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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, From the Car Behind, by Eleanor M. Ingram,
+Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: From the Car Behind
+
+
+Author: Eleanor M. Ingram
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 27, 2008  [eBook #27337]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE CAR BEHIND***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Katie Ward, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 27337-h.htm or 27337-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/3/27337/27337-h/27337-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/3/27337/27337-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Hyphenation has been made consistent.
+
+      Quotation marks were added or removed to standardize usage.
+
+      Text in italics is enclosed between underscores (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed between equal signs was in bold face in the
+      original text (=bold=).
+
+      Spelling was changed on possible typographical errors
+      (crysanthemum, boquet, Pittsburg, circumstancial, and villian.)
+
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE CAR BEHIND
+
+Second Edition
+
+[Illustration: THE PEOPLE BURST OUT OVER THE COURSE AND OVERWHELMED THE
+VICTORS _Page 293_]
+
+FROM THE CAR BEHIND
+
+by
+
+ELEANOR M. INGRAM
+
+Author of
+"The Flying Mercury," "The Game or the Candle," Etc.
+
+With Illustrations in Color by James Montgomery Flagg
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia & London
+J. B. Lippincott Company
+1912
+
+Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Company
+Copyright, 1912, by J. B. Lippincott Company
+
+Published, February, 1912
+Published, February 15, 1912
+Second Printing February 20, 1912
+
+Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company
+At the Washington Square Press
+Philadelphia, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+                      To My Dear
+                         and
+                   Gracious Mother
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                  PAGE
+    I. The Kid Amateur                                       11
+   II. Corrie and his Other Fellow                           25
+  III. The Household of Roses                                42
+   IV. Isabel                                                73
+    V. The Vase of Al-Mansor                                 91
+   VI. Wreck                                                117
+  VII. "The Greatest of These"                              137
+ VIII. Aftermath                                            152
+   IX. The House at the Turn                                162
+    X. Sentence of Error                                    171
+   XI. Gerard's Man                                         188
+  XII. The Making Good                                      201
+ XIII. The Titan's Driver                                   212
+  XIV. Val de Rosas                                         233
+   XV. The Strength of Ten                                  250
+  XVI. The White Road of Honor                              267
+ XVII. The End of the Road                                  300
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                               PAGE
+  The People Burst Out Over the Course and Overwhelmed
+    the Victors                                      _Frontispiece_
+
+  Giddy, She Willingly Suffered His Support, then
+    Drew Back, Her Color Returning Vividly                       14
+
+  "Wipe It Off," She Requested Resignedly, "Wipe
+    It Off and Never Tell"                                       78
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE KID AMATEUR
+
+
+Gerard paused on the steps of the cement plateau overlooking the
+racetrack, his eyebrows lifting in the wave of humor glinting across his
+face like sunlight over quiet water.
+
+"What?" he wondered. "Who----"
+
+The grinning mechanician who had just come across from the row of
+training-camps opposite supplied the information.
+
+"Oh, that's Rose's rose. Ain't he awful tweet?" he mocked.
+
+Gerard continued to smile, but his clear amber eyes grew keenly
+appraising as they followed the flight of the rose-colored racing car
+around the circular track.
+
+"He can drive," he gave laconic verdict.
+
+"Sure," assented the mechanician. "But he'll be the last rose of summer,
+all right, when the race comes off. He'll not last twenty-four hours--a
+kid amateur. If you ain't coming over, I'll lead myself back to my
+job."
+
+"You never can tell," warned Gerard, tolerantly. "No, I'm not
+coming over, Rupert; run along."
+
+He moved over to one of the grand-stand seats, as he spoke, and sat
+down, leaning on the rail with an easy movement of his supple figure.
+That was the first characteristic strangers usually noted in him: an
+exquisite Hellenic grace of strength and faultless proportion. He was a
+man's beauty, as distinguished from a beauty-man; other men were given
+to admiring him extravagantly and unresentfully. Unresentfully, because
+of his utter practicality and matter-of-fact atmosphere.
+
+The afternoon sunshine glittered goldenly across the huge, green field
+and the mile track circling it, where four racing cars sped in practice
+contest. Two of them were painted gray, one was dingy-white; the fourth
+shone in delicate pink enamel touched here and there with silver-gilt.
+Its driver and mechanician were clad in pink also, adding the completing
+stroke to an effect suggesting the circus rather than the race track.
+There was much excuse for the laughter of the camps, and that reflection
+of it lying in Gerard's eyes.
+
+Yet, the rose-colored machine was well driven. More than once the
+watcher nodded in quick approval of a skilful turn or deft manoeuvre.
+Once he rose and changed his position to see more distinctly, and it
+was then that he first noticed the girl.
+
+She was so beautifully and expensively gowned as to draw even masculine
+notice of the fact, the veil that fell from her silk hood to the hem of
+her cloak would alone have purchased the motor costume of the average
+woman. Against this filmy drapery her intent face showed as a study in
+concentration; her dark-blue eyes wide behind their black lashes, her
+soft lips apart, she too was watching the pink racer. But there was no
+laughter in her expression, instead there was the most deep and earnest
+tenderness, a blending of the childish and the maternal that made Gerard
+catch his breath and glance enviously at the driver of the gaudy car.
+
+The afternoon was almost ended; as Gerard looked, the pink machine
+finished its last circuit and plunged through the paddock entrance, to
+come to a halt before its own tent in the "white city" of training
+camps. Simultaneously the girl in the upper rows of seats arose,
+catching up her swirl of pale silk and lace garments and hurrying
+precipitately down the stairway aisle. So great was her haste that,
+coming suddenly to the last step, one small, high-heeled suède shoe
+slipped from the iron edge and flung her violently against a column of
+the stand. Gerard reached her just in time to prevent further fall.
+
+"Stand still," he cautioned, quietly steady. "There is a second flight
+of stairs. You are not hurt, I hope?"
+
+Giddy, for a moment she willingly suffered his support, then drew back
+on the narrow landing, her color returning vividly.
+
+"No," she answered. "I am not hurt. I thank you very much."
+
+Thick waves of fair hair lay across her forehead above the delicate dark
+line of her brows, her candid regard met his with the dignity of utter
+naturalness and a young confidence in the goodness of all men. The
+impression Gerard received was original; he fancied that her home life
+must have been singularly happy and innocent, and that he should like to
+know her father.
+
+"You will let me take you down the rest of the way, at least," he
+offered, accepting the situation as simply as she had done.
+
+She glanced down the stairs with a slight shiver, still shaken and
+unnerved.
+
+"You are very good. My car is beyond the corner, there. I--I am in haste
+to reach it."
+
+[Illustration: GIDDY, SHE WILLINGLY SUFFERED HIS SUPPORT, THEN DREW
+BACK, HER COLOR RETURNING VIVIDLY]
+
+That had been obvious. Yet, as she laid her gloved hand on Gerard's arm,
+she lingered to look again in the direction of the training-camps.
+
+"The cars will not go out again to-day?" she inferred,
+half-questioningly.
+
+"No, I think not. It is already late. This way?"
+
+"Please; to the rear of the club-house."
+
+They descended to the lower floor and crossed a strip of sandy ground to
+where a large foreign-built touring car waited, empty save for the
+chauffeur.
+
+"I am running away from my brother," the young girl explained; then,
+with a playfulness tinged with pathos, "He is practicing out there. And
+it vexes him if I watch him or say I am afraid for him. He tells me to
+stay home and forget it. But sometimes I cannot. To-day I could not.
+Thanks to you, I shall escape before he finds me."
+
+The "kid amateur's" sister, of course, Gerard thought, as he put her in
+the car.
+
+"Do you always do as he says?" he queried whimsically. "I have no
+sister, but I did not understand that was the rule."
+
+She turned to him her soft, completely feminine face, and gleamed into
+laughter.
+
+"I am the only passive member of a strong-willed family," she told him.
+"I am always doing what some one bids. Thank you, and good-by."
+
+The margin of safe escape was not great. As Gerard stepped back on the
+cement promenade, the pink machine shot across and came to a halt near
+the exit, its driver turning in his seat.
+
+"Any one going to town?" he called, his imperious young voice ringing
+across the open spaces.
+
+"No," came the discouraging monosyllable from the official stand.
+
+"No one?"
+
+"No."
+
+The driver slowly sent his car forward, temper in every crisp movement,
+his gaze travelling over the empty tiers of seats, to fall at last upon
+Gerard and there rest. With a jerk he jammed down the brake and leaned
+from the machine. Thick fair hair lay across his boyish forehead above
+level dark brows, his candid dark-blue eyes went direct to their goal:
+the metal badge fastened to Gerard's lapel and just visible under the
+edge of his gray overcoat.
+
+"You're wearing a chauffeur's license," he challenged.
+
+"I surely am. Want to engage a man?" was the grave response.
+
+The boy's arch glance swept the other's face, so definitely stamped
+with the habit of mastery.
+
+"If I did I'd ask you to recommend one," he retorted mirthfully. "I'm
+not as much mixed as I sounded; I wasn't thinking of hiring you. But I
+did want to ask if you would ride into the city with me. My mechanician
+is busy over there, I can't find any one else to go with me, and I've
+got to get my car down to the Renard shop to-night."
+
+"Now I wonder," Gerard mused aloud, "why you want any one with you."
+
+"Because I won't be eighteen for a month," he gave prompt explanation.
+"Under the latest law freak turned out at Albany, I'm too young to drive
+a motor vehicle safely on the public roads unless I have a licensed
+chauffeur alongside of me. Oh, of course you'd laugh!"
+
+"I was only recalling what I've just been watching you do on the track,"
+apologized Gerard, steadying his countenance. "And speculating upon how
+the average chauffeur would like to try your feats. I shall appreciate
+the honor of riding into town with Mr. Rose and his rose."
+
+The driver colored and laughed together, as his guest took the seat
+beside him.
+
+"They're always ragging me--I mean the professional racers and motor
+men," he avowed, in a burst of resentful confidence. "They called me
+kid amateur, and rosebud, and girlie, until I just had my car painted
+pink and bought these pink suits and told them to go ahead getting all
+the fun they could. I'll get my turn to-morrow night." He twisted his
+car through the curved gateway, viciously expert.
+
+"You are planning to win?"
+
+There was no trace of mockery in the level intonation of the inquiry,
+yet Rose flushed again.
+
+"I want to, and I mean to try," he answered frankly and soberly. "Of
+course one can't count on that sort of thing. I've got a splendid French
+machine here. But Allan Gerard is going to race; I'm afraid of him. Why,
+he hasn't even been out to practice! He says he knows the track, they
+tell me, and he'll not come down until a couple of hours before the
+start. That kind of talk _rattles_ me--I wish he'd act like other people
+and not as if he just meant to drop into the motordrome and win another
+cup."
+
+"I don't believe Gerard intends to pose as confident," deprecated his
+companion. "You see, he has his automobile factory to manage as well as
+his racing work; I rather fancy that he didn't come out to practice
+because he was busy."
+
+"Oh, I suppose so. It just gets on my nerves; I shouldn't wonder if
+they were a bit raw from so much chaffing by the professional pilots.
+We're the quickest tempered family that ever happened, anyhow. I'll go
+off the handle, I know I will, if those grinning drivers get to gibing
+at me to-morrow night----" he broke off, slamming savagely into a lower
+gear as he caught a mounted policeman's eye and endeavored to choke his
+racing car's speed down to a reasonable approach to the legal limit.
+
+When the desired result was somewhat attained, Gerard spoke with quiet
+seriousness.
+
+"I've seen considerable motor racing, and I've been watching you this
+afternoon. With some really steady training and practice you could
+undoubtedly become one of our few fine drivers. You have the gift."
+
+Rose caught his breath, his blue eyes flashed to meet the other man's
+with dazzled and dazzling ardor.
+
+"But--you must not 'go off the handle.' Never. You must keep your nerve
+or quit the track."
+
+"It isn't nerve, it's temper," amended Rose honestly.
+
+Gerard's firm lip bent amusedly, his bronze-brown eyes glinted a fun as
+purely boyish as could the other's.
+
+"That's quite different," he conceded. "Temper doesn't interfere with
+driving; on the contrary, some of the best drivers and most amiable men
+I know are very demons when they are racing."
+
+"Gerard isn't. They say he is the quietest ever. Of course he's almost
+twenty-eight and used to it all."
+
+The gentleman in question carefully unfastened his glove.
+
+"Gerard seems to worry you," he commented.
+
+"He does. I don't know just why, but he does."
+
+"Well, don't let him. This is where you leave your machine?"
+
+"Yes. I can't offer to take you wherever you are going, because I
+couldn't get back alone. I'm awfully obliged to you for coming in with
+me."
+
+"Thanks for the ride." Gerard stepped out and offered his hand with a
+glance deliberately friendly. "Good-by; good luck for to-morrow and next
+day."
+
+Rose dragged off his gauntlet and eagerly bent to give the clasp.
+
+"Wait--you're not going like that?" he protested. "I'd like to see you
+again. You haven't told me _your_ name."
+
+"We will see each other again. That's a safe prediction, I assure you."
+He withdrew his hand, laughing a denial of explanation as he retreated.
+"I will tell you my name next time, if you ask me."
+
+Already half a dozen people had collected around the pink racing car.
+Others were flocking from every direction, the group forming with a
+suddenness truly New Yorkese. Indifferent to all, Rose sprang out of his
+seat and ran through the curious men in pursuit of his late companion.
+
+"Wait," he urged, overtaking him. "I want to ask--did you mean that?
+About my driving well, some day? I know I'll never get a chance to do
+it, but do you mean that I _could_?"
+
+"I meant," confirmed Gerard, "just what I said. I usually do. Good-by."
+
+The boy remained perfectly still in the midst of the crowd, standing in
+his rose-colored costume and looking after the straight, slender figure
+swinging down the street. When Gerard glanced back in turning the
+corner, Rose was still watching him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was some forty-five hours later that Gerard's prediction was
+verified, in the glare-streaked darkness of the Beach racetrack amid the
+medley of sounds from excited crowds, roaring cars, and noisily busy
+training camps. Under the swinging electric light before the hospital
+tent, the two drivers came face to face.
+
+"Nothing wrong, I hope?" Gerard greeted, keen eyes sweeping the other.
