strain was something.