Smoke and gloomy silence pervaded the car. Rain slashed against the sides, and with each flutter of the ill-fitting curtains a chill draught penetrated the interior. Rain-blurred lights of other cars slid by.
"But you were splendid, Renny," said Pheasant, to lighten the depression. "And got the blue ribbon, too! I'd come around, and I saw the whole thing."
"I couldn't help winning on the roan," he said. "God, what a mare!" Then, after a moment, he added pointedly: "Though if I'd been ass enough to take the whip to her, I should probably have come only second."
"Oh, how cold I am!" exclaimed the girl, ignoring the thrust. "And I can't help thinking of my poor little baby."
Finch was suddenly filled with intense irritation toward them both, sitting there smoking. What had they to do when they did get home but lounge about a stable or suckle a kid? While he would be forced to lash his wretched brains to the study of trigonometry. He swallowed the last of his chocolate, and said, in a hoarse voice: "You seemed to be thick enough with that fool American 'lootenant.' Who was he?"
The abandoned impudence of the words shocked him, even as he uttered them. He would not have been surprised if Renny had turned in his seat and felled him to the floor. He was sure he felt a shiver of apprehension from Pheasant's corner.
But Renny answered quietly enough: "I knew him in France. A splendid chap. Very rich, too." And he added, enviously: "Got one of the finest stables in America."
Pheasant moaned: "Oh, my poor little Mooey! Am I never to get back to him?"
Her brother-in-law's tone became testy. "Look here, my girl, you must either give up riding in horse shows or having babies. They don't fit."
"But I've just begun both in the last year," she pleaded, "and they're equally fascinating, and Piers likes me to do both."
