"Frank and I are going abroad early in July," she said presently, and Chris's face lengthened. Steeplechasing was over for the year, and until he began to train his horses at the end of August, there was only the flat racing he despised, very seldom took the trouble to look at--and now Gay, on whose precious company he had counted, was going away in a little more than a month. "I shan't be riding again till autumn, worse luck," he said. "And I'm too late for Olympia." Gay looked at him, half-angry, half-reluctantly admiring--here he was, a mere gaunt shadow of himself, after the worst outing he had ever had, with only one longing--to court another! Chris was very sensitive, and his hatred of talking about himself was only equalled by his horror of being a bore. So although the change in her manner hurt him more than either he or she knew, he abruptly changed the subject. "You'll let me escort you to your meetings now, with Lossie, of course," he added grudgingly. "Tom Bulteel will be jolly glad to be off duty, I expect." "And Effie too," said Gay candidly. "She did detest coming with me so, but they both played up splendidly, even if Tom's temper has been perfectly horrid." "And where is this wonderful Gold Vase?" said Chris, looking at the centre of the carpet as if he expected to see it installed there as tutelary god. "Oh, I hate it!" cried poor Gay, with tears in her voice. "It's covered over with a piece of sackcloth--I mean silk--in my den. It was won by a fraud--paid for with Carlton's good name--the great mistake was his thinking I'd value anything bought at such a cost." "He never expected that brute to follow him up and see the toe-weights trick," said Chris consolingly. "Honest men can't play the rogue, and that's about all there is to it. Heard from him lately?" "He is doing a cure at Aix--for the sake of the scenery, you know!" she laughed. "I have had some cheerful, gossiping letters from him," and Chris nodded carelessly, as at a matter of no interest to either. Mackrell had played the fool, and must take the consequences. Then there was a horrid pause--a pause between these two who usually chattered like magpies when they got together! "I made a scrap-book out of the snapshots and sketches of you," said Chris, rather gravely. "By a moderate computation there are somewhere about thirty, and I divided them into groups--the decent"--he hesitated--"the--not nice--and the positively libellous." Gay coloured warmly. If her escapade had brought her a _succès de scandal_, caused her to be surrounded wherever she went in public, and make acquaintances faster than she wanted, she knew well enough the subtle difference in men's manners towards her, since she had courted publicity. "It wasn't such a very awful thing to do, really," she said, with a rebellious toss of her red-brown head. "It was only those spiteful wretches made it _look_ bad."