'Double the odds wrong way up,' smiled the Major, crossing over to her side. 'You wouldn't make your fortune as a bookmaker, I'm afraid. However, I'll take it, if you let me hedge for you.'
'You don't know the field. I do. In fact, Gordon, if I had had any idea we were to be inundated with down-country ruck, I should have advised you to scratch. They don't want outsiders.'
'They will have to thole them, as we say north of the Tweed,' replied Lewis. As a rule he was shy of admitting his Scotch birth, and the pronoun sounded sweet in Rose's ears.
'What an arrant pirate you are, Gwen,' he said in a low tone as he took the place beside her _dandy_ vacated by Dalel Beg, who, after returning to her for consolation, had gone on to the tent. 'You have been betting against me, haven't you, dear?'
'Against Bronzewing, you mean. What chance can she have with the Confederation's Waler? If you were riding _it_--and I am so badly off for gloves.' As she looked at her lavender-cased fingers plaintively, she was as pretty and well-dressed a picture of gracious womanhood as the imagination could paint. The fact was mollifying and brought admiration to his eyes.
'Don't see it. Seems to me you want nothing. What a jolly shawl that is! too good, surely, to be crumbled up that way.'
He was right. A white cashmere with a broad bordering in faint greys and lavenders is hardly the thing for a dust-cloth. Perhaps she was aware of the fact; anyhow, she coloured up.
'Not at all. I bought it for a mere song. Isn't it time you were weighing-in or something of that sort? they have been ringing a bell.'
'Directly. You see, I'm dressed and ready.'
Rose might have made the remark with far more fervour than Gwen could conjure into it, and yet the latter scored the points, for Lewis strolled off feeling less dissatisfied with life than before. Men are trivial creatures when they have to do with that trivial creature, woman.
To a large proportion of men, a horse-race is a most uninteresting affair; to the majority of women, it is a mere accessory to a misused wedding-breakfast or a somewhat spoilt _fête champêtre_. This one was no exception to the rule, and the interest of the resident racers being reduced to a minimum, there was little excitement beyond the immediate circle by the tents.