Evening star., 1916-11-26


raiment of older and gayer years, redolent
of memories and of moth-balls, men and
women who We're left at the post in by
gone runnings come back to the grand
stands of the race meets. Out of the God
knows-where country of oblivion they slip
in once in a while to haunts that knew
them in the days of their glory.
Sometimes, if the years of their absence
be too many, they saunter through the
paddock in solitary loneliness, specters of
the past, traditional and aloof as days
of Maud S. and the Picket; but there are
other times when they flash on the scene
with the flare of famous comets, blazing
for moment in the armament of their
universe. That was the way Sally Gates
came to Hawthorne.
Brilliant in a cerise gown of seven
years gone vintage, with her ver-trimmed,
tawdry hat tilted at an angle of past
seasons fashion, with carmined cheeks
and Haunting steps, she strobe down an
aisle of the stand on the Saturday after
the Derby had put back Hawthorne on
map from which a reform wave had once
removed it. Indifferent to the gances
from the nondescrpt crowd. scornful of
the swift recognition of women in the
boxes, defiant of the quick whisper that
followed her passing of the press tables,
she Glove her way past the band and down
into the old betting ring.
AS well as if she heard the comments,
Sally Gates knew the trail of gossip that
surged in her wake, recollections of the
Washington Park days when she had been
Sally Wells of the eXtravaganzas, Sally of
the lifting songs, Sally of the splendid
gowns and the many jewels, Sally of the
traps and drags, Sally of the smiles, with
retinue of admirers as long as thor
oughbred's pedigree. All too surely, as
she ran the gauntlet, she sensed the whrl
of "Reminiscences that rose in the lee of her
passing of her elopement
with Joe Gates on the night after he had
fought Young Wickam and won the mid
dle-weight championship title, remem-
brances of their daring escapades, of their
reckless exploits, of their mad gamblings,
of their rows and reconciliations, and of the
ultimate crash that tore them asunder and
made Violet King the second Mrs. Gates.
she knew that men We're asking one
~ another what had become of Joe Gates.
She knew that women whom she had en-
questioning what her life had been in the
years since they had eaten of her salt.
She knew that her very appearance was Il
question-mark against the blazing glare of
the July sunshine. But, with the old in
stinct for the up-stage center, Sally Gates,
none the less tlamboyant for her fashions
less isolation, faced the paddock crowd.
Her eyes, ringed by circles of WEAKNESS
and worry, stared out over groups of men
whose tense inaction limited of stakes out
side the law. An old sense of observation,
long dormant in her brain, awoke to reveal
to her that, for all the Illinois statutes,
betting was going on. Her gaze, focusing
upon u quartet of men near the rail,
lighted as she recognized among them a
man taller, keener of eye than his compan-
ions-Pat Mangan of the Williams books.
To him, through crowd that parted
before the urgency of her speed, Sally
Gates went.
For an instant she had to meet his
straight look Then his eyes softened
and he held out his hand.