+
+A sparkle of animation lit Rose's exhaustion-drawn face to boyishness.
+
+"I'm not hurt. I want to tell you that if I'd known who you were,
+yesterday, I'd never have asked you to ride with me," he answered,
+warmly impulsive.
+
+"You'd have let me walk?"
+
+"I'd have got into the mechanician's seat and let you _drive_. Do you
+suppose I'd have kept the wheel with you in the car? But what you said
+about my driving made it so no one could rattle me, Mr. Gerard; I am not
+going out of the race because of that, anyhow."
+
+"Going out of the race? Why, you're running in third place!"
+
+Rose shook his head, his mouth set, holding out two blistered hands and
+linen-wound arms.
+
+"I've given out," he acknowledged bitterly. "There'll be no finish for
+my car. I can't hold my wheel without an hour to rest and get these into
+shape. Kid amateur, all right."
+
+"Where's your alternate driver?"
+
+"He slipped on a greasy bit of grass, ten minutes ago, and sprained his
+ankle. We're out of it, with third place ours and a perfect car to run."
+
+Gerard looked down the row of illuminated tents to where the pink car
+stood, palpitating in an aura of its own light, and brought his eyes
+back to the other man.
+
+"My machine went out of the race, two hours ago, with a broken
+crankshaft. If you like, I'll be your alternate," he offered.
+
+Incredulous, breathless, Rose stared at him.
+
+"You--you mean----"
+
+"I will drive your car until you are ready to take it again for the
+finish. I've nothing else to do, to-night."
+
+It was a time and a scene where over-tense nerves not infrequently
+snapped. But if Gerard was not surprised to see it, Rose certainly was
+both amazed and humiliated to feel his own eyes suddenly stinging like a
+girl's.
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he stammered fervently.
+
+"I'll give you the chance," promised Gerard, tactfully gay. "Now hurry
+up your men with the car while I find my mechanician."
+
+The comrade aid had been given to Rose, without the least relation to
+Rose's sister. But nevertheless Gerard directed a curious look toward
+the teeming grand-stand, as he turned to make ready. Was she there, he
+wondered, the flower-like girl with the name of a flower, who had rested
+in his arms just so long as a blossom might flutter against one in
+passing? Would her gaze follow the pink racer, still?
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CORRIE AND HIS OTHER FELLOW
+
+
+The touring car rolled slowly through the October leaves rustling and
+swirling down the road in jovial wind-eddies, came up to a knoll beside
+the field, and stopped. The driver turned in his seat to face the two
+occupants of the tonneau, pushing his goggles up above the line of his
+fair hair.
+
+"Look," he urged eagerly. "Look at the pitcher of our home team. There,
+just crossing the diamond--it's a new inning."
+
+"It's not the first baseball game you've brought us out to see, Corrie,"
+observed Mr. Thomas Rose, setting his own goggles on his cap above the
+line of his reddish-gray hair. "Is it, my girl?"
+
+His daughter laughed, shaking her small head in its crimson hood and
+glancing roguishly at her brother.
+
+"Nor the twenty-first, papa," she amplified.
+
+"Well, but I haven't brought you to see the game, but the pitcher," the
+boy protested. "He's a new one; you never saw him before. Look."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I want you to."
+
+Flavia Rose obediently turned her gaze toward the players, and upon the
+indicated man it halted, arrested.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, and sat still.
+
+The men were in their places, alert in poised expectation, the attention
+of the whole field concentrating upon the central figure of the pitcher
+at whom the young girl also looked. A slim, straight statue he stood
+during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a
+gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon sun struck across his
+wind-ruffled brown hair and smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the
+catcher and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement and turn of his
+whole body. The white ball shot across, swerving almost at the plate,
+and crashed into the catcher's mitt.
+
+"He's got speed!" Mr. Rose approved loudly, standing up in the car.
+"That's pitching! Who's your friend, Corwin B.?"
+
+His son did not answer. The ball was back in the pitcher's hands; again
+he was lifting his arms in the pose his physical beauty made classic.
+There was repeated the quick nod, the abruptly swift movement, and the
+ball sped across, dropping oddly.
+
+"Strike two!" was called.
+
+Amid the applause and shouts of encouragement, Flavia laid her small,
+urgent hand on her brother's sleeve.
+
+"Corrie, who is he? Tell us, please."
+
+He moved to see her more directly.
+
+"Do you remember the Beach twenty-four-hour race, last summer, where I
+finished third? Do you remember how I told you about the big driver,
+Allan Gerard, who drove my machine for two hours until I could hold the
+wheel again myself?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Strike three--you're out!" rang the umpire's announcement; again the
+joyous shouts interrupted speech.
+
+"Well, then, that's who."
+
+"That's Gerard, playing ball?" interrogated Mr. Rose, incredulous. "What
+for? Lost his racing job?"
+
+Laughing, Corrie shook his head.
+
+"No, sir! Gerard is a member of the Mercury automobile company and has
+their western factory and all that end of the business in his hands. He
+races the Mercury car because he loves the work and because no one else
+can do it so well. No; practice for the Cup race opens to-morrow, and
+he's here on Long Island for that. But the pitcher of our home team put
+his arm out of business yesterday, and Gerard offered to pitch for this
+game. He knows everybody here--he always knows everybody everywhere,
+he's that kind. And I want to ask him to dinner," he concluded
+irrelevantly.
+
+Mr. Rose scanned the field for a flying ball, as a sharp crack announced
+the first hit.
+
+"Staying out here, or going in to the city each day?" he inquired.
+
+"He's staying in Jamaica, sir."
+
+"Then you'd best ask him to stop at your house until the race comes off,
+or he'll wreck his machine from weakness brought on by starvation,"
+pronounced Mr. Rose, dryly. "One dinner won't carry him through weeks. I
+know those hotels, myself."
+
+Corrie gasped, his face swept by delighted awe.
+
+"Really? Oh, I'd give anything to have Gerard, _Gerard_, like that! Do
+you think he'll come?"
+
+"If he had dinner at his hotel last night, and breakfast and lunch
+to-day, he'll come," his father assured. "Now be quiet and let me watch
+the game; it must be near ending."
+
+"Almost, but----"
+
+"Never mind the _but_, Corwin B. Keep cool."
+
+But Corrie could not keep cool. When his father's attention was engaged
+he slipped down from his seat and went around to Flavia's side of the
+car.
+
+"Do you think he would come?" he asked, for her ears alone. "Don't you
+want him, too? Why are you so serious--what _do_ you think?"
+
+Their clear violet-blue eyes met in the intimate household love and
+understanding of all their lives. Flavia dropped a caressing arm around
+her brother's shoulders, gently drawing him to face the field.
+
+"Really look," she bade.
+
+Puzzled, he obeyed. Gerard was still occupying the centre of the
+diamond, holding the ball aloft while his meditative gaze apparently
+dwelt on the batsman. There was scarcely a perceptible turn of his brown
+head, yet as the two in the car watched, the impromptu pitcher's glance
+flashed from behind his uplifted arm and he whirled in a half-circle to
+hurl the unexpected ball straight across the diamond to where a careless
+enemy had ventured from second base. Too late the startled runner saw;
+the sudden attack won.
+
+"You're out!" pealed the quick decision. The game was closed. With the
+gay uproar of local triumph Mr. Rose mingled his approving applause,
+still standing upright in the car to view the scene.
+
+"Well, of what are you thinking?" Corrie repeated. "He's splendid, I
+know that."
+
+"I am thinking of Isabel," Flavia answered quietly, "and of you. If you
+take Mr. Gerard home, she will see a great deal of him."
+
+Astonished, he regarded her. After a moment he again looked toward the
+man opposite, his expression sober.
+
+"It's like you to think of me," he acknowledged, with slow gratitude.
+"But that's all right. If any one else can get her, I'd better know it
+now. Of course he'll want her, she's just the kind of girl he'd like,
+such a sport herself about cars and things. If she likes him better than
+me, why I'll have to stand it, that's all."
+
+"Then, I shall be very glad to have Mr. Gerard stay with us, dear; don't
+you and I always like the same things?"
+
+"We sure do, Other Fellow?"
+
+The childhood "play name" brought their cordial glances together, as Mr.
+Rose dropped into his seat.
+
+"Game's over, Corwin B.; better run get your friend," he notified,
+cheerily imperious. "Hurry along."
+
+Half-smiling, half-anxious, Corrie lingered on the verge of compliance.
+
+"I--I feel a chill at the idea," he avowed. "I believe, after all, I'm
+shy of Gerard!"
+
+"Now what's the matter?" Mr. Rose ejaculated, staring after his son.
+"Shy; and I've been trying ever since he was born--without
+succeeding--to teach him that there were one or two people on earth
+bigger than he is."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Isn't it so, then?"
+
+She laughed with him, mutinously unanswering.
+
+Whatever diffidence Corrie had felt promptly vanished when Gerard turned
+from the group of players and met him. Flushed with vigorous exercise
+and recent conquest, his smiling eyes warming to recognition as they
+fell upon the breathless young motorist, there certainly was nothing
+intimidating in the late pitcher's aspect.
+
+"I'm Corrie Rose--you haven't forgotten? Come meet my father and sister,
+won't you?" was Corrie's eager greeting.
+
+It was not at all the dignified self-introduction and invitation he had
+planned as he ran across the field, but Gerard had the gift of drawing
+sincerity to meet his own, like to like.
+
+"You haven't forgotten me," countered the other, giving his hand. "And I
+should be delighted to meet your father and Miss Rose, if I were fit.
+Perhaps you'll give me another chance."
+
+"Fit? Why, we've been watching you play ball! A fellow don't play ball
+in a frock coat. We want you to come home to dinner, now, and stay with
+us over the race. You know I'm practising for it, too. Don't say no," as
+Gerard moved. "We _want_ you."
+
+The impulsive, italicized speech was very compelling.
+
+"Thank you; I'll come over to your car, anyway," Gerard accepted.
+"But----What is it, Rupert?"
+
+"I guess you'd call it a raincoat," was the drawled reply. "I'd feel bad
+to find you'd brought out your pajamas, for there ain't anything to do
+except wear it, now."
+
+"I'm not cold."
+
+The mechanician nodded a brief return to Corrie's laughing salute, and
+directed his sardonic black eyes to Gerard's right arm, which the
+rolled-back sleeve left bare to the elbow.
+
+"I ain't specially timid," he submitted. "If rheumatism is part of the
+racing equipment you like to have with you, I'll just hurry home and
+make my will before we start."
+
+With an impatient shrug Gerard slipped into the garment.
+
+"Thanks; you're worse than a wife. Rose, you know Jack Rupert, who's
+sheer nerve when we're racing and sheer nerves when we're not."
+
+"I surely do," Corrie warmly confirmed. "You rode with Mr. Gerard at the
+Beach when he drove my car for me. I'm not likely to forget _that_."
+
+The small, malignly intelligent mechanician contemplated him, unsmiling,
+although far from unfriendly.
+
+"I ride with Gerard," he acquiesced.
+
+And only Gerard himself knew the history of service in the face of death
+comprehended in the simple statement.
+
+Thomas Rose, repeatedly millionaire and genially absolute dictator in
+his circle of affairs, was not easy to gainsay. And he chose to assume
+prompt possession of Gerard, almost before the introduction was over.
+
+"Get right in," he commanded. "Never mind anything, get in; and we'll
+talk about keeping you after we've had dinner. We'll stop at your hotel
+for your things, if you want them."
+
+"You're very good," Gerard began, and stopped, encountering Flavia's
+eyes. Neither had spoken of their former meeting, indeed they had been
+given no opportunity for speech, yet the acute recollection was a bond
+between them.
+
+"We do not wish to be insistent, Mr. Gerard," she said now, in her
+fresh, soft tones. "But we should be very glad to have you."
+
+Gerard continued to look at her, gravely attentive as she herself. She
+was as exquisitely dressed as when he had caught her in his arms on the
+stairs of the Beach grand-stand, the fragile hand she laid on the car
+door carried the vivid flash of jewels. Somehow he divined that her
+father exacted this, that in his pride of self-made millionaire he would
+insist upon extravagance as other men might upon economy. And she would
+yield. He remembered her playful speech at their first meeting: "I am
+the only passive member of a strong-willed family." His impression was
+of her most feminine softness that was not in the least weak.
+
+"Thank you," he answered. "I should have liked above all things to be
+your guest. But it happens that I have brought my mechanician with me
+and that I cannot desert him at the hotel. It does not matter at all
+about relative social position; we are down here together. Moreover, I
+have a ninety Mercury racing machine to look after, and I should be a
+most unrestful visitor, up at dawn and out until dark."
+
+"If that's all," decided Mr. Rose, "this is a seven-passenger car and an
+architect said my house had ninety-five rooms. There's standing room in
+the garage, I guess, for a car or two. Corrie, turn loose your horn."
+
+Corrie promptly put his finger on the button of the electric signal, and
+a raucous wail shattered the sunset hush.
+
+"That's your man, looking this way? I like your sticking to him, Gerard.
+Here he comes. We're all fixed, then; get in."
+
+Gerard got in, beside Flavia, who laughingly drew her velvet skirts to
+give him place.
+
+"I think this bears a perilous resemblance to a kidnapping," she
+doubted. "Is it quite safe, I wonder? Shall you summon rescue when we
+reach a populated place?"
+
+"If kidnapping means being taken against one's will, I haven't any
+case," he returned as seriously. "I don't believe I could be dislodged
+from here, now, if you tried."
+
+"I had not contemplated the attempt--yet."
+
+"Please do not! I look like a tramp, I know, but I will be exceedingly
+good."
+
+"Not immoderately good; we are a frivolous family," she deprecated.
+
+They looked at each other, and their eyes laughed together.
+
+Radiant, Corrie was already behind the steering-wheel, an impatient hand
+poised to release the brake.
+
+"Beside me, Rupert," he blithely invited, when the mechanician came up.
+
+Rupert looked at Gerard, received his gesture of corroboration, and
+lifting his cap to Flavia, took the designated seat without comment.
+
+"Don't you care where you're going?" presently demanded Corrie, moving
+up a speed. He respected Allan Gerard's little mechanician almost as
+much as he did Allan Gerard, knowing his reputation in racing circles;
+the glance he gave to accompany the query was an invitation to
+friendship.
