“I was sitting with some friends here,” he explained.
“Yes, I saw her,” she commented pointedly.
At that instant one of the stout men in front said, with a bear's snarl, “Well that's the worst ever; I've seen some jobs in my time, but this puts it over anything yet.”
“Didn't you back the little mare?” a thin voice squealed. It was the 'Pout.
“Back nothin'! The last time out she couldn't untrack herself; an' today she comes, without any pull in the weight, and wins in a walk from The Dutchman; and didn't he beat her just as easy the other day?”
Belle Langdon looked into Crane's face, and her eyes were charged with a look of reciprocal meaning. Crane winched. How aggressively obnoxious this half-tutored girl, mistress of many gay frocks, could make herself! There was an implied crime-partnership in her glance which revolted him. Dick Langdon must have talked in his own home. Crane's conscience—well, he hardly had one perhaps, at least it was always subevident; to put it in another way, the retrospect of his manipulated diplomacy never bothered him; but this gratuitous sharing in his evil triumph was disquieting. The malicious glitter of the girl's small black eyes contrasted strongly with the honest, unaffected look that was forever in the big tranquil eyes of Allis.
They were just at the head of the steps, and the Tout was saying to the fat expostulator: “I could have put you next; I steered a big bettor on—he won a thousand over the mare. I saw Boston's betting man havin' an old-time play, an' I knew it was a lead-pipe cinch. He's a sure thing bettor, he is; odds don't make no difference to him, the shorter the better—that's when his own boy's got the mount.”
“It's all right to be wise after the race,” grunted the fat man.
“G'wan! the stable didn't have a penny on Lucretia last time; an' what do you suppose made her favorite to-day?” queried the Tout, derisively. “It took a bar'l of money,” he continued, full of his own logical deductions, “an' I'll bet Porter cleaned up twenty thousand. He's a pretty slick cove, is old 'Honest John,' if you ask me.”
The girl at Crane's side cackled a laugh. “He's funny, isn't he?” she said, nodding her big plumed hat in the direction of the man-group.