She was shown how a horse is made familiar with the trials and the terrors of the road, and is taught to understand them. A machine that makes a noise like a score of motors all going at once, convinces the animal that the hateful thing means no danger to him, and quick to take a hint as his nature is, he approaches with confidence and freedom the tasks he has to face in his curriculum, and is soon well-equipped to face the emergencies of his career. Then followed an extraordinary exhibition of skill in which Rensslaer was evidently keenly interested, that consisted in the lassoing of a supposed vicious horse by long reins held in the hands of the _Haute École_ rider, so that he is brought first to one knee, and then another, and rendered helpless, and the lesson taught him that force is of no avail against brains and cunning. Gay sighed when at last they left the great quadrangle, steeped in the peace of the evening hour, and visited the yard where choice Belgian griffons and Pomeranians yelped in ecstatic chorus when Rensslaer approached their kennels--yet much as Gay loved dogs, she could not admire them like the beauties she had just left. Moreover, it was growing late, and they entered the house. When she had dug out the Professor, still dead to the world, and asking nothing better than to remain dead, they had tea, and departed. "Really a most remarkable individual, my dear," said the Professor, for a man who could do all the varied things his host could, and yet have the brains and taste to collect such books as the Professor had been gloating over, was not to be met above once in a lifetime. "In _his_ case, success is not due to his wealth." "In spite of it, you mean!" cried Gay. "If it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, it's a million times more difficult for him to live his own life, act up to his ideals, and fulfil the genius that is in him. The world won't _let_ him as a rule." "And to think that such a man as that should keep _Trotters_!" said the Professor, who, if he thought at all of what Gay had been doing that glorious June afternoon, concluded that she had enthused over something a trifle better than the weedy specimens he had seen at Waterloo Park. But Gay sat very still, thinking. She had found herself admitted to a paradise hitherto undreamed of; it was as if, seeking a single diamond, she had found a Golconda, and something of Chris's passion for horses had been breathed into her ... they were so much, much more beautiful than humans, more clever even in some respects ... with one-half of her soul she worshipped, with the other half feared them, as the real rivals to her happiness. CHAPTER XXV THE TUG-OF-WAR Chris looked very white and thin, but just as smart as ever, and completely unsubdued in spirit and intention, when he called in Connaught Square one afternoon late in May, and found Gay in.