+
+Rupert braced one small tan shoe against the floor, as the car wrenched
+itself out of a tenacious sand rut.
+
+"I ain't worrying," he kindly assured. "Any place that ain't New York is
+off the map, anyhow."
+
+"I thought you belonged out west with Mr. Gerard."
+
+"I guess I belong to the Mercury racer. But I'm officially chief tester
+at the eastern factory, up the Hudson, except when there's a race on.
+Since Darling French got married, I've raced with Gerard. Were you
+aiming to collect that horseshoe with a nail in it, ahead there on the
+course, or will it be an accident?"
+
+"It's going to be an escape," smiled the driver, swerving deftly. "Tell
+me about the first part of the ball game, won't you? I missed it, going
+after my father and sister."
+
+"Who, me? I ain't qualified. The curves I'm used to judging belong to a
+different game. I guess, if you listen to what's being said behind us,
+you'll get the better record. I'm enjoying the novelty of the automobile
+ride, myself."
+
+"You must be," Corrie agreed ironically. "You get so little of it. They
+are not talking _real_ ball."
+
+But he settled back to listen. In fact, it was the recent game that was
+being discussed in the tonneau, with Mr. Rose as chief speaker and
+Flavia as auditor. The party was of enchanting congeniality.
+
+They drove first to the hotel where Gerard had been stopping.
+
+It was quite six o'clock when the touring car rolled through Mr. Rose's
+lawns and landscape-garden scenery, to come to a stop before the large,
+pink stone house of many columns. Mr. Rose had a passion for columns.
+Across the rug-strewn veranda a girl advanced to meet the arriving
+motorists; an auburn-haired, high-colored girl who wore a tweed ulster
+over her light evening gown.
+
+"I thought you were never coming," she reproached, imperiously
+aggrieved. "I hate waiting. And I want uncle to send Lenoir after my
+runabout----"
+
+The sentence broke as she saw the man beside Flavia, her gray eyes
+widened in astonished interest.
+
+"My niece Isabel Rose, Mr. Gerard," presented Mr. Rose. "And now you
+have met all of us. Come on, Corwin B."
+
+Isabel Rose gave her hand to the guest. She had the slightly hard beauty
+of nineteen years and exuberant health; contrasted with Flavia, there
+was almost a boyishness in her air of assurance and athletic vigor. But
+in the studied coquetry of her glance at Gerard, the instant desire to
+allure in response to the allure of this man's good looks, she showed
+femininity of a type that her cousin never would understand.
+
+"I should not have minded waiting," she declared, in her high-pitched,
+clear-cut speech, "if I had known something pleasant was going to
+happen."
+
+"If that means me, Miss Rose----" Gerard laughingly doubted.
+
+"I don't see anyone else who happens; the rest of them are just always
+here," she confirmed, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+He regarded her with the gay indulgence one shows an agreeable child.
+"Then, all thanks for the welcome. I shall try to live up to it, if you
+will not expect too much."
+
+"Oh, but I shall!"
+
+"Then perhaps I had better retreat at once?"
+
+"You might try, first. Don't you think so, Flavia?"
+
+"I think we might go in," Flavia smilingly suggested from the threshold.
+"We could assume Mr. Gerard's safety so far."
+
+"Come on, Corwin B.," his father summoned again.
+
+But Corrie sat still in his place, leaning on his steering-wheel and
+gazing curiously at his cousin and Gerard. Nor did he follow the group
+into the house; instead, he took the car and Jack Rupert around to the
+garage.
+
+A little later, when Flavia Rose went upstairs to make ready for dinner,
+Isabel followed her, frankly inquisitive.
+
+"Is this Mr. Gerard the real Gerard, the Gerard who races cars?" the
+examination commenced, as soon as the cousins were alone.
+
+"He is Allan Gerard," Flavia stated. "Did you have a nice game, this
+afternoon?"
+
+The distraction was put aside.
+
+"Oh, pretty fair. I walked home across the links and left the runabout
+at the club. Did you ever meet Mr. Gerard before? You seem to know each
+other pretty well."
+
+Flavia's delicate color flushed over her face; for an instant she again
+felt Gerard's firm arm around her and encountered his concerned eyes
+bent upon her own, as they stood on the stairs of the grand-stand.
+Truthfulness was the atmosphere of the household, the truthfulness born
+of fearless affection and cordial sympathy of feeling, but now she used
+an evasion, almost for the first time in her life.
+
+"It is Corrie who knows Mr. Gerard, Isabel," she explained, a trifle
+slowly. "You remember that race when he helped Corrie, last summer?
+To-day Corrie saw him playing ball, and brought him to meet us."
+
+"Oh! Yes, I remember the race, of course; I was there. But I did not
+know Allan Gerard was--well, _looked_ like that. How long will he be
+here?"
+
+"Papa and Corrie asked him to stay until the Cup race is over."
+
+There was a pause. Isabel walked over to one of the long mirrors and
+studied her own vigorously handsome image, then turned her head and
+regarded Flavia with the perfect complacency and mischievous malice of a
+young kitten.
+
+"Good sport," she anticipated.
+
+Flavia carefully laid her brush upon the dressing table and proceeded to
+gather into a coil the shimmering mass of her fair hair. Suddenly she
+was afraid, quiveringly afraid of herself, of Gerard and the next two
+weeks, but most afraid of showing any change in expression to Isabel's
+sharp scrutiny.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE HOUSEHOLD OF ROSES
+
+
+"If there is one thing meaner than another, it's _rain_," Corrie
+announced generally. "I'm going out. Won't you come, Gerard?"
+
+"If rain is the meanest thing there is, it shows real sense to go out in
+it," Isabel commented, from the window-seat opposite. "That is just like
+you, Corrie Rose. When I ask you to take me out on a perfectly fair day,
+you won't do it."
+
+"I?" stunned. "I ever refused----"
+
+"Yes. Yesterday, when I asked you to take me just once around the race
+course, while the cars were out practising. You know you would not. If
+it is safe for you, it is safe for me. But never mind; your old pink car
+won't win, anyhow. He hasn't a chance with the professional drivers, has
+he, Mr. Gerard?"
+
+"A chance?" Gerard gravely echoed. "Why, several of our best drivers are
+thinking of withdrawing, since he is entered, because they feel it's no
+use trying to win if he is racing."
+
+"Oh, you're making fun! But I mean it; _I_ could race that car he is so
+vain of, with my own little runabout machine."
+
+Corrie dragged a mandolin from beneath his chair and tinkled the opening
+chords of a popular melody.
+
+    "Get on your little girl's racer,
+    And I'll lead you for a chaser,
+    Down the good old Long Island course.
+    And before you're half through it,
+    Your poor car will rue it,
+    And you'll trade in the pieces for a horse."
+
+The provoking improvisation ended abruptly, as Isabel's well-aimed
+sofa-pillow struck the singer.
+
+"Do you call that a ladylike retort?" Corrie queried, freeing himself
+from the silken missile. "Tell her it isn't, Flavia."
+
+"I am afraid," Flavia excused herself. "There are more cushions on that
+window-seat."
+
+"It was a soft answer, at least," Gerard laughed. "And a good shot."
+
+"Oh, I taught her to pitch, myself. Now I'm sorry," deplored her cousin.
+
+"Too late," Isabel returned complacently. "I called that a cushion
+carom, Corrie. And my car would not fall to pieces. Flavia, he is
+feeding candy to Firdousi."
+
+Flavia looked over with the warm brightening of expression Allan Gerard
+had learned to watch for when she regarded her brother, and which never
+failed to stir in him the half-wistful envy of the first day when he had
+seen her so gazing at the driver of the pink racing car.
+
+"If Corrie can teach a Persian kitten to eat candy, he probably can
+teach it to digest candy," she offered serene reply. "Besides, he loves
+Firdousi, as much as I do."
+
+"I only gave him some fruit-paste to see his jaws work," the culprit
+defended. "He needs exercise. And so do I."
+
+"Not that kind, yours work all the time. It is only an hour since
+breakfast and you have talked ever since," corrected his cousin.
+
+"I haven't!"
+
+"You have."
+
+Corrie ran his fingers through his heavy fair hair, carefully set the
+purring kitten on the floor, and stood up.
+
+"All right, if you say so," he submitted gracefully. "What you say, I
+stand for."
+
+The argument was pure sport, of course. But with that last playful
+sentence, Corrie suddenly turned his dark-blue eyes upon Isabel with an
+expression not playful, as if himself struck by some deeper force in the
+words.
+
+"What you say, I stand for," he repeated, and paused.
+
+Flavia and Gerard both looked at him. All the fresh ardor of first love,
+all the impulsive faith of eighteen and its entire devotion invested
+Corrie Rose and illumined the shining regard in which he enveloped his
+cousin. There was in him a quality that lifted the moment above mere
+sentimentality, a young strength and straightforward earnestness at once
+dignified and pathetic with the pathos of all transient things that must
+go down before the battery of the years.
+
+It would have been difficult to encounter a more enchanting family life
+than that into which Allan Gerard had been drawn. The Rose household was
+as redolent of simple fragrance as a household of roses, in spite of its
+costly luxury, its retinue of servants and lavish expenditure. Thomas
+Rose's wealth had been made so long since, before the birth of the
+younger generation, that to one and all it was merely the natural
+condition of affairs, not in the least affecting them personally. Money
+was very nearly non-existent to them, since they never were obliged to
+consider its lack or abundance. They spent as they desired, precisely as
+they ate when hungry or drank according to thirst, without either stint
+or excess. It was Arcadian, it was improbable, but it was so. And the
+guard-wall that encircled their gilded Arcadia was a strong mutual
+affection not to be overthrown from without. Only by internal treason
+could that domain fall.
+
+It was not in one day that Gerard had come to understand this in its
+fullness; he had learned bit by bit. For there was nothing at all
+angelic about the gay family. But now he first realized, as he watched
+Corrie, that Isabel Rose was placed here by circumstance and not by
+fittedness. She was too earthen a vessel, however handsome and
+wholesome, to contain that fine sun-shot essence distilled from the
+fountain of youth which her cousin poured out for her taking. Gerard
+knew it, as he saw her matter-of-fact acceptance of the gaze that should
+have moved even a woman who did not love Corrie.
+
+Yet, they would probably marry one another, he reflected. There was
+nothing to interfere, if she consented. He felt an elder brother's
+outrush of impatient protection for the boy; involuntarily he turned to
+Flavia with a movement of regretful irritation at the folly of it all, a
+folly he divined that she also recognized.
+
+Flavia met his glance, and read its impatience and regret. How she
+applied it was a reflection less of her own mind than of Isabel's; she
+fancied Gerard jealous of this open wooing of the other girl, and mutely
+asking her own intervention.
+
+That intervention was not easy to give. In spite of herself, the days
+with Allan Gerard had affected her so far. Stooping, she lifted Firdousi
+to her lap, gaining a moment before breaking the silence that had fallen
+upon the group.
+
+"Where are you going to take Mr. Gerard, Corrie?" she inquired. "Are not
+the possibilities storm-limited?"
+
+"He isn't going to take him anywhere," Isabel calmly interpolated. "They
+are going to stay in and amuse us. At least, that is what I say, if he
+is going to stand for it. He said he would, but it's some large order."
+
+Corrie threw back his head, all seriousness vanishing before his
+laughter.
+
+"Just you let father catch you slinging Boweryese like that, Miss Rose,"
+he begged, moving aside to stuff a handful of candy into either
+coat-pocket. "He loves to hear girls talk slang. But it _is_ some classy
+order, all right, if you come to think of it; I guess I won't commence
+to-day. I'm going over to show the _Dear Me_ to Jack Rupert, Flavia; he
+thinks he can tell me why her engine misses."
+
+"In the rain, dear?" his sister wondered.
+
+"'Snips and snails and gasoline tales, are what little boys are made
+of,'" Isabel quoted derisive _Mother Goose_. "He won't melt; let him
+go. Mr. Gerard, you do not want to go out in a sloppy motor boat, do
+you?"
+
+"If you will forgive my bad taste, I believe I shall go with Corrie,"
+Gerard deprecated, rising. He looked again at Flavia, but she offered no
+suggestion that he stay.
+
+"That's the idea," approved the gentleman in question. "I'll ring for
+our raincoats."
+
+There was a period of silence in the many-windowed, octagonal library,
+after the two young girls were left alone. Flavia continued to play with
+the drowsy kitten. Isabel, chin in hand, gazed across the rain-drenched
+window-panes, her full lips bent discontentedly. The first diversion was
+effected by the smart slap of a maple-leaf flattened against the glass
+by a gust of wind, directly across the watcher's line of vision.
+
+"P.P.C.," interpreted Flavia, surveying the large pale-golden leaf, as
+it adhered to the wet pane opposite her cousin.
+
+"Now, what may that mean?" Isabel demanded.
+
+"_Pour prendre congé_, of course. Those are the farewell cards of
+departing summer. See her coat-of-arms on it: a gold-and-crimson
+sunset?"
+
+Isabel eyed her companion with scornful superiority.
+
+"You had better talk sense," she counselled. "That is a good stiff
+north wind blowing, and Corrie is just as reckless with his motor boat
+as he is with his car. He and Mr. Gerard are likely to be
+half-drowned--and I am glad of it."
+
+"Isa!"
+
+"I am glad. It serves them right for leaving me at home and going off
+with that mechanic. I know why Corrie did it, too; he didn't want us to
+be together all day. He is jealous of Mr. Gerard because he likes me."
+
+"Corrie does?"
+
+Isabel launched a glance of malicious comprehension over her shoulder,
+smilingly meaningly.
+
+"Oh, Corrie! Of course! But I meant Mr. Gerard. Anyone can see how
+Corrie hates to have him with me."
+
+Flavia adjusted the blue-satin bow upon Firdousi's neck, saying nothing
+for a moment. She did not intend to put the question hovering at her
+lips, yet suddenly the indiscreet words escaped her:
+
+"Then, you think Mr. Gerard is--interested in you?"
+
+"Did you ever know a man to come here without being interested in me,
+Flavia Rose?"
