Lossie did not trouble to argue the point, she was better occupied in watching the effect of her beauty on the passers-by, and certainly the despised Ralli was very smartly turned out, as usual. The occasion, too, was pleasant, for they were on their way to see Mr. Vanderbilt's coach start from the Berkeley Hotel on its trial trip to Brighton, hence Gay's delight at the fillip given to coaching. "You don't seem to have troubled much about your Trotters lately," said Lossie presently as they turned into Berkeley Square. "Yet here is poor Carlton hounded out of England, treated like any low welsher, because you fancied a wretched Gold Vase! I wonder you dare show your face at the Meetings as you do!" "I shouldn't," said Gay with spirit, "if I had a face as sour as yours is at this moment! Really, Lossie, when I look at you, I feel thankful I wasn't born a beauty--it makes you leave everything else--manners, good temper, such lots of nice things, to chance, and the odds are forty to one!" "Oh, we can't _all_ be a dear, artless little thing, truckling to men's brutal prejudices--one reason you are so popular with them is, because you pretend you don't want women to have the vote!" cried Lossie. "Nor do I!" cried Gay warmly. "I consider an excited, shrieking crowd of sober women clamouring for their rights, more indecent than a crowd of men drunk who _don't_ clamour, and when it comes to slapping policemen's faces, padlocking themselves to railings, and rolling in gutters, it makes me ashamed of wearing a petticoat!" "Brains never were your strong point, Gay," said Lossie comfortably, and Gay emphatically thanked Heaven they were _not_. "The most rabid shrieker of them all would become mild as milk, if her own little baby were put in her arms, and she had her own man to love her," declared Gay. "And as there aren't enough men to go round, why don't the women emigrate, and fulfil themselves somewhere else?" "All women are not so primitive as you are," said Lossie, sneering, unaware that it was the capacity to _feel_ love as well as evoke it, that made much of Gay's charm; at the back of all her follies was a heart of gold, while a cherry stone represented Lossie's own assets in that particular, save where Carlton was concerned. But there was no time for further argument, for they found themselves jammed in the midst of a crowd delighted at the recrudescence of the horse, with his grace, beauty, speed, and spirit, just as ten years ago a similar crowd had assembled to see start for the same destination, that marvel of power and ingenuity which was expected to displace him--the motor-car.