"Love him? Love a man who doesn't even see me if a horse is around--who is deaf, dumb as a stock-fish, blind to everything save an animal that can jump?" Unconsciously Gay had put up two distracted hands to her face in the precise attitude of Rensslaer's "Little Mermaid," but it was indignation, not grief, that distorted her features. "What has the boy done?" inquired Rensslaer in astonishment. "Done? All the passion that is _in_ him goes into horses--and where do _I_ come in? Better a thousand times Carlton Mackrell's devotion! Oh, he wasn't afraid to sacrifice himself for my pleasure! There's a grain of romance in him somewhere, to do what he did--and Chris without a qualm, sacrifices _me_." "But does he?" said Rensslaer, getting up from his chair, and walking, more perturbed than Gay had ever seen him, about the room. "_Does_ he?" said Gay witheringly. "Oh, it was bad enough right through the Show--there was thunder in the air all along--but things came to a head last night with the high jump competition." She paused to smile ruefully as the suitability of her comparison struck her. "He forgot my very existence--didn't even _hear_ when I spoke to him!" Rensslaer shook his head, tried to get in a word edgeways, but failed; Gay was wound up, and meant to go on. "Oh, I can speak to you!" she cried passionately. "You will understand, as some men can't, how last night in a sudden revulsion of feeling, I turned from selfish Chris to devoted Carlton, who was looking at me, thinking of me only, as always--he had never presented his little bill--well, I would honour it to the full, even before it was presented. If Chris had looked at me then ... but he did not. When I got up, and we went out to the stables, it was all over really, and outside one of those preposterous chiffon stalls Carlton asked me, and I said--'Yes.'" "It's all right," said Rensslaer consolingly, "only you said 'Yes' to the wrong man. Now, if you had waited a little longer--" "A little longer! Hasn't this Horse Show been going on for a week, and has Chris Hannen had one thought, one word, when jumping was on, for me?" "He was charming to you whenever I saw you," said Rensslaer. "You seemed completely happy together, and admirably well suited, as always." "So we are--were, I mean," said Gay. "And I think St. Swithin's, with congenial work among my horses, would have suited Mr. Hannen very well," said Rensslaer quietly. "No steeplechasing, of course--that was in the bond--but plenty of legitimate riding." "I don't understand," faltered Gay, but all the same she was beginning to do so, to realise what her mad fit of temper had cost her.