“Still,” he said, “if it were not for the colored people I could imagine with ease that I was back at a country meeting at home.  Do you know anything, Lennox, about these horses, Blenheim and Cressy—­patriotic fellows their owners must be—­and could you give a chap advice about laying a small wager?”

“I know nothing about them except what Stuart and Cabell say.”

“What do they say?”

“Stuart knows that Blenheim is the fastest horse in Virginia, and Cabell knows that Cressy is, and so there the matter stands until the race is run.”

“I think I’ll put a pound on Blenheim, nevertheless.  Blenheim has a much more modern sound than Cressy, and I’m all for modernity.”

There was an excellent race track, the sport already being highly developed in Virginia, and, the next day being beautiful, the seats were filled very early in the morning.  The governor with his wife and daughters was present, and so were many other notables.  Robert, Tayoga and Grosvenor were in a group of nearly fifty young Virginians.  All about were women and girls in their best spring dresses, many imported from London, and there were several men whom Robert knew by their garb to be clergymen.  Colored women, their heads wrapped in great bandanna handkerchiefs, were selling fruits or refreshing liquids.

The whole was exhilarating to the last degree, and all the youth and imagination in Robert responded.  Dangers befell him, but delights offered themselves also, and he took both as they came.  Several preliminary races, improvised the day before, were run, and they served to keep the crowd amused, while they waited for the great match.

Robert and Tayoga then moved to advanced seats near the Governor, where Willet was already placed, in order that they might fulfill their honorable functions as judges, and the people began to stir with a great breath of expectation.  They were packed in a close group for a long distance, and Robert’s eye roved over them, noting that their faces, ruddy or brown, were those of an open air race, like the English.  Almost unconsciously his mind traveled back to a night in New York, when he had seen another crowd gather in a theater, and then with a thrill he recalled the face that he had beheld there.  He could never account for it, although some connection of circumstances was back of it, but he had a sudden instinctive belief that in this new crowd he would see the same face once more.

It obsessed him like a superstition, and, for the moment, he forgot the horses, the race, and all that had brought him there.  His eye roved on, and then, down, near the front of the seats he found him, shaved cleanly and dressed neatly, like a gentleman, but like one in poor circumstances.  Robert saw at first only the side of his face, the massive jaw, the strong, curving chin, and the fair hair crisping slightly at the temples, but he would have known him anywhere and in any company.