Carlton heard--but this scene was a mere anti-climax to the one he had just gone through, and as he had held to his purpose in that one, so was he resolute to hold to it in this, where so much more was at stake.... Even if she loved Chris Hannen, what then? Gay must be protected against herself--made happy in spite of herself--a man always thinks he can make a woman that, in spite of all observation and experience to the contrary.... All these weeks of his absence, Chris had had his chance, and lost it. That the boy liked Gay well enough, Carlton knew, but _not so much as horses_. His behaviour throughout the Horse Show had proved that--and even if Rensslaer had given him a berth in his stables, where did Gay come in? The more superb the horses, the greater Chris's facilities for breaking his neck; anyway, there would be no comfort or peace of mind for the girl, and it was pure selfishness on Chris's part to want her to sacrifice herself to him. In the few moments that Gay's fate trembled in the balance, she stole a glance at him, and saw his face pale, ravaged by the ordeal through which he had just passed, by this even fiercer one with scarce a breath between. "You promised me, Gay," he said quietly, and she bowed her head, slipped to the door, and left him to the full bitterness of his triumph. But when she had locked herself into her den, she glanced round the room as if the drama, lately enacted there, still palpitated, living in the air.... To a manly man there can be no hour more painful, than when his rights are invaded, and the impossibility demanded of him of a love where no love is; but it was of Lossie's passion and humiliation that Gay was thinking, of the uselessness of it, not Carlton's pain ... and then Chris's haggard, white, proud young face as it had looked just now, came--and stayed. CHAPTER XXXII DEAD SEA APPLES It was late October, and Chris was riding harder than ever, and on the principle, as he told himself grimly, of "lucky in horses, unlucky in love," was having success after success, not only as a jockey, but a trainer, and bid fair to have a good stable of his own before long. Gay had gone abroad with indecent suddenness immediately after her engagement, dragging the Professor with her, and forbidding Carlton to accompany them, because "she wanted a little time with Frank, since she was so soon to leave him." Yet, when at last she came back, after three months' absence, and then only because her brother insisted on it, Carlton was never able to get a moment alone with her, try as he might. The devices she had used to stave off his proposal she used with fourfold skill to avoid being alone with him, she who had detested society, surrounded herself at all hours with it; even when she had to choose the decorations for the house he had taken in Norfolk Street, she took Effie Bulteel with her; the jewels he gave her, she never wore.