+
+The superb arrogance was a trifle too much to escape retort, even from
+the considerate Flavia.
+
+"Well, there was Mr. Stone," she recalled, with intention.
+
+Isabel colored richly, her handsome light-gray eyes hardened. The recent
+episode of Mr. Ethan Stone had not been one of her triumphs in
+flirtation.
+
+"He was almost as old as uncle," she exclaimed sharply. "He would have
+died of fright at the things Mr. Gerard and Corrie and I like to do,
+anyway, if he had stayed here. He was all nerves. So are you, for that
+matter. You are worried over Corrie now, you know you are."
+
+Flavia never quarrelled; she had an abhorrence of scenes. But that did
+not imply a lack of capacity for anger. She rose, a straight, slim
+figure in her blue morning-frock, the kitten in her arms.
+
+"If I were with him, I should not be worried," she stated with dignity.
+"I am never afraid when I am there to share what happens. I think I will
+go upstairs."
+
+And she went, leaving the other girl to devise her own amusements.
+
+In her own room, Flavia pushed aside the window-curtains to look out. In
+all the dripping landscape she saw no trace of her brother or their
+guest; the guest, half of whose visit was now past. The next day would
+be Sunday; one of the two weeks she had unreasoningly dreaded was gone,
+already. Was she glad, or sorry? She did not know. But she continued to
+look from the window; there was indeed a strong north wind blowing, and
+Corrie, if not reckless, certainly used the least margin of safety.
+
+It was impossible to be more safe from drowning than Corrie was at
+that time. He was in fact on land as dry as the weather permitted,
+engaged in operating a small ciderpress for the benefit of himself
+and Gerard, at a certain old-fashioned farm where he was--as he
+himself explained--persona very grata indeed.
+
+"They are used to me," he supplemented. "Wonderful what people can get
+used to, isn't it?"
+
+"It surely is," Gerard agreed, from his seat on an overturned barrel. He
+contemplated interestedly the picture Corrie presented with his sleeves
+rolled to the elbow, his coat off and his bright hair flecked with
+ruby-hued drops of the flying liquid. "See here, Corrie, what are you
+planning to do with yourself?"
+
+"Do? Meet Rupert and try out the _Dear Me_, of course. Why?"
+
+"I didn't mean that way. College? Business?"
+
+"Oh! Would you pitch over that tin-cup, please? Why, I am all through
+college."
+
+"Through it! Before you are nineteen?"
+
+"Jes' so. Like to see the pretty blue-ribboned papers that prove it?" He
+sat down on the press, drying his face with his handkerchief. "You see,
+my father had tutors to lavish all their wisdom and attention on little
+Corwin B. Rose, and I never had to wait while the rest of a class
+ploughed along, so I got through the usual junk and was ready for
+college at fifteen plus. So I entered at New York, where I could drive
+back and forth from home each day, and finished up the college business.
+It was a nuisance and I wanted to get it over, so I hustled a bit. The
+classical course, you know, not the professional. I graduated last
+Spring, just before I met you at the twenty-four-hour race. You look
+surprised."
+
+"I should not have thought it of you."
+
+"You didn't suppose I could work?" The mischievous blue eyes laughed at
+him. "I can, when I have to. And studying doesn't hit me very hard,
+although I'd rather be out-doors."
+
+"Not that, exactly. You do not look it," Gerard said slowly. He could
+not explain the effects he had seen left by college life with unlimited
+money at command, or how he was moved by their utter absence here.
+
+Corrie gave way to open mirth.
+
+"What a compliment! My word! Fancy! Well, I can't help my face. Anyway,
+you think I look as if I could drive a car, so I'm satisfied. Do you
+know," his expression sobered as he leaned forward, fixing earnest eyes
+on his companion's, "I would rather be you, do what you are doing, than
+be or do anything else in the world. Of course, I shan't get the
+chance--probably I couldn't do the work if I did--but I should _love_
+it."
+
+Gerard actually colored before that ardent admiration, taken unaware.
+
+"Corrie Rose, you are given to the folly of hero-worship; and heroes are
+few," he accused sternly.
+
+"I don't know about that, Mr. Gerard."
+
+"I do. But, Corrie----"
+
+"Present."
+
+Gerard stood up, reaching for his raincoat.
+
+"Beware of heroine-worship, it is _the_ folly. When you find the real
+woman, get on your knees, where you belong, before a grace of God, but
+don't build shrines to an imitation."
+
+Astonished, Corrie paused, upright beside the ciderpress, then smiled
+with a blending of pride and serious exaltation.
+
+"No danger of that! I--that can never happen to me," he assured
+quietly. "I am safe-guarded from imitations, win or lose. I believe, if
+I am given to hero-worship, that I'm pretty good at picking the right
+subjects for it. Had enough cider?"
+
+"Too much, probably. If I am ill to-morrow, I shall tell Rupert that you
+poisoned me. Are you going around to pay the lord proprietors of the
+place for what we have consumed?"
+
+"Who, me? If I did, Mrs. Goodwin might box my ears for the impertinence;
+she has boxed them before. I grew up around here, remember. The first
+acquaintance I made with this house was when I shied an apple at the
+family tabby as it sat sunning itself on the well-curb, and bowled it
+in. Naturally, I hadn't meant to hit it; the beast stepped forward just
+as I fired. I nearly fell in, myself, trying to get it out, but the well
+was deep and I couldn't raise a meow or a whisker. It was a fine
+November Sunday, I remember, and while I was busy the family drove into
+the yard, home from church. I bolted. No one saw me go, but by and by I
+began to remember all the yarns I ever had heard about people getting
+typhoid fever from polluted well-water, and to imagine that entire
+household dying on my hands. Remorse with a capital R! I felt like
+Cesare Borgia and Madame de Brinvilliers and the Veiled Mokanna all
+rolled into one. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I sneaked into
+Flavia's room at two o'clock in the morning, for counsel."
+
+"She gave it?"
+
+"She gave it. You can always count on Flavia. I can see her now, sitting
+up in bed with her hair braided in two big yellow plaits and her
+troubled kiddie countenance turned to me.
+
+"'You will have to tell either papa or those people,' she decided, wise
+as a toy owl. 'And if you tell them, _they_ will surely tell papa, so
+perhaps you would rather tell him yourself. But I am sorry, dear
+darling.'
+
+"So I 'fessed up, after breakfast."
+
+"What happened?" Gerard questioned.
+
+"We drove over to the farm together, and father went in for a private
+interview with old man Goodwin. After which he, father, escorted me
+around to the well and informed me that I was to drink a cup of that
+water. Phew, I would rather have drunk hemlock! I wasn't much given to
+begging off when I got into trouble, but I tried that time, all right.
+
+"'It's what you've left these folks to drink,' said he, standing with
+his hands in his pockets, looking at me. 'It would have been a lot more
+pleasant for you to swallow if you had owned up two days ago; just keep
+that as a reminder never to put off a thing you ought to do. Take your
+medicine, Corwin B.'
+
+"I took it. But it almost killed me." He shook his blond head
+disgustedly. "I told him I would probably die of typhoid, or something
+worse. He said we would chance it."
+
+"Still, it was a chance, Corrie."
+
+Corrie calmly fastened the last button of his raincoat.
+
+"No, I guess not. You see, old Goodwin had told father that they pulled
+pussy out of the well ten minutes after I ran away, the first day. She
+was clinging to the bucket, pretty wet, but healthy and merry. Father
+told me the truth, before dinner-time; I didn't seem to care for
+luncheon, that day. Have you got a pencil? I've lost my fountain-pen
+again; that's the third I've bought this month."
+
+Gerard produced the pencil.
+
+"It was a rough joke on you, though," he commented. "Didn't you resent
+it?"
+
+Corrie lifted his bright clear glance from his task of tearing a blank
+leaf from his notebook.
+
+"Hadn't I earned it?" he asked. "Keep the lines straight, Gerard; my
+father never punished me in anger, nor unless I could first admit I
+deserved it and we could shake hands on it afterward. Of course, that
+sort of thing ended five years ago--there never was much of it--but
+there couldn't be closer friends than we have been, right through. We
+have kept each other's respect, we couldn't get along without it; and we
+expect a good deal of each other, too. I just don't want you to
+misunderstand."
+
+He scribbled his signature across the bit of paper, and secured the
+legend to the ciderpress.
+
+"There; now the Goodwins will know who has been here. Ready?"
+
+"Ready," Gerard assented.
+
+The rain had ceased; the vigorous broom of the north wind was sweeping
+the broken storm-clouds across a gray sky. The drive to the yacht club
+was accomplished pleasantly and quickly.
+
+"I told Rupert to meet us here at noon," Corrie observed, when they
+stopped at the pier. "And I had lunch for three sent over, this morning.
+What a deserted old hole the club is in October! Hello, what----"
+
+From beneath the tarpaulin cover of a long, polished motor boat moored
+in the wall-locked artificial harbor, a frowsy head had projected, to be
+instantly withdrawn into shelter at sight of the two young men. The
+genus of that head was unmistakable, the action significant. Both
+arrivals halted involuntarily.
+
+"Club steward?" inquired Gerard, with irony.
+
+"Tramp!" flared his companion, recovering breath after the first shock
+of amazement at the audacity of the intruder. "A dirty, lazy hobo in my
+boat! Lying on my cushions, mauling my things, running my engine for all
+I know. Oh!"
+
+"Hold on," Gerard advised. "Better investigate."
+
+But Corrie was already at the edge of the pier.
+
+"Come out of there!" he shouted imperiously. "Come out, I say, or I'll
+come aboard and throw you out. What do you mean by it? Come out, I tell
+you."
+
+The head slowly emerged, a red head in need of combing; its owner rested
+his arms on the gleaming mahogany deck and turned a sullen, unshaven
+face on his challenger.
+
+"Stand me a quarter, an' I'll beat it," he invited raucously.
+
+"A quarter! You'll beat it without a cent and do it quick, or go to
+jail. That is my boat, do you hear? Come out. What are you doing there?
+Stealing?"
+
+"Sleepin', if you want to know."
+
+"I've got a right to know. Are you going to take your filthy self off my
+cushions, or am I going to throw you off?"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, _me_. Who do you think?"
+
+The man measured his young antagonist with unhurried scrutiny, yawned,
+and ostentatiously settled himself in a position of greater comfort.
+
+"You can't do it," he sneered. "Send a man."
+
+The _Dear Me_ was not anchored, but moored to the pier by a pulley and
+tackle. Before the diverted Gerard guessed his purpose, Corrie had
+hauled in the boat's bow by the running line attached and swung himself
+raging into the craft below. There was a choked oath, a sound of rending
+canvas, then the clatter and thud of combat in close quarters.
+
+It was over before Gerard could do more than haul the reeling,
+water-drenched boat again within reach. A great splash, a cry changing
+to a smothered gurgle, announced a threat fulfilled.
+
+"I don't want any help," panted Corrie, standing erect and dishevelled,
+fiery blue eyes on his floundering enemy. "He's had enough, I fancy.
+Here, the water is only five feet deep, you chump! Not that way! Throw
+me an oar, Gerard--he'd drown himself in a saucer. Here, catch hold,
+you. What's the matter with you?"
+
+"You pitched him into pretty cold water," Gerard reproached, between
+amusement and pity. "Got him? Look out! You'll capsize!"
+
+Corrie had him, by the collar, and brought him to the pier, a streaming,
+shivering wreck.
+
+"Man's size, am I?" demanded the victor. "Here, what are you shaking
+like that for? You'll kill yourself, man."
+
+The captive looked at him, speechless, shuddering miserably in the
+boisterous rush of wind that wrapped his wet garments about him like a
+sheath of ice.
+
+"You silly idiot," Corrie snapped impatiently. "Why didn't you do as I
+told you? Open the basement door, won't you, Gerard, while I bring him?
+We'll be sure to find a fire there. Are you going to come quietly, yes?"
+
+The victim followed tamely to the lower part of the building, where
+Corrie threw open a furnace-door and installed him in the red glow of
+heat.
+
+"Take off your clothes," he commanded. "Trying to get pneumonia, are
+you, so I will feel like a brute? Oh, I'll give you something to wear;
+I've got a lot of old duds in my locker here. What are you laughing at,
+Allan Gerard?"
+
+"The responsible man's burden. Never mind me, go on with your rescue."
+
+"I should like to throw something at you."
+
+"Haven't you got enough on your hands?"
+
+The raillery struck some note in the man's pride. He looked from Gerard
+to Corrie, who was bringing an armful of assorted clothing, with a
+reawakening defiance not so much evil as primitive.
+
+"You couldn't have put it over me so easy," he announced sombrely, "if
+I'd had the feed I bet you got this morning."
+
+The garments escaped Corrie's grasp.
+
+"Feed? You're hungry?"
+
+"What you think I was sleepin' in your dinky boat for, if I had the
+price of anythin'? It had a blanket in it an' was better than the open,
+that's why."
+
+"Why didn't you say so," Corrie stormed at him hotly. "Get into those
+clothes and come upstairs. Or, no; I'll bring it down, stay there."
+
+It was an elaborate lunch-hamper that presently was brought in and set
+down.
+
+"Eat it," was the concise direction. "That vacuum-bottle is full of hot
+coffee; drink it. For Heaven's sake stop shivering--_why_ couldn't you
+speak? Rupert is coming, Gerard. I heard the motor-horn down the road."
+
+Gerard discreetly had turned his back to the scene, reading a
+last-season bulletin of yacht racing that was fixed to the wall at the
+end of the room.
+
+"You want to start?" he interpreted, as Corrie joined him.
+
+"Well--I hope you won't mind, but I don't see how we can. I have got to
+stay here until that chattering, shaking----"
+
+"'Brimstone pig,'" supplied Gerard, with a recollection of the
+unforgettable _Mrs. Smallweed_.
+
+"Thanks. Until he finishes and can leave, for the steward will put him
+out if he finds him here alone."
+
+"That cannot be long."
+
+"No, but," he hesitated, engagingly confused. "But we are miles from a
+restaurant, you know, and I had to feed him somehow, and there wasn't
+anything except our luncheon that I had sent over for the trip. So I
+suppose we had better drive home and get some eats there. It is a shabby
+way to treat you, all right, after bringing you out."
