“He did; but—” and Crane looked at Faust, with patient toleration of his lack of perception.
The Cherub waited for an explanation of these contradictory remarks. But he might have waited indefinitely—Crane had quite finished. The Cherub raised his little round eyes, that were like glass alleys, green and red and blue-streaked, to the other's face inquiringly, and encountered a pair of penetrating orbs peering at him over some sort of a mask—the face that sustained the eyes was certainly a mask—as expressionless. Then it came to Jakey Faust that there was nothing left to do but fill the Lauzanne column in his book with the many bets that would come his way and make much money.
Crane watched Lauzanne go lazily, sluggishly down to the post for his race. He knew the horse's moods; the walk of the Chestnut was the indifferent stroll of a horse that is thinking only of his dinner.
“They've given him nothing,” the Banker muttered to himself; “the heavy-headed brute won't try a yard. But he'll fight the boy when he tries to ride him out.”
The whisky that Dixon had surreptitiously given Lauzanne had been as inefficacious as so much ginger beer; and in the race Lauzanne drew back out of the bustle and clash of the striving horses as quickly as he could. In vain his jockey used whip and spur; Lauzanne simply put his ears back, switched his tail, and loafed along, a dozen lengths behind his field.
In the straight he made up a little of the lost ground, but he was securely out of the money at the finish. Fate still sat and threw the dice as he had for many moons—a deuce for John Porter, and a six for Philip Crane.
VIII
It was late autumn; the legitimate racing season had closed. In August Porter had taken his horses back to Ringwood for the winter.
When a man strives against Fate, when realization laughs mockingly at his expectations, there comes to him a time when he longs for a breathing spell, when he knows that he must rest, and wait until the wheel of life, slow-turning, has passed a little through the groove of his existence. John Porter had been beaten down at every point. Disastrous years come to all men, whether they race horses or point the truthful way, and this year had been but a series of disappointments to the master of Ringwood. After Lucretia's win in the Eclipse, Porter did not land another race. Lucretia caught cold and went off. He tried Lauzanne twice again, but the Chestnut seemed thoroughly soured. Now he was back at Ringwood, a dark cloud of indebtedness hanging over the beautiful place, and prospect of relief very shadowy. If Lucretia wintered well and grew big and strong she might extricate him from his difficulties by winning one or two of the big races the following summer. About any of the other horses there was not even this much of promise.