"Why, he _loves_ his horses," cried Gay indignantly. "It's his humanising influence in the stable--loving the dear beasts, not for what they do, and the money to be made out of them, but for what they _are_--that's so lovely." Chris sighed. To love horses, and live among the world's pick of them as Rensslaer did, was a lot that the most fortunate man alive might envy. "Chris?" "Yes?" "Aunt Lavinia has been a great comfort to me while you were laid up." Chris smiled--it was a sign of grace in her that she had need of comforting. "I didn't know till she told me--how--how charitable you are. No wonder you're always hard up, when you give away most of your winnings in helping poor, wretched people!" Chris coloured. "I don't," he said. "Aunt Lavinia has been pulling your leg." "Has it ever struck you that I am very selfish?" inquired Gay anxiously. "Often--about not making me happy. And it would be so easy, and so--er--so pleasant," said Chris, with the lines that meant mischief wrinkling his young eyes. "You know," said Gay hastily, "somehow my ambitions seem _common_ to me when I look at that dear little lady, who lives entirely for others, and I question my right to waste money as I do on Trotting and otherwise. Oh, I'm not a Socialist"-- "I should hope not," said Chris significantly. "It just means that you make another man work for you while you idle, and then curse him because he does not make enough to give you luxuries." "Oh, I'm idle enough," said Gay remorsefully, "but I _do_ feel a burning desire to see the rich enjoy less, and the poor and unfortunate _suffer_ less, and I know perfectly well that I ought to sell my horses-- "They wouldn't fetch much," said Chris, chuckling unkindly. "But there's nothing I'd enjoy more than putting 'em up at Tattersall's--if they're good enough for Tat's." Gay turned very white, and a flash like steel came into her grey eyes--few people had ever seen it, but it meant mischief. "And I to see you put up yours," she said quietly. "When you drop racing, Chris, you may talk to me about Trotting--not before." Chris too had turned very pale, he understood now. He was to tear out what was in the very blood and fibre of him--what had been in countless generations of his hard-riding, sporting forefathers... "You ask me for my very life itself," he said heavily. "Even my mother never asked me that impossibility. She placed my deep happiness in riding before her own peace of mind always." Yes, his mother had known how to love him better than that.... He must possess great qualities to love, and be so beloved by his mother, that their love went on, unbroken even by death. After all, Gay asked herself, was it not _she_ who was selfish, not he?