Gay was trembling with excitement, while even Lossie sufficiently forgot herself to stand on tiptoe to watch the number board. "It's all right," Carlton Mackrell announced. "He's putting No. 3 in the frame, and that's yours. Won by a neck, I should say, all out, in 3.32½." Gay heaved a deep sigh, and then they all went on to the track, and, after Tugwood had dismounted, accompanied Silver Streak in a body to the stables. The crowd gave Gay a hearty cheer as she passed the Ring, and this completed her cup of bliss. Min Toplady showered congratulations on her, and was so pleased that she actually smiled at Lossie, hastily composing her face the moment she realised the mistake. CHAPTER IX AT THE "TROTTING NAG" It was by deliberate intention, not accident, that Lossie found the Professor alone on the day following Silver Streak's victory, and conveyed to his mind her own epicurean disgust at the associations to which Gay's new Trotting mania had exposed her, though jealousy at the increased opportunities of her cousin for meeting Carlton, was really at the bottom of her interference. Lightly, but maliciously, she ran over the whole scene, the surroundings at Waterloo Park, so utterly different to those of an ordinary race meeting, and, so far as she could see, without a gentlewoman present save Gay and herself. But when, in speaking of the "public-house ladies" present, she mentioned Min Toplady, the Professor visibly stiffened. "A most estimable woman," he said, "and nurse to all the younger members of our family. She adored Gay, and though we lost sight of her on her marriage, I don't know anyone from whom my sister would take better a word in season than Minnie. I am shocked to hear that the poor woman has taken to racing--married a sporting publican, I fear." Lossie shrugged her graceful shoulders as her appraising glance ran up and down the Professor's handsome, if unbraced, figure and face, then round the pictures and appointments of the room in which they sat. After all, she might do worse, if--if--but Gay was not going to have it all her own way with Carlton Mackrell. Chris Hannen was _her_ man, and the sooner she realised it the better. "I have a great mind to go and see Minnie," said Frank nervously, "and get her to use her influence with Gay--but I don't know her address-- "Oh," said Lossie, with curling lip, "_I_ can tell you--the "Trotting Nag," Camberwell, which is precisely the place and neighbourhood where, from her appearance, you might expect to find her!" "Now, now," protested the Professor, for unkindness is not so much a matter of speech as of atmosphere, and he thought it unbecoming that so lovely a creature as Lossie should be so acrimonious. And yet he pitied her, without parents, without money, though why she had not married long ago, and brilliantly, was a puzzle to more worldly people than the Professor.