Was there not? Across his brown eyes came a shadow that gave the lie to her words, and once again Gay wondered what the secret romance of his life was, this man whose ideals of beauty were of the highest, as his capacity for interpreting them, a conjunction that is very rare. They were looking at an extraordinary collection of pistols of which Rensslaer merely pointed out the exquisite workmanship, and it had just occurred to her that she had heard somewhere that he was a fine shot, when a servant came to announce luncheon, and on looking for the Professor, they found him where they had left him. He had merely moved entranced from book to book that he had long coveted, and one rare edition had almost, as Frank confessed, slid into his coat-tail pocket, so that when Rensslaer asked him to accept it, his joy knew no bounds. Yet, after all, Rensslaer's heart was in his horses, not books, as Gay discovered, when after luncheon, followed by the Italian greyhound that adored and never willingly left him, they walked towards the racing track, on the inside of which was turf smooth as a billiard-table, and surrounding it in the distance, a great belt of glorious trees. Gay glanced round eagerly; there was no sign of a horse anywhere, no stables within sight or hearing, only a peaceful sylvan landscape. Perfect quiet prevailed as Rensslaer explained to her that his Trotters were practised, not on the track, but on grass, if they were to be shown where the ring is of grass, as otherwise a trotter would be apt to break. "This grass is kept mown very short, and the turns are purposely not banked up," said Rensslaer, "as they never are at English horse shows, and the horses have to get used to it. I shoe my horses with spikes when showing, so that they shall not slip up, and have strong wheels made for my speed wagons, as the strain on unbanked-up turns, is apt to buckle a very light wheel, which is quite safe on turns that are banked-up. He then showed her that on the half-mile track there were quarter-mile posts, and also eighth of a mile posts at the ends of the "straights"; the track was two "straights," of an eighth, and two turns of an eighth of a mile at each end. "A horse's utmost speed for an eighth can thus be tested," said Rensslaer. "It is never advisable to put a horse at his utmost limit for more than an eighth." Excusing himself for a brief minute, Gay next saw him in enormous goggles, bunched up on a slender sulky weighing about twenty-eight pounds, swinging round curves behind a Trotter that did half a mile in about a minute or so, and yet never broke into a gallop, and Gay realised that not so much in his Trotters themselves, as in the masterly driving of them, Rensslaer's pleasure consisted. He held his arms differently--he drove differently to anyone she had seen before, in its essence his was the same deep joy that Chris found in the riding at which he excelled.