+
+Gerard dropped his hand on the other's shoulder, his laughing eyes very
+kind.
+
+"Corrie Rose, how many times a year do you throw your offenders
+overboard, and give them your own lunch to make up for it?" he
+challenged.
+
+There was no lack of perception in Corrie; he recognized both the
+innuendo and its truth.
+
+"About every day," he confessed. "My temper slips. Everyone expects it
+of me, so it's all right. At least, it has been all right; I guess I've
+got to stop."
+
+"Corrie, you did not believe me in earnest?"
+
+"No, it isn't that." He shook his head as if to shake off a vexing
+thought. "I--it makes me feel like a brute to think I've been knocking
+out a half-starved man and throwing him into that water because he
+crawled under an old blanket in my boat for shelter. Why didn't I
+question him decently? I must put on the brake, or I'll spoil something
+without intending it."
+
+Gerard opened his lips to deny the danger and recall the provocation
+received, but for some reason he did not analyze, closed them without
+speaking. The two stood together in silence for many moments, looking
+out at the gray-green expanse of tumbling water.
+
+"I'll be goin'," the hoarse voice of the involuntary guest said, behind
+them. "Obliged for your feed."
+
+There was a tentative quality in the statement, an attempt to carry off
+easily a situation capable of unpleasant developments, a studied
+ignoring of his captor's possible right to detain him. But Corrie swung
+around with a face of open sunniness that shamed suspicion, his hands in
+the pockets of his long overcoat.
+
+"Good enough! Did you find what you liked, or rather, like what you
+found?" he responded.
+
+The hard face relaxed into a reluctant humor, the man looked again to
+assure himself of the inquirer's seriousness.
+
+"The best ever," he essayed social graciousness. "I ain't left much.
+Your little caramels were fine."
+
+"Caramels? Who on earth put in caramels? Armand must have lost his mind!
+What kind of caramels?"
+
+"Wrapped in tin paper, they were, in a little tin box."
+
+"Wrapped----Holy cats, Gerard, he has eaten the concentrated bouillon
+squares! They were not to eat, man; they were to be dissolved in a cup
+of boiling water, to drink."
+
+"They tasted all right. I guess they'll go. I'll be movin'."
+
+"Go? Well, I hope so; you must have enough concentrated beef in you to
+nourish an army. You are going, you say. Where to?"
+
+"The big town."
+
+"What are you going to do when you get there?"
+
+The man's dissipation-dulled eyes searched the candid face of the
+questioner scarcely ten years his junior, then he looked to Gerard with
+a confused and reluctant unease, as he might have looked had Corrie been
+a young girl whose innocence he feared to offend.
+
+"Aw, lots of things," he evaded, with a short, embarrassed laugh. "You
+don't want to hear me talk, mister. I'll get there, now I'm fed up."
+
+"Do you want me to find work for you around here? I can."
+
+"My jobs are a different kind, mister. I couldn't stay in yours."
+
+Corrie brought his hand from his pocket.
+
+"All right, as you like. Take this for good luck and we'll call
+ourselves even. Square, is it?"
+
+The man took the bill awkwardly, his embarrassment deepened.
+
+"You're square, sure," he signified.
+
+As his slouching, bulky figure went out the door opposite, it crossed
+the small erect form of Jack Rupert, who entered.
+
+"Us for home," Corrie greeted the arrival. "It is too bad to have
+brought you over for nothing, Rupert, but--what's the matter?"
+
+The mechanician's countenance was a study in disgust, as he contemplated
+one of his polished tan boots, a high-heeled, ornate affair of the
+latest design labelled "smart." Off the race course and outside of
+hours, Rupert had one passion: clothes.
+
+"I ain't registering any complaints if the rest are satisfied," he
+acidly returned. "But stepping in a puddle of wringing rags that the
+town board of health ought to condemn for making a noisy demonstration
+ain't what I look forward to all day as a treat. As for going home, I'm
+ready, myself. The trip we're missing will keep awhile this weather. The
+water is mussed bad and the only time I ever was car-sick was on the
+boat to Savannah."
+
+"Did he spoil his pretty shoes?" Corrie teased, speculatively eyeing the
+heap of wet, unsavory clothing. "Never mind, Briggs shall make them good
+as new with his Transcendant Tan for Tasteful Tootsies; you haven't seen
+that darky of mine shine boots. I don't know what to do with those
+clothes, Gerard, so I think I won't do anything. Let's go home before we
+starve. Rupert, don't you approve of charity?"
+
+"I ain't fitted to say; nobody ever showed me any. I always got exactly
+what I worked for, measure evened off and loose-packed. If I sneaked
+into somebody's boat-garage without an invitation, I wouldn't get a bath
+and breakfast and a greenback; I'd get ten dollars or ten days from the
+first judge in the stand. And so would you."
+
+Corrie paused, struck.
+
+"I? Why?"
+
+"You. Why? What's the answer? I don't know, but I know the type. You
+keep your score-card and watch it happen; you'll find you get just what
+you enter for. Nothing more _and_ nothing less."
+
+"'Nothing more _and_ nothing less,'" Corrie repeated, unconsciously
+exact. "Well," his dancing smile flashed out, "we don't want any more
+than that, do we? I'll be content with the life I earn."
+
+"It's a good thing, for that's all we'll get," was the terse reply.
+"When some folks start to kick a brick wall, luck drops a feather pillow
+between. Other people stub their toes. I ain't crying bad luck, because
+I never had any; I'm just saying we'll stub our toes, if we kick the
+wall. We don't have to kick it."
+
+"Rupert is a philosopher," Gerard observed, not mockingly or in
+ridicule, but as one stating a fact.
+
+His mechanician nodded coolly.
+
+"Calling names don't count. I've raced long enough to know a type of car
+when I see it, and I've lived long enough to tell a type of man. The way
+their heads set does it, maybe. Did you know the ladies were upstairs?"
+
+"The ladies?" echoed Gerard, surprised. "They came with you?"
+
+"Not precisely, I guess I came with them. Miss Rose saw me starting and
+said she was coming over with her own little machine to see the launch
+off, if she could get her cousin to come, and they'd bring me. So she
+drove me over. I ain't used to that."
+
+"Ladies?"
+
+"Ladies' driving. My life's insured, so it was all right, though."
+
+"Bully for Isabel!" Corrie approved, pensiveness cast aside. "Come up to
+them, Gerard. I hear her tooting for us with the horn."
+
+From the little scarlet runabout--the largest motor vehicle Mr. Rose
+would allow his vigorous niece--Isabel and Flavia had descended.
+
+"We came to see what you were doing," Isabel welcomed the group who
+issued from the club-house. "I don't suppose Flavia would have come if
+she hadn't been wondering whether Corrie was drowning himself. Go ahead
+and start; don't wait on our account. But you had better eat your lunch
+first, if you haven't already, for you will have no time to eat in the
+boat on that sea."
+
+"We haven't any lunch," Corrie cheerfully declared. "I gave it to a
+tramp after I threw him overboard. You're just in time to take us home
+for luncheon and save our lives."
+
+"You look as if you had been fighting," Isabel criticized, with a
+scornful survey of his attire. "You are all splashed with dirty water,
+your cravat is pulled crooked and your coat is torn. We saw your tramp;
+he passed us a few moments ago and we recognized your blue flannel suit
+with the _Dear Me's_ insignia on the lapel. Mr. Rupert guessed what you
+had been doing, when he saw the boat all in disorder and the pier all
+wet. The man's hairy, dirty face looked horrid above your clothes."
+
+"A contrast to my beauty, not so? Fix my cravat, please, ma'am; I can't
+see the thing. But his face wasn't dirty, for I washed it."
+
+"Why should I fix your wet cravat? Hold my gloves, then. Where is your
+scarf-pin? Stolen by your tramp, I suppose."
+
+Gerard had joined Flavia, but neither yet had spoken, watching the
+cousins. They had not the fluent familiarity of intercourse possessed by
+the two who looked and acted very like a pair of handsome boys.
+Moreover, Gerard distrusted himself, fearing to say too much, too soon.
+He was approaching Flavia carefully and delicately as a man striving to
+close his hand on some frail, elusive creature whose capture he scarcely
+dares hope possible. And she gave him no help. Her frank gentleness and
+impersonal cordiality gave neither encouragement nor discouragement, no
+foothold smooth or rough.
+
+The actual position he had never even conceived; the fact that she was
+completely unconscious of his desire to woo her. He had no way of
+knowing that it was his attitude toward Isabel she considered in all his
+words and acts, remembering her cousin's confident appropriation of the
+guest. It was of Isabel that she spoke now, while Gerard hesitated for
+the right word to offer the girl beside him.
+
+"The roads were very wet and slippery," she remarked. "If Isabel were
+not a good driver, I think we would have found ourselves in a ditch.
+Indeed," her soft mouth dimpled into a smile, "once I thought we were in
+one. One wheel _was_. But we wiggled out again. Mr. Rupert wanted to put
+the chains on the wheels, but she said we did not need them."
+
+The thought of Isabel over-ruling the judgment of his racing mechanician
+unsteadied Gerard's gravity.
+
+"A coarse masculine hand is needed on the wheel, to-day," he confirmed,
+with ulterior intention. "I believe we had better divide our party
+differently, on the way back. Let me drive one car and Corrie or Rupert
+the other. I'll promise not to take any ditches, if you consent."
+
+"Great scheme," Corrie called, overhearing. "I'll take the red near-car
+home, Isabel."
+
+"No, indeed," Isabel vetoed decidedly. "Mr. Gerard is going to take me
+home and I shall learn a lot from watching him drive. You can take
+Flavia in your roadster; Mr. Rupert will ride in the rumble seat."
+
+Being a gentleman, Gerard compelled his expression to evidence pleasant
+acquiescence. But he was not soothed by the unclouded smile Flavia sent
+her designated escort.
+
+"Corrie doesn't mind taking me, do you, dear?" she covered her brother's
+chagrin.
+
+"I surely don't, Other Fellow," he heartily corroborated, coming across
+to his sister, although the change in his transparent face betrayed his
+discomfiture at the slight. "You and I have had many a good spin. In you
+go! Come up behind, Rupert; there is more room here than on the other
+machine."
+
+"I think Mr. Rupert would rather ride with us, anyhow," Flavia declared,
+her laughing eyes questioning the mechanician. "I fancied, once or twice
+on the way over, that he would have preferred to have you or Mr. Gerard
+driving."
+
+"I ain't making any scornful denials," admitted Rupert, as he stepped in
+front to crank the motor for Corrie. "I've always looked forward to
+being killed in a larger machine, myself."
+
+Isabel did not at once enter her own car.
+
+"I can't fasten this glove without taking off the other, and then I
+can't fasten the other without taking off this," she complained. "I
+really believe----"
+
+So, the last the three in the departing roadster saw of the two on the
+pier, Allan Gerard was engaged in buttoning Isabel's glove, while her
+wind-blown veils fluttered across his shoulders and her flushed,
+provocative face bent over the task beside his.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+ISABEL
+
+
+Isabel, in the clinging knitted coat that displayed every attractive
+line of her athletic figure, her cheeks reddened by triumph and the salt
+wind, her gray eyes lifted in challenging coquetry, was a sufficiently
+pleasant sight to dispel mere vexation. And Gerard had no right to feel
+more than annoyance at a disappointment of which she supposedly knew
+nothing.
+
+"I ran away with you because I didn't want to ride home with Corrie,"
+she confided, when the last button-hole was achieved. "You don't
+mind--much?"
+
+"I am overwhelmed by the honor," Gerard assured. He was neither surly
+enough to refuse the light play to which she invited him, nor anchorite
+enough to be insensible to the flattery of being sought. "But how did
+Prince Corrie offend his sovereign lady?"
+
+"Oh, that would be telling! You know, we are _not_ engaged."
+
+"Not yet?"
+
+"Not at all. And the last time we were out alone together, he--he asked
+me to see if the oil was running through that little cup on the dash."
+
+"And then?"
+
+They were in the car now, Gerard behind the steering-wheel. Isabel
+leaned down to touch her fingers to the dash, turning her vivid-hued,
+consciously alluring face across her shoulder to the companion so close
+beside her, the auburn curls tumbled about her forehead and her mouth
+tempting as a small scarlet fruit.
+
+"And then, we were like this when--guess what Corrie did?"
+
+It was not in the least difficult to guess what the enamoured Corrie had
+done. But Gerard shook his head, schooling his mirthful eyes.
+
+"I could not, possibly, Miss Rose. I am very dull."
+
+"Well, what would _you_ have done?"
+
+"I? I should have shut both eyes and recalled St. Francis' rules of
+deportment."
+
+Isabel straightened herself, leaning back and folding her hands in her
+lap.
+
+"That's what Corrie did not do," she stated. "So I will not ride with
+him. It was bad taste."
+
+"I imagine Corrie found the taste most pleasant."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Have I guessed wrong?"
+
+"You said that you were dull, Mr. Gerard."
+
+"Then the guess is wrong. Poor Corrie!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
+
+"You think a great deal about Corrie."
+
+"Yes. We are friends," Gerard quietly answered.
+
+She was clever enough to recognize the bar he set to flirtation with the
+woman loved by the man he gave that name, and she regarded the obstacle
+as a challenge. She was not sufficiently old or fine to realize that
+such bars are not crossed by such men. If Gerard had loved her or
+believed she might love him, he must have left his friend's house; as
+Corrie would have left Gerard's in like case. As a matter of fact,
+Gerard was perfectly aware of the immunity of both parties and that
+Isabel was merely seeking temporary diversion--experimenting with the
+possibilities of her own heady youth.
+
+A forking of the road supplied a new subject for discussion.
+
+"Turn to the left," Isabel directed, sitting erect.
+
+Surprised, Gerard checked the machine.
+
+"We did not come that way, Miss Rose."
+
+"Of course not; you came by the long route, past the Goodwin farm. This
+is a better road."
+
+"Better?"
+
+She followed his gaze down the vista of slippery, rut-grooved mud, and
+colored.
+
+"A shorter road, then," she amended petulantly. "I am sure I don't
+care--go the long way if you wish. The storm is blowing back again, but
+I can stand the rain."
+
+Gerard hastily turned into the wretched travesty of a road.
