Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/84

 "One minute more and you'll see. I bet you don't know where we are, do you?"

Confidingly she shook her head.

"Well, I'll tell you. We're not far from the old Duke that you're so anxious to get to, but we're behind it, west of it, near the race course and the lagoon. It's that I want you to see. It'll be pretty in the sunrise. I bet you'll get the surprise of your life."

"I must go back soon and change into my day clothes. O-o, Jimmy, wasn't the dance lovely? Wouldn't you like to dance on and on like that forever?"

"If I was dancing with you but not to see you swinging round in other chaps' arms."

"I meant with you, of course."

"Oh, you dear girl, Delight!" He slipped his arm about her waist and gave it a little squeeze. His manhood seemed to melt within him at her nearness and dearness.

"Here we are," he said, in a choky voice.

They had come, at the end of a narrow, dim street, to a high, closely boarded fence. A large gateway was barred against the road, but at the end of the wooden sidewalk, a narrow gate hung ajar, showing a glimpse of a smooth open space beyond. They went through the gate and Jimmy latched it after them.

Before them stretched a level expanse of turf, moist and palely green, on it lying, like a vast ring, the half-mile race track. At one end of the enclosure rose the covered grand stand. On the far side, low stables and sheds, and, beyond, the wet roofs of houses, showing here and there, a window, gleaming red in the first beams of the sun.

Towards the sunrise the end of the enclosure merged into a dense growth of shrubs, willows, and underbrush,