"The Bachelors' Club will find 'im, sir, though I shouldn't wonder if 'e don't 'ave to resign there afore long from wot I can see of it," he added to himself, but Rensslaer heard him as he climbed into his wagon and drove off. Tugwood, left alone, shook his head gloomily. His late visitor's low estimate of English horses annoyed him by its assurance; he also resented the slur Rensslaer cast on the sport by abstaining from it in England, while practising it in most of the big capitals of Europe. A fine sportsman, with one of the finest, if not _the_ finest, stable of Trotters in the world, he was the very man to elevate and establish the sport firmly here, and it was with a sense of depression that Tugwood gave Silver Streak his evening feed, and remained to watch the horse eating it up. CHAPTER VIII GAY TRIUMPHANT In a spirit of pure mischief Gay had invited Lossie Holden to accompany her and Chris Hannen to see Silver Streak's début, and they drove the short distance from the station to Waterloo Park in excellent spirits, Gay all impatience to see her horse trot, and Chris as interested as he could ever be in anything outside his own stable. Lossie was entirely out of sympathy with Gay's natural excitement; all sporting tastes were low, she considered, and Trotting quite the lowest of them all. She could not understand a woman possessing the healthy, out-door instinct--a girl's first duty, she considered, was to herself, and her time was much better employed in making herself as attractive as possible in the eyes of men, than in sharing their rude pursuits. Man was woman's lawful spoil, and for her part she quite understood why the "manly woman" remained a spinster, and by not attracting, failed in her mission in life. In this, as in other matters, Lossie's view was too narrow to be correct, for she could not separate Gay, with her healthy love for horses, and dogs, and an open-air life, from the muscular, loud-voiced, corsetless Amazons who are so frequently much better athletes than men, and well able to protect the lady-like creatures in breeches they usually marry. Chris noticed the contrast between the two girls especially that day, Gay, looking the picture of health, and thoroughly alive in her plain tweed frock, her workman-like gloves, and stout boots, intent on a good day's sport, and exulting in the part she was to play, and Lossie, "dressed to kill," with her bored, petulant air, tilting her nose (a very pretty nose, too, Chris had to admit), whenever a fly-load of "mellow" Trotting men galloped past. Arrived at the course, Chris obtained a race-card that they were busy discussing, when a hearty voice called out at Gay's elbow: "How are you, Miss Gay? Well, I _am_ glad to see you again." Gay turned to see Min Toplady, and while she took in the opulent splendours of her attire, with a delighted side-glance she caught the disgusted look on her cousin's face.