“Like a babe on his neck I was sobbing,” came back to Crane out of the poem Allis had recited.
“I congratulate you, Miss Porter,” he said, raising his hat. Then he turned, and held out his hand to her father, saying: “I'm glad you've won, Porter--I thought you would. The Dutchman quit when he was pinched.”
“It wasn't the colt's fault--he was short,” said Porter. “I shouldn't like to have horses in that man's stable--he's too good a trainer for me.”
There was a marked emphasis on Porter's words; he was trying to give Crane a friendly hint.
“You mean it's a case of strawberries?” questioned Crane.
“Well I know it takes a lot of candles to find a lost quarter,” remarked Porter, somewhat ambiguously. Then he added, “I must go down to thank Dixon; I guess this is his annual day for smiling.”
“I'm coming, too, father,” said Allis; “I want to thank Lucretia, and give her a kiss, brave little sweetheart.”
After Allis and her father had left Crane, he sat for a minute or two waiting for the crowd of people that blocked the passageway after each race to filter down on the lawn. The way seemed clearer presently, and Crane fell in behind a knot of loud-talking men. The two of large proportions who had sat behind Allis, were like huge gate posts jammed there in the narrow way. As he moved along slowly he presently had knowledge of a presence at his side--a familiar presence. Raising his eyes from a contemplation of the heels in front of him, he saw Belle Langdon. She nodded with patronizing freedom.
“I was sitting with some friends here,” he explained.
“Yes, I saw her,” she commented pointedly.
At that instant one of the stout men in front said, with a bear's snarl, “Well that's the worst ever; I've seen some jobs in my time, but this puts it over anything yet.”
“Didn't you back the little mare?” a thin voice squealed. It was the 'Pout.
“Back nothin'! The last time out she couldn't untrack herself; an' today she comes, without any pull in the weight, and wins in a walk from The Dutchman; and didn't he beat her just as easy the other day?”
Belle Langdon looked into Crane's face, and her eyes were charged with a look of reciprocal meaning. Crane winched. How aggressively obnoxious this half-tutored girl, mistress of many gay frocks, could make herself! There was an implied crime-partnership in her glance which revolted him. Dick Langdon must have talked in his own home. Crane's conscience--well, he hardly had one perhaps, at least it was always subevident; to put it in another way, the retrospect of his manipulated diplomacy never bothered him; but this gratuitous sharing in his evil triumph was disquieting. The malicious glitter of the girl's small black eyes contrasted strongly with the honest, unaffected look that was forever in the big tranquil eyes of Allis.