+
+"I beg your pardon; I only wondered if you were quite certain of the
+route," he apologized.
+
+There ensued a period of silence. The little car slipped and wallowed
+through sliding mud and yellow puddles.
+
+"I hope you do not drive here, yourself," Gerard observed.
+
+"Do you think I should be afraid?"
+
+"I think you might have serious trouble. There is a deep ditch on either
+side, while the road is both narrow and slippery."
+
+"I can drive anywhere. Ask Corrie."
+
+"I suspect he is a biassed judge. But I should not have believed he
+would let you drive here."
+
+"He----I never did except in dry weather. I knew _you_ would not mind
+any road and could drive in anything, so it did not matter."
+
+"Please consider the compliment more than appreciated, mademoiselle,"
+Gerard smiled. "There is going to be a splash when we strike that
+puddle ahead; had you not better draw in your frock?"
+
+She caught her white serge skirts around her and shrank nearer to her
+companion with a gurgle of dismayed laughter.
+
+"Let me get in the middle. Uh, what a muddy swamp! Oh--my face!"
+
+In fact, the water had splashed as the car struck the pool where a
+rain-swollen brook had overflowed the road. As Gerard turned to the
+girl, she lifted a face sprinkled with drops which she strove to remove
+with her handkerchief.
+
+"Is it off?" she questioned. "Please look carefully. _All_ off?"
+
+He was obliged to scrutinize the handsome countenance offered for
+inspection at close range.
+
+"A trifle of mud, still," he admitted.
+
+"Where? Here?"
+
+"No--more to the left. Beneath the eye--the other eye."
+
+"This place?"
+
+"Not quite."
+
+It was incredible, the length of time that small spot evaded Isabel's
+questing handkerchief, and the futility of Gerard's directions. He was
+obliged to halt the car, at last.
+
+"A little higher--not so much. There! No, not so low."
+
+With a gesture of mock despair, she gave him the fragrant square of
+linen.
+
+"Wipe it off," she requested resignedly. "I can't motor all over Long
+Island with a dirty face. There is no one in sight for miles; wipe it
+off and never tell."
+
+"I am very clumsy," he demurred.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped."
+
+Gerard might have echoed the exclamation. But he accepted the
+handkerchief and deftly, if with inward embarrassment, removed the stain
+from the ruddy cheek presented.
+
+"It can't be off, Mr. Gerard?"
+
+"Pardon, it is gone."
+
+"You hardly touched it," doubtingly.
+
+"If you could see----" he began in defense of his work.
+
+"Look once more."
+
+He obeyed, impersonally and coolly.
+
+"Nothing, indeed," he asserted.
+
+She glanced up at him through her long lashes, and flung herself back in
+her seat.
+
+"Thank you. Shall we go on?"
+
+[Illustration: "WIPE IT OFF," SHE REQUESTED RESIGNEDLY, "WIPE IT OFF AND
+NEVER TELL"]
+
+The operation and the drive that preceded it had occupied considerable
+time. It was an hour since the party had separated at the yacht club's
+pier. The brief interval of comparative clearness had given place to
+dark skies across which the capricious wind herded masses of gray cloud.
+And presently several drops of rain fell and trickled down the
+wind-shield of the car.
+
+"Hurry," Isabel urged, sitting up with renewed animation. "It is going
+to pour."
+
+"The little machine isn't capable of much hurrying on this road," Gerard
+regretted. "She hasn't any speed, of course. How far have we left to
+go?"
+
+"A long way, seven or eight miles. We haven't passed the country club,
+yet."
+
+"But Corrie drove over in an hour!"
+
+"With his big car, yes," she retorted. "Perhaps this was not the best
+way, after all. But it would take longer to go back, now, than to keep
+on."
+
+This was obvious. There was nothing to do except force the skidding,
+panting automobile to maintain its best gait.
+
+They were destined to lose that race. As they came opposite a low brick
+building set amidst rolling green slopes and stretches of flag-dotted
+turf, the storm overtook them.
+
+"Up the driveway," Isabel cried. "We can just make it. This is the
+country club--we'll 'phone home where we are staying."
+
+Gerard sent the car up the wide gravelled path. An attendant was waiting
+to receive them, another assumed charge of the automobile, and Isabel's
+escort found himself standing beside her on the veranda with rather
+confused ideas of how the affair had been accomplished.
+
+"Koma says there is no one else here," she informed him. "We have all
+the place to ourselves. How it rains!"
+
+It certainly was raining, raining violently and steadily, a gray
+downpour from a gray sky. She paused to look before continuing.
+
+"I'll 'phone to Flavia, first of all. I can see we are going to have a
+long wait. Koma will get us the best luncheon he knows how. Aren't you
+hungry? I am. Come in."
+
+Gerard uttered some reply. He was profoundly vexed at his situation,
+without being able to blame himself for it or to fix any actual fault
+upon Isabel. She had already turned away to enter the hall, and
+presently he heard the tinkle of the telephone bell, followed by her
+high-pitched voice.
+
+"One one seven? Martin, I want Miss Rose. Yes, it is I. Oh!----We're at
+the country club, Corrie. No, we didn't get lost; we just chose that
+road.... Not a bit, it was good sport. We're having luncheon together,
+here, and then I suppose we will play billiards until the rain stops.
+Tell Flavia not to worry; we'll get home by dinner-time, and we're
+enjoying ourselves.... Not wet, just splashed. Mr. Gerard spoiled a
+handkerchief drying me, that's all the damage. Good-by."
+
+She reappeared on the threshold, complacently satisfied. She had removed
+her hood and veils, shaken her ruddy hair into becoming disorder, and
+knew herself at her best.
+
+"You are enjoying yourself, aren't you?" she demanded.
+
+"Certainly," Gerard responded, without enthusiasm.
+
+"Why not come in, then? Which do you like most to commence a
+luncheon----Blue Points or little clams? Corrie and I quarrel over that
+every time we are out together. He is as obstinate as, as--Corrie!"
+
+"Clams," said he, at a venture. He had a vague recollection of seeing
+Corrie dismiss oysters with scorn, and he felt viciously contrary.
+
+"Why, so do I," agreed Isabel winningly. "Let us order some."
+
+One cannot be disagreeable to a young girl under one's care, who also
+is in a sense one's hostess. The luncheon was sufficiently gay. The rain
+fell incessantly, beating against the diamond-paned windows, gurgling
+down eaves and gutter-ways.
+
+"We should have sailed home in the _Dear Me_," Isabel declared. "I am
+sure there is enough water on the roads. Why did we not think of it?"
+
+She detached a chrysanthemum petal from the vase of blossoms central on
+the table, and dropped it into her finger-bowl, watching the agitation
+of a diminutive scarlet-and-black beetle perched upon the sinking leaf.
+
+"An execution?" Gerard inquired.
+
+She raised her eyes, pouting prettily, and nodded.
+
+"I hate those bugs," she explained. "Ugly animals! We put them in and
+wager a box of bon-bons on how long they last. If it is still alive at
+the end of five minutes, I lose. If it is drowned, I win."
+
+"Does Corrie play that game with you?"
+
+"N'no. Corrie doesn't like it. He will step off of a sidewalk into the
+mud to avoid treading on a cricket. Do you suppose I never play with any
+one except my cousin? Will you try this wager? _You're_ not silly?"
+
+"I will, if I may. If that lady-bug is alive five minutes from now, I
+win? No other conditions?"
+
+"None," gleefully. "Take your watch. You'll lose, he's weakening now."
+
+Gerard leaned across, lifted the struggling beetle upon his finger-tip,
+and restored it to the safe refuge of the chrysanthemum bouquet.
+
+"I believe he will live some time," he soberly predicted.
+
+The girl stared, frowned, and laughed.
+
+"No fair! No fair! That's not the game, Mr. Gerard."
+
+"No? Then I will send the bon-bons."
+
+"Chocolates."
+
+"They shall be chocolates."
+
+"And I may put back the nasty beetle?"
+
+"On no account; I have ransomed him."
+
+"Oh, very well," she shrugged, rising. "I'll take refuge in billiards
+for the next game. Corrie taught me to play, but I can beat him, now."
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't watch his game when his opponent is his cousin."
+
+"Why, what else should he watch?" she wondered, arching her brows a
+trifle too innocently.
+
+"I cannot imagine, if you do not know," Gerard dryly responded, and held
+open the door for her to pass out.
+
+In the billiard room, Isabel rolled her sleeves above her elbows as a
+preliminary measure.
+
+"I haven't had that off for a year," she confided, indicating a flexible
+platinum and turquoise bracelet encircling her firm, sun-browned arm.
+
+"You are fond of it?" her companion inferred. "It is a beautiful bit of
+work, indeed."
+
+"I like it well enough. That isn't the reason, though. You see, it
+locks, and after Corrie put it on my arm he kept the key. He says he
+will give it to me on my wedding day. But it isn't worth that."
+
+"Worth----?" he questioned.
+
+"Getting married. Will you play me even?"
+
+"Pray fix any odds you choose, Miss Rose. How many points does Corrie
+usually give you?"
+
+This time Isabel's stare of surprise was genuine.
+
+"I meant, how many points should I allow _you_," she corrected
+arrogantly.
+
+"Oh, pardon me!" he submitted. "Suppose, in that case, we play for an
+even score."
+
+The storm did not abate. The wind drove the rain before it in glistening
+gray sheets, the steady drumming of the downpour accompanied the click
+of meeting ivory balls and the occasional speech of the players. After a
+time, a deep-belled Mission clock in the hall struck four.
+
+A sharp, incredulous cry from the girl rang out, after an interval of
+silence in the room.
+
+"Why--why, you've won!"
+
+"So I have," acknowledged her antagonist. "Shall I apologize?"
+
+Isabel started to speak, and checked herself. She had been chiefly
+intent upon her own accomplishment, and Gerard's playing was of a
+deceptive leisureliness and tranquillity.
+
+"How many did you make in that last run?" she asked, finally.
+
+"Only seventeen."
+
+"You can't do it again."
+
+"One never can tell."
+
+"Play," she defied.
+
+Gerard glanced hopelessly at the streaming windows.
+
+"It is growing late," he demurred.
+
+"Not late, yet. Besides, we can't go out in that weather with an open
+automobile. They know at home where we are."
+
+They did; that was precisely the core of Gerard's exasperation and
+unrest. What impressions would this tête-à-tête afternoon convey to
+Corrie? And what would Flavia think of her guest's guardianship of her
+cousin? He picked up his cue with enforced resignation.
+
+The clock had struck the half-hour, when a long blast from an electric
+horn pierced through the clamor of the storm.
+
+"Another motor-party caught out," Isabel hazarded, her tone decidedly
+cross. She was losing again, and she did not like the experience. "Your
+play. You seem to find it more amusing to look out the window."
+
+Gerard was spared reply. The billiard-room door was pushed open by the
+Japanese steward and a figure in gleaming rain-proof attire appeared on
+the threshold--the figure of a chauffeur, cap in hand.
+
+"Lenoir!" Isabel exclaimed.
+
+The chauffeur saluted.
+
+"Mr. Rose sent the limousine to convey mademoiselle and Mr. Gerard," he
+informed them, in his precise, Parisian-flavored English.
+
+"My uncle is home?"
+
+"I had just driven Mr. Rose home from the city, mademoiselle, before he
+telephoned to the garage that I should come here."
+
+She tossed her cue upon the table, recklessly scattering the balls, and
+turned toward the door.
+
+"Bring our wraps, Koma," she bade. "We had better go."
+
+Gerard contemplated Lenoir with marked kindness.
+
+"It's a bad day to be out," he commented, in following Isabel from the
+room, and passed into the chauffeur's hand a gratuity out of all
+proportion to the occasion.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Lenoir, demurely.
+
+The drive home was short and uninteresting. On the veranda of the Rose
+villa Corrie was waiting to meet the returning two, upon the limousine's
+arrival.
+
+"Well, of all the slow traveling I ever saw, this is the limit," he
+greeted them derisively; "From noon until five o'clock! Fancy!"
+
+"Never mind our driving; we have had a fine time," Isabel retorted, with
+pettish tartness.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, no doubt. I wouldn't have interrupted, myself. It was
+father who did it, when he came in. He said you'd want some dinner
+to-night."
+
+He smiled at Gerard as cordially as ever, but there was a wistfulness
+underlying his expression that inspired the older man with a hearty
+desire to shake Isabel Rose. She could watch her young lover's emotions
+with the same diverted interest with which she had watched the struggles
+of the tiny black-and-scarlet beetle drowning in her finger-bowl.
+
+"I wish you had been with us, Corrie," was all Gerard found to say.
+
+Through the parted curtains, the library presented such a graceful
+interior study as certain French artists have delighted in drawing. In
+the octagonal, book-lined room of rich hues and soft lights, Flavia and
+her father were seated together; busied in pleasant comradeship at the
+table whose polished surface was littered with letters, books of
+household accounts, and all those dainty metal and crystal trinkets the
+jeweller conceives necessary to the writer. Evidently they had found
+refreshment desirable, for a diminutive tea-table still stood near
+Flavia, while a pushed-back chair beneath which a young Great Dane hound
+lay asleep indicated that Corrie had been one of the group.
+
+"Back, are you?" Mr. Rose called cheerily, to the two in the hall,
+leaning back in his chair to view them more easily. "When I heard where
+you were marooned, I guessed it was about time for a rescue. You
+children oughtn't to try roundabout country roads with a storm blowing
+up."
+
+"Mr. Gerard wanted to go that way," Isabel alleged, with perfect
+assurance. "I told him to do as he chose."
+
+That distortion of facts was too much to be endured, with Corrie
+listening and Flavia a witness. Gerard's chivalry momentarily lapsed
+and he struck back with all the effectiveness of superior experience.
+
+"Yes, certainly," he confirmed, carefully distinct. "I naturally wanted
+to get Miss Rose safely at home as soon as possible, and since she said
+that road was the shortest route, I took it, of course."
+
+"The _shortest_?" Corrie echoed, astounded. "The----"
+
+He broke the speech in time, hastily discreet. Isabel crimsoned hotly;
+the glance she darted at her late escort was not dovelike. It was Flavia
+who brought relief to the situation, as usual.
