"The Professor mustn't know--or Lossie," she said. "I'll get my friends at Flytton to ask me down on Wednesday, and tell Frank so--it's awful being so deceitful, isn't it?" she added deprecatingly. "You'll be doing no harm," said Rensslaer, getting up to go, for he was at that time a very busy man--at a Hackney Show one day, in Paris the next, all his arrangements to make for Olympia. Yet like most busy men he was never in a hurry, and such an economist in time, that he literally made it where lazy people could find none, and also do those kindnesses that the idle do not. The Professor rather bristled at the idea of Flytton, but fortunately Lossie did not call that day, so Gay escaped in good time the following morning, and on arriving at the course found Rensslaer there before her, superintending the harnessing by Tugwood of two horses to two speed wagons. One horse was "Marvellous" (record 2.8½), the other a young one bred in Austria, which was being prepared for the Austrian Derby. Gay was put in behind Marvellous, and after the hand-loops on the reins were adjusted the right length for her, she was told to jog once round the wrong way of the track, and then turn and stand at the starting-post. She found the mare had a perfect mouth, but kept giving little twitches with her nose to get her head free, and when the girl stopped as directed, the American came up, and let down the mare's check-rein. "The race you are supposed to be driving, is the usual English mile and a half handicap heat," he said; "yours is the scratch horse, consequently you will start from here, and go three times round the track, the full mile and a half." Gay nodded. "My horse," continued Rensslaer, "is reckoned to be the limit horse. I will start 210 yards in front of you. Handicapping is supposed to be with the idea your horse can trot the mile and a half, at the rate of 2 minutes 30 seconds for the mile, the mile and a half therefore, in 3 minutes 45 seconds. Every ten yards means, roughly, one second, so my horse being put 210 yards in front of you, means that he is supposed to be 21 seconds slower than yours for a mile and a half, that is to say, he has to trot at the rate of a mile in 2 minutes 44 seconds, to make a dead heat of it with you." Gay nodded again comprehendingly, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "You must drive so as to gradually overtake me," went on Rensslaer, "but not starting too fast, or you would pump your mare, if she could really only trot a 2.30 gait, and you must not overtake me till you get into the back stretch the third time. I have given you a very fast mare, so as to make you judge speed, and also so as to make it easier for you to be sure of overtaking me, as I intend to drive strictly at no faster speed than 2.44 for the mile." "And fast enough, too," thought Gay, her heart beating a little too quickly for comfort.