But he liked her sporting spirit when first he saw her at Inigo Court, pitied her for the disillusion that her Trotting passion was bound to bring her, admired her pluck when things went wrong, found her true-hearted, honest and kind, therefore after his own heart. Yet when he went presently away, he somewhat sadly thought of the careless, happy girl, enthusing about her Trotters, whom he had found on his first visit. Unconsciously he murmured to himself: "Give her back her youth again, Let her be as she was then! Let her wave her little hand With its gesture of command...." Yes, even the lightest bruise on youth, splendid, unbroken, unconscious even in its selfishness, was a pity. CHAPTER XXII KING OF THE ROAD Lossie, waiting in the tiny blue dining-room in South Street for Gay to fetch her, glanced round at the blue walls, the old copper prints, the bits of old Nankin, at the flowers on the table, blue also, and looking in the glass at those bluer flowers in her own head, felt a sudden nostalgia, a longing to have Carlton Mackrell beside her in her own _milieu_. It is what a woman in love always wants, and everyday her pain at the deprivation of Carlton's society became sharper, for there is no greater spendthrift in love than the selfish woman who has the full intention, _bien entendu_, of getting her own back, in one form or another. Turning to the window, she saw Gay drive up, and cheerily wave her whip to her--that was the disgusting thing about Gay, that whether really happy, or only pretending, she always pluckily tried to live up to her name, thought Lossie, as she went out, pretending to herself that she was a mere cat's-paw, to be used or ignored by Gay as occasion served, but really glad of the opportunity of displaying her lovely clothes. "Aunt Lavinia's slumming," said Lossie, in reply to the other's query, as she climbed to her perch. "Why don't you start a motor?" she grumbled. "This Ralli car is so selfish--you can't give your friends any sort of a time with it, or take them any distance. Nowadays one must either motor or be motored--and I prefer to do the motoring myself." "Thank you," replied Gay with spirit, "I'm like Roosevelt--when someone asked him the other day when he was going to buy a motor-car, he said not while there were horses! I think it's just splendid," she added warmly, "for the Americans to come over here, and revive our rapidly waning interest in horses, and if some of our English millionaires spent their money in the same way, then so much the better would it be for horses, and for us! The horse is our friend even more than the dog, and I'd like to see him kept for enjoyment, not degraded to rough street work--_that's_ where the motor-car should come in!"