+
+"These Long Island roads are outrageously misleading," she offered light
+suggestion, rising with a smiling gesture of excuse to her father. "Isa
+and I often lose our way when we drive out together. Don't you want to
+change your damp things, dear?"
+
+"Yes," assented her cousin, sullenly. "It's time to make ready for
+dinner, anyhow."
+
+Corrie held aside the curtain for the girls to pass out. His blue eyes
+were dancing in pure mischief and relief. All the household understood
+Isabel's propensity for flirtation--and its utter lack of significance.
+If she had detained Gerard, not Gerard her, her lover-cousin had no
+ground for especial apprehension.
+
+"Punk weather," he commented, coming back.
+
+"Dullest I ever experienced," supplemented his guest decidedly.
+
+Mr. Rose set a paper-weight on the letter open before him, and lit a
+cigar.
+
+"We were discussing the buying of another automobile, Gerard, when you
+came in," he imparted. "Come sit down for half an hour before we
+dress--we not needing so long as the ladies for it--and give us your
+advice on the choice."
+
+"And I'll give you one of my monogram cigarettes," volunteered Corrie,
+slipping a hand affectionately through Gerard's arm. "Oh, no--I don't
+smoke them, but I like to carry them. And when you want something extra
+fine, you ask Corwin B. Rose for one of his smokes. Let's sit here,
+together."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE VASE OF AL-MANSOR
+
+
+On the threshold of his father's model garage Corrie stopped, surveying
+the scene presented in the centre of the huge, lofty stone room, bare
+except for the five automobiles ranged around and their countless
+appurtenances disposed upon walls and shelves.
+
+"Excuse me, but when did you two last wash?" he jeered.
+
+The two men beside the Mercury racing car looked up at the figure in the
+sunny doorway.
+
+"I don't care to try to prove that I ever did," returned Gerard. "The
+evidence is against me. But Rupert had his beauty bath this morning, all
+right. You're looking rather disarranged, yourself; perhaps the course
+was a trifle dusty."
+
+They laughed silently across at one another. The trim garments of all
+three men were gray with dust and oil, their faces were streaked and
+spotted with the caked road-soil. There was little difference in color
+between Gerard's brown ripples of hair, Corrie's blonde locks and the
+black head of the mechanician who bent over the motor.
+
+"If this is practice work, _what_ is the race going to be like?"
+speculated Corrie, dragging off his gauntlets. The recent
+speed-exhilaration was still heavily upon him; as with his sister, the
+darker shading of brows and lashes always gave his fair-tinted face a
+warm vividness of expression. "The course is in fierce shape, already. I
+say--why did you especially warn me that the road wouldn't be fit for
+fast going until to-morrow, then get out in your own machine and break
+all practice records for the fastest lap? Trying to keep me out of your
+way, or to break your neck and Rupert's?"
+
+"The first, certainly," Gerard asserted. "Really, I didn't mean to do
+any speeding to-day, Corrie, but when I saw the white road ahead,
+I--think something slipped."
+
+"You're a cheerful hypocrite, all right. Here, catch, baseballist!"
+
+Gerard retreated a step and deftly caught the dripping missile as it
+hurtled across the garage.
+
+"You ought to wring out your league sponges," he reproved. "Thanks; I
+was wondering how I could take this face into the house, unless I got
+Rupert to turn the hose on me. You see, I might meet some one."
+
+"You'd meet Flavia," Corrie declared, busying himself with his own
+ablutions. "She's out there in the flowing arbor, sewing some gimcrack
+thing and pretending she hasn't been worrying because I was out on the
+course. She comes downstairs every morning to see me start--you know
+that--and then sits around all day watching until I come in again. None
+of that for Isabel; she's a sport."
+
+Gerard shook the water from his thick hair and finished the perfunctory
+toilet without replying. But as he passed Rupert, he dropped a light
+hand on the mechanician's shoulder.
+
+"When you marry, Jack Rupert, will the girl be a sport?" he questioned.
+
+"My wedding cards ain't paining me bad just now."
+
+"Well, but suppose the case."
+
+The black eyes lifted for a moment from the task in hand.
+
+"I guess I'd be sport enough for one house," Rupert impassively
+pronounced. "I hate a crowd."
+
+Gerard nodded to the boy across the garage, his face gleaming into
+mirth.
+
+"Coals to Newcastle," he signified. "Everyone doesn't like to live
+shop."
+
+There was the splashing thud of an overturned bucket. As Gerard passed
+out the door, Corrie overtook him.
+
+"Gerard," he panted, "Gerard, you said that purposely! You meant to tell
+me that--that Isabel--that you----"
+
+Gerard regarded him quietly, a little smile curving his lips.
+
+"You meant to tell me that I needn't worry about you and Isabel; that
+you've seen I want her, and you won't cut in? You meant that?"
+
+The smile crept to Gerard's eyes, but he remained mute. With a quick
+breath Corrie grasped his companion's hand and squeezed it ardently.
+
+"You're _big_, Allan Gerard. And kind. For I've been watching, these ten
+days, and you could get her if you tried."
+
+He turned back into the building before contradiction was possible.
+After a moment, Gerard went on down the path between the althea bushes.
+
+The "flowing arbor" of Corrie's description was a decorative masterpiece
+of Mr. Rose's own design; a large, pink marble fountain, surrounded by a
+pink-columned arcade strewn with rugs and cushions. Whatever its
+architectural faults, it was a fairy-tale place of gurgling water and
+soft shadows, shot through with the tints of silver spray, rosy stone
+and deep green turf. Flavia was seated here, in the summer-warm
+sunshine of early October that had succeeded the storms of the previous
+week, a long strip of varicolored embroidery lying across her lap and
+the overfed Persian kitten nestling against her light gown.
+
+"Corrie is home," Gerard announced, pausing in one of the arched
+openings. "But I suppose you saw him come in, from here."
+
+The young girl lifted to him the frank welcome of her glance and smile,
+with their pathetic shade of hostess dignity.
+
+"I saw you both come in," she confirmed. "One sees a great deal from
+this watch-tower. But it is good of you to tell me; you know how glad I
+am when he is back. Will you not rest before you go into the house?
+Corrie always comes here first; to gather strength, he says, to climb
+the terrace steps."
+
+"I am not fit," he deprecated. "I would soil your purple with my dust
+and poison, your Venetian atmosphere with gasoline fumes."
+
+"Corrie does it."
+
+"Corrie is privileged. The first time I ever saw you, you were watching
+Corrie. You made me feel that I lived in a barn."
+
+"A----"
+
+"A blank, impersonal, vacant set of rooms. A house where, if I were
+brought in on a shutter, there would be no one except the undertaker to
+pull down the shades."
+
+Flavia winced, shocked out of her calm.
+
+"Please do not! I--please do not say those things."
+
+"There, you see. I do not even know how to talk to you properly. It
+doesn't worry me to think about just dying and I forgot that other
+people dislike the subject. Now, it was living that made me envy Corrie
+and feel melancholy."
+
+Flavia drew the silk thread with slow accuracy. Her pulses were
+commencing to beat heavy strokes, she dared not raise her troubled eyes
+to the dominant, self-possessed man opposite. There was a pause.
+
+"In novels," Gerard mused, "when a man sees the woman who locks the
+wheels of his fancy, he drops everything else and follows her until he
+gets--his answer. But in real life we're pretty stupid; we let
+circumstances interfere, or we don't quite realize what has happened to
+us, we don't do the right thing, anyway. Sometimes we're lucky enough to
+get another chance. If we do----"
+
+The gush and ripple of the fountain, the rustle of the broad-leaved
+lilies as the changing breeze sent the spray pattering across them;
+filled pleasantly the lapses of his leisurely speech. Flavia was
+acutely conscious of his steady gaze upon her bent head, and the
+unhurried certainty with which he was moving toward his chosen goal.
+Only, what was that goal? She remembered Isabel's sureness of her own
+attraction, Isabel's deliberate monopoly of Gerard's attention whenever
+possible during the last ten days, and Corrie's assertion that his
+cousin was "just the kind of girl Gerard would like." Yet, he was saying
+this to her, Flavia. And suddenly she was almost sure of what she never
+had dared imagine.
+
+She had no thought that Gerard might be hesitating in uncertain humility
+before the delicate maidenhood that invested her like a fine atmosphere
+forbidding approach. She was not even dimly aware that her averted face
+controlled to soft impassivity, the intent gaze on her work which veiled
+her eyes beneath their heavy lashes, the regular movement of her slender
+fingers as she sewed, conveyed an impression of unmoved serenity that
+might have quelled a vainer man than Allan Gerard. Yet it was so, and he
+temporized; not knowing that for her there were three people in the
+arcade, the third Isabel, and not daring to continue his broken
+sentence.
+
+"I have been wondering if you ever translated your name," he remarked,
+when silence verged on embarrassment. "I have wondered many times if it
+were just chance that called you so."
+
+"My Mother was Flavia Corwin; I am named for her. What does it mean?"
+she answered, surprised.
+
+Just for an instant she looked at him, and in the one encounter of
+glances innocently undid all her reserve had built up. Gerard's color
+ran up under his clear skin like a girl's, brilliant-eyed, he took a
+step into the arcade.
+
+"It's too late in the season to tell you out here," he demurred. "I'll
+send you the translation this evening, if I may. There's something else
+I'd like to tell you, but I've got to find some civilized clothing,
+first. Essex lost his head for approaching the Queen in his
+riding-dress, and I'm risking more. I----"
+
+"Hurry up, you two!" hailed Corrie's injured voice, the ring of his step
+sounded in the stone arcade. "It's six o'clock now. Come on in."
+
+"I'll come," Gerard answered the summons, again his warm, sparkling gaze
+caught and held Flavia's as, startled, she raised her head. "I was
+telling Miss Rose that I must get rid of this road dust. But I wasn't
+thinking of eating, then."
+
+Scarlet rushed over Flavia's face and neck. As Corrie took gay
+possession of Gerard and bore him off, she sank back in her chair,
+winding her fingers hard into the embroidery. Not the omnivorous
+Isabel's, this! There was nothing to fear, ever again. She had the
+perfect certainty that Gerard would complete that purpose of his the
+next time they met. And they would meet in an hour. Suddenly she caught
+up the drowsy kitten and hid her face against the soft living toy.
+
+They did meet in an hour, but it was on the way to dinner, and the
+exuberant Corrie held the reins of conversation.
+
+"I've discharged Dean," was his first announcement. "Take those oysters
+away from in front of me, Perkins; I want my soup right now and a lot of
+it--about a gallon. Never mind anyone else; I haven't had anything but
+sandwiches since breakfast."
+
+"Discharged your mechanician one day before the race?" marvelled Gerard.
+"What will you do?"
+
+"Oh, I'm going out to the garage after dinner to hire him over again.
+He's used to it. Now, I suppose that if you fired Jack Rupert, you'd
+never see him again."
+
+"I certainly would not."
+
+"Well, that's the difference. I'm afraid of Rupert, myself. Dean hasn't
+any dignity."
+
+"Neither have you," observed Isabel bitingly. "You're worse than Dean. I
+saw you kick Frederick the Great all across the veranda yesterday, then
+lead him around the kitchen and feed him porterhouse steak."
+
+"That was remorse," Mr. Rose suggested, coolly amused. He looked across
+at Gerard, as at the only other grown person present. "You'd best take a
+porterhouse steak to Dean when you go, Corwin B. It's a fine temper
+you've got."
+
+"All right, sir, if you say it. I guess Dean would eat a porterhouse, if
+he isn't a Great Dane puppy. But I saw a man to-day in a temper that
+makes anything I ever did read like a chapter from Patient Griselda."
+
+"He must have been a lunatic," Isabel kindly inferred.
+
+Her cousin put his elbows on the table and contemplated her with mock
+reproach; looking rather nearer his sixteenth year than his nineteenth
+in this mood of effervescent gayety. Ever since his interview with
+Gerard, in the garage that afternoon, his high spirits had been
+unquenchable.
+
+"You're cross, Isabel," he stated frankly. "Where did you get the
+grouch? That's a stunning purple frock you've got on."
+
+"It isn't, it's mauve," corrected Isabel, but she smiled and smoothed a
+chiffon ruffle. "Who was your man, then, Corrie?"
+
+"He was the French driver of the Bluette car, and he came into the
+judges' stand to make a complaint against another fellow who wouldn't
+give him the road. Kept getting in front, you know, whenever the Bluette
+wanted to pass, and cutting it off so it had to fall behind. He was in a
+French calm, all right, and I don't wonder. But I don't believe anyone
+could really carry it through, could they, Gerard?"
+
+Gerard roused himself from his study of Flavia, as she sat in her
+ivory-tinted lace gown at the foot of the table, her small head bent
+under its weight of gleaming fair hair. The massively handsome room,
+with its rich hues of gilded leather, mellow Eastern rugs and hangings,
+carved wood and glinting metal, enchanted him as a background for her
+dainty youth as if he had never seen it there before or might again. It
+was difficult for him to look away.
+
+"Carry it through?" he repeated. "Of course, easily."
+
+"Not with some drivers! Not with me!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I wouldn't stand it. Because I'd drive through the car ahead if
+it tried to keep me back. Oh, I'd have them out of my way--you're
+_laughing_ at me, Allan Gerard!"
+
+Gerard was certainly laughing, and the others with him.
+
+"If I were Dean, I wouldn't wait to be fired, Corrie; I'd resign," he
+rallied. "Some day I'll challenge you to a game of auto tag, and show
+you that trick."
+
+"You can't; I'd get by," Corrie retorted, his violet-blue eyes afire
+with excitement.
+
+"Instead of you two fighting about that nonsense, you might take me
+around the course in one of your cars," Isabel remarked gloomily. "I've
+asked you often enough."
+
+"You'll not do that," Mr. Rose pronounced with decision. "It's not fit
+and I won't have it. And I'm tired of hearing you sulk at Corrie and
+Gerard because they've got the sense to say no. You'll keep out of the
+racing cars and off the race track, my girl. Flavia, if you don't make
+your brother stop eating nuts, he'll be ashamed to meet a squirrel in
+the woods."
+
+There was open mutiny in the glance Isabel darted at her uncle, but she
+said nothing. Mr. Rose was not contradicted in his own house by anyone.
