thought she saw there an understanding as quick as her own. Quicker.
"Tom's some rider still."
"Well, don't tell him. He knows it."
It grated on her horribly. She began to look any way but at Tom. Even the knowledge that he had earned the right to pose if he wanted, that there was admiration mixed with their scorn, did not help her. Nor that in the world she had left, while there was little posing, there were a thousand hypocrisies instead. She took to watching the crowd before her, and it was then that she saw Clare again.
She was wandering, apparently aimlessly, back and forward; a queer figure in a very short scant black-and-white checked skirt, and above it a sleeveless blouse. On her head she wore a curious contraption of black satin straps, from which in front protruded a visor like a beak, and at the rear of her skirt was a pocket in which, carefully arranged to show, was a green handkerchief. All in all, perched on her high heels, she looked like some queer and rather sullen bird.
Each time she passed she gave Kay a long look, half scornful and half challenging, and Kay became acutely self-conscious once more. Clare would move along, her eyes down, until she came to Kay, and then the performance would be repeated. She was not alone; there was a girl with her, and this girl was obviously arguing with her and not too comfortable.
"For goodness sake, let me alone, Sarah Cain."
"But everybody's looking."
"Let them look. Do you suppose I care?"
Kay was uncomfortable and uneasy. She even, after a while, decided that the girl was dramatizing herself, not only for her benefit, but for that of the crowd. Like Tom! She felt a little shudder of distaste. If only she could get out, get away
The races went on and on. The audience, hot and perspiring, waited through them stoically for the things that were to come later, the calf-roping, the bucking. When Clare at last ceased her tragic parading Kay got up and left the
