A mental silence fell that was like the peace of rest after a busy day.
As Barcelona was tossing his cancellation at the Steward and preparing
to make a full and plausible explanation to the gambling instinct of the
Kentucky Derby crowd, I considered the matter carefully:
"Let's see," I thought. "He wants 'em not to run and so he can't
complain to me if they do not. I didn't fix the race, so Lieutenant
Delancey can't accuse me of that. That makes everybody happy, and I
win!"
A small hand stole into mine. "How about me, Wally?" Nora asked sweetly.
I looked down at a thionite dream come true by the glow in her eyes that
admired no one else but me. "You're mine," I reminded her, "until Flying
Heels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace win One, Two, and Three at the Kentucky
Derby."
"Or," she said mischievously, "'Til death do us part!"
* * * * *
I was instructing her how to respond to a kiss as a lady should respond
when about two hundred thousand noisy, exuberant human natures yelled
and radiated and thought: "They're Off!"
But they didn't mean us. They were watching a bunch of long-faced
hayburners chasing one another around a dusty track.
Human nature ain't changed a bit. It's just more complicated in an
extrasensory sort of way.