+
+"Nuts agree with me, sir," Corrie protested, aggrieved. "Besides, I
+feel as if I had to celebrate somehow; I have had such a bully day." He
+leaned back in his chair, turning to Gerard his gaze of shining
+acknowledgment and measureless content. "I don't think I ever spent such
+an all-round good old day, just all right all through. I shall have to
+tie a gold medal on the calendar, or mark it with a white stone, or----"
+
+"Or drop a pearl in the vase of Al-Mansor," Gerard suggested. His own
+feelings were not very far removed from Corrie's, that night.
+
+"What is that?" Isabel questioned. "I never heard that story. What is
+the vase of Al-Mansor?"
+
+"A legend of the days of the caliphs. If you care about it, some day I
+will find a copy to send."
+
+"Some day! I want to hear it now."
+
+"Tell us, with all the trimmings," Corrie urged, "No sliding around the
+flowery parts and cutting scenes, but the full performance. Flavia loves
+that sort of thing, too; she and I grew up on the Arabian Nights and
+Byron and Irving. We dramatized 'The Fall of Granada,' for the toy
+theatre, but Bulwer was dead, so it didn't matter.
+
+"Perkins, up in my den you'll find a five-pound box of Turkish Delight,
+sent to-night from the candy shop; bring it here to help the Oriental
+atmosphere."
+
+Flavia looked up, and Gerard caught her eyes, no longer quite untroubled
+before his own.
+
+"What a set of comparisons to face," he deprecated. "Shall I dare it,
+Miss Rose?"
+
+"Would you leave us to suffer all the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity?"
+she wondered. "To dream all night of elusive pearls that disappear in
+their vase as Cleopatra's in her goblet of vinegar?"
+
+Mr. Rose took a cigar and a match, nodding humorously at his guest.
+
+"You're in for it," he signified. "Better get it over."
+
+"And no cutting," exacted Corrie, _sotto voce_.
+
+"Very well, then; pray imagine yourselves in the bazaar, and remember
+this isn't my fault," Gerard submitted. He paused, assembling his
+recollections. "On ascending the throne at Bagdad, in the full noon of
+the glory of the caliphs; it is told that Al-Mamoun, the son of
+Haroun-al-Raschid, the great-grandson of Al-Mansor, received from the
+former vizier a small golden vase.
+
+"'Lord of the East, newly-risen Sun of the true believers,' said the
+vizier, 'your great-grandfather of venerated memory caused to be made
+this vase, proposing to place therein a pearl for every day of perfect
+happiness he should pass. And when he received the vase from the
+goldsmith, he complained that the vase was too small. But, alas, the
+mighty Al-Mansor died without ever putting in a single pearl, for the
+day when the vase came home he learned that his loved sultana plotted
+against his life.
+
+"'After many years, in his turn came to rule your illustrious father,
+Haroun the Wise, and took the vase. He, the great king, who never
+travelled without a hundred scholars in his train, who built a school
+for poor children beside every mosque, he the magnificent in war and
+peace, in all his long reign enriched the vase by two pearls; the day of
+his coronation and the day of his death; the day before he saw Marida
+the Beautiful and the day he forgot her forever. Now, Commander of the
+Faithful, according to my charge I deliver the vase to you, with hope
+that your joys may exhaust the sea of pearls.'
+
+"Hearing, Al-Mamoun fell into profound musing.
+
+"'Vizier,' he said, 'I cannot mark the day I began to reign, who loved
+my father and take his place with tears, and the day of my death no man
+knows. But, by the favor of Allah, I will add one pearl to the vase
+while I live.'
+
+"The next morning many workmen came to the palace. Around the fairest
+part of the garden they reared a lofty wall, within its circle they
+placed everything which the king might desire. On the day appointed, in
+that spot assembled his favorite musicians, the scholars in whose
+conversation he most delighted, the captains whose faces reminded him of
+victories and the poets whose words fell like drops from the spring that
+bubbles before Allah's throne in Paradise. Only, because women had
+troubled the days of Al-Mansor and Haroun, no woman was admitted.
+
+"With pomp, music and rejoicing, Al-Mamoun moved at sunrise to the
+garden of delights that was to shelter him from the world for one day.
+But, as his foot touched the threshold, a great cry of lamentation went
+through the palace.
+
+"'What now?' demanded the king, halting.
+
+"A guard of the serail answered, his brow in the dust:
+
+"'Lord, the sultana has drowned herself in the Court of Fountains,
+because of grief that your day of perfect happiness could be passed
+without her.'
+
+"Then Al-Mamoun drew back his foot and returned to the palace, knowing
+that from him the golden vase would claim no pearls."
+
+"That is all?" Isabel asked expectantly.
+
+"What more could there be, mademoiselle?"
+
+"There might be a moral," Corrie suggested, leaning his folded arms on
+the table, his interested eyes fixed upon the story-teller.
+
+"When I read the Arabian Nights, I found out that Oriental tales have no
+morals," dryly observed Mr. Rose. "A man who had been brought up with
+the Blarney Stone for a teething-ring once sold me an unexpurgated
+edition de luxe, with illustrations, so I ought to know."
+
+"I never saw it, sir!"
+
+"No, Corwin B., you did not. You can if you want to, by coming down to
+my office, where it is still lying in the packing-box it came in. I
+don't think you want to. Gerard's story isn't there."
+
+"Its moral seems to be that women are a nuisance," Isabel commented, her
+manner injured.
+
+"That would not be a moral, it would be a falsehood," Gerard demurred.
+"No, I fancy the moral might be, do not challenge Fate to a duel. Are
+you considering our nonsense, Miss Rose?"
+
+"I was thinking of the story," Flavia amended. "I was wondering if the
+kings would not soon have filled the vase had they been content to mark
+each happy hour, and whether a wise treasurer of happiness would not
+find a vase filled with seed-pearls where they found a vase empty."
+
+"Exactly! You have found the secret, no doubt. Moral: do not ask too
+much."
+
+"A day too much?" marvelled Corrie. "Why, I expect a lifetime!" He flung
+back his head, looking around the smiling circle. "Well, why not? What's
+a lifetime, anyhow? Not half enough to get all the fun there is in
+living, as long as you do no harm by it. And who wants to do any harm
+when there is so much else to do? Not anyone in his right mind. Anyway,
+I've got to-day's pearl canned, and _it_ can't get away. And I can think
+of lots of others I've had, if I could go back for them."
+
+"Shall I guess the name of Al-Mansor's vase?" Flavia asked, as she rose.
+She was smiling, but her cheeks were flushed and her serious eyes
+caressed her brother. "It was Memory, I think. And, no, Corrie, the
+pearls put there cannot be lost."
+
+The extreme warmth of the day had continued into the evening. As Isabel
+followed Flavia across the hall, Corrie overtook his cousin, wound a
+scarf around her bare shoulders and lured her out on the veranda. She
+yielded not unwillingly, contrary to her recent custom of neglecting
+him, and they disappeared together. Any such latent project of Gerard's
+was prevented by Mr. Rose's mood for chat, a mood not usual for him.
+
+"You are not looking much like the driver I met on the way home,
+to-day," he informed his guest, surveying Gerard quizzically, when they
+were established in the drawing-room. "But I didn't recognize my own
+son, for that matter. He don't seem like mine, when he's out in those
+goblin clothes driving like Satan in a hurry. It's sensible enough for
+you, being in the automobile trade, but for him it's just fool play."
+
+"He does it a little too well to call it that," Gerard returned
+seriously.
+
+"Yes? Well, I've got money enough to pay for it--although it's the most
+expensive game he's found yet--or for anything else he fancies. I've
+told him to amuse himself for a while. He is too young to settle down to
+work, when there is no need for it. I never had any playing time, and I
+want to see him have his. And he has earned it, too; I suppose he told
+you he was through college?"
+
+"Yes, and amazed me."
+
+"He knew it had to be done, so he did it quickly and without any
+nonsense. It's an old theory that given liberty and money, a boy will go
+to ruin. I never believed it; I don't yet. And I never saw why I should
+make my son a different set of living rules from those I make for
+myself. Of course, I don't mean there was no law in the house; I don't
+think I spoiled Corrie. But I've left him pretty free, only bidding him
+keep straight. That I must have, and he knows it. He has got to keep
+straight."
+
+A sudden grate like metal on metal roughened the deliberate speech with
+a suggestion of grim inflexibility. Flavia lifted vaguely startled eyes
+to her father.
+
+"I don't believe you need to worry about that," reassured Gerard
+smiling. The echo of Corrie's fresh young tones was in their ears, as he
+disputed with his cousin, outside the windows at the end of the room.
+
+"I guess not. He's too much like his mother." Mr. Rose dropped his hand
+on Flavia's, as she sat in her low chair beside him. "And she was what
+they call an aristocrat, nowadays, but I called a lady when I married
+her. Old family, gentle breeding, the society end, and good looks like
+my little girl's that seem too fine to touch; she had all and everything
+except money. And I gave her that."
+
+Flavia leaned nearer to her father with the caressing confidence in
+mutual affection which marked all the household intercourse and pervaded
+the gorgeous pink villa like an actual fragrance of atmosphere.
+
+"I gave her that. She liked to spend it. Not," his keen eyes suddenly
+sprang challengingly to the other man's, "Not that she married me for
+money. Don't think it. My wife loved me. I guess I struck her family
+like a cyclone; I was self-made and used to my own way, at thirty, and
+not uglier than my neighbors. Mrs. Tom Rose was a happy woman, until she
+died, when Corrie was two years old and Flavia four." He rose bruskly
+and crossed the room. "You don't smoke, Gerard? I always spoil a cigar
+when I talk."
+
+"I don't unless there's something wrong," Gerard answered, tactfully
+casual. "A cigarette helps, then. But everything is very right, now. You
+know, these races are my holidays, although they are an important
+business feature, too. My factory affairs keep me hard at work most of
+the year. Then in the intervals I am designing and having constructed a
+genuine racing machine of my own, much more powerful than the ninety
+Mercury I'm driving now. I'm not an idle citizen, really."
+
+Flavia's head drooped lower. He was telling her father these things as
+part of that steady purpose whose object she felt herself; she knew it,
+clairvoyantly acute.
+
+"You get a lot out of living," commented Mr. Rose, coming back to his
+seat. "You enjoy it, I'm thinking."
+
+"Yes, I do," Gerard replied candidly. "Why not?"
+
+"You're right. Now, I want to tell you about a deal I put through in the
+Street, to-day."
+
+Flavia moved to the piano and began to touch the keys. She knew there
+would be only men's talk for a while, and from this place she could
+watch Gerard unseen. In all the previous days she had avoided this,
+refusing to take cognizance of the physical beauty upon which Isabel
+dilated, half-unconsciously defending herself from an undefined danger.
+She commenced to play pastel-toned bits of Nevin and Chaminade, her
+clear eyes delighting in free vision.
+
+Out on the veranda, Corrie was sustaining a defense of his own. Upright
+against a column, scarlet with determination, Isabel pursued the wilful
+desire she had voiced at the dinner-table.
+
+"That Frenchwoman was around the course with her husband, yesterday,"
+she urged. "Other women have done it before. Why won't you take me?"
+
+"You might get hurt. Father never would let you."
+
+"He needn't know, stupid. You don't want to, that's all. I'll ask Mr.
+Gerard; he'll like to take me."
+
+The poison had been drawn from that sting, but Corrie winced,
+nevertheless.
+
+"I _want_ you, Isabel. I love you."
+
+"You're a boy; I'm a year older than you."
+
+"Eleven months!"
+
+"Anyhow, I'm a woman. I do what I choose, while you're afraid to move
+for fear uncle will catch you. What would he do, ferule your little
+palms?"
+
+Furious, Corrie sprang across and dropped his hands on her shoulders
+with the freedom of their life-long intercourse.
+
+"I'd like to ferule yours," he gritted between his set teeth. "I'm as
+much a man as you are a woman. You haven't any _sense_. And there's no
+use of your dangling after Allan Gerard, for he don't want you--he said
+as much. I'm going in, and I won't take you around the course."
+
+Gasping, Isabel let him reach the French windows of the drawing-room
+before recovering herself. Then she rushed in pursuit, tripping
+impatiently over her long chiffon skirts.
+
+"Corrie--wait! Corrie!"
+
+He turned sullenly, secretly aghast at his own temerity. But Isabel laid
+her hand on his sleeve without anger.
+
+"You're more man than I thought," she breathed. "I always liked you
+better than anyone else, anyhow. Corrie, if you'd take me around the
+course, early in the morning when no one here knew, I believe you'd be
+almost grown up enough to--to--be engaged."
+
+"Isabel!" he cried, fire kindling in his face. "You would? You would?"
+
+"If I get my ride----"
+
+He seized her, boy-clumsily, and boy-like lavished his impetuous kisses.
+
+"You'll get anything," he promised, half-choked by excitement. "And
+everything. Oh, Isabel!"
+
+Flavia's delicate music flowed on and on. Before Mr. Rose had finished
+his discussion, Corrie and Isabel entered the room, and the evening
+ended without any possibility of Gerard's resuming the theme commenced
+in the fountain arcade.
+
+When the group separated for the night, Corrie detained his sister at
+the foot of the wide, gleaming stairs.
+
+"Don't rise early in the morning to give me my coffee, Other Fellow," he
+said. "I shan't be starting for the course at the usual time. I have
+been working pretty steadily and I need to rest for the race itself, day
+after to-morrow."
+
+She leaned across the bannister to him; the two young faces framed in
+young ripples of bright hair resembled each other very strongly in their
+twin moods of exaltation and radiant, half-incredulous happiness.
+
+"You do not feel unwell, dear? You have not driven too much?"
+
+"Not a bit. But I'm sleepy," he caught a frond of a tall Madeiran fern
+that was placed in its jardiniere on the step opposite him, winding the
+satin-green strip over his finger, "honestly, all in with sleepiness,
+and I'm going to sleep to-night as if it was the last quiet night's
+sleep I'd ever get. See you to-morrow, kid sister."
+
+"Good-night, dearest."
+
+So, since she was not to give Corrie his morning coffee, she would not
+give Gerard's to him or see