Here ended Gay's first Trotting lesson at the hands of a great expert, and if she had been too ignorant, too excited even, to appreciate the marked difference between "Marvellous" and the Trotters owned by Mackrell and herself, she had yet realised that this last experience of driving herself was something very different to that first essay in which Rensslaer had surprised her. For many a night after, she would wake up, throbbing with excitement, hoping that she would find her dream, in which she re-lived those glorious moments in a real race, a fact. "Oh! if I only dared!" she thought, but the plain truth was that she did not dare. There was the Professor--the world--and--yes--_Chris_ ... though she scarcely owned it to herself, Carlton's opinion did not count. CHAPTER XIII SANDOWN GRAND MILITARY "Heron," cried Gay, waving a letter at him, across the breakfast table one morning early in March, "I've got an invitation for you! Effie and Tom Bulteel are taking their coach down to Sandown to-day, and they want us to go with them. I heard all about it the other night," she confided laughingly, "but I knew if I told you of the treat that was in store, you'd plead an engagement, or shuffle out of it somehow, and I _do_ so want you to come! A day in the open will do you no end of good, and you'll get a ripping lunch (the Professor's face brightened a little), though you'll have to do without your afternoon nap, you know, unless you get inside the coach." The Professor moved uneasily in his chair. "Why do you drag me into all these things?" he asked pathetically. "You know how I detest society, and you promised to leave me in peace if I went to the dance with you." "Yes, I know," Gay agreed, "but Effie made quite a point of your coming to-day; you--you amuse her so, you know." The Professor did not appear struck with this form of flattery, and half suspected that it was a plot between Gay and Mrs. Bulteel to make him appear to throw a mantle of respectability over his sister's racing divagations. Yet he had a sneaking desire to see for himself what there was in racing to make so many empty-headed people happy, and when he feebly urged that he had got nothing to wear, she knew that the game was won. "Oh, yes, you have," she replied promptly, "that pepper and salt suit of yours--you know, the one you wear on your holidays. It's quite respectable--quite sporting-looking, in fact--and you can wear your 'Trilby' hat. (She exploded inwardly.) Altogether your rig-out's splendid, and I shouldn't wonder if people took you for a trainer!" Frank Lawless looked offended, and made another attempt to escape. "I shall be entirely out of it," he said. "There is much to do in there"--he nodded towards the distant laboratory. "Can't you make some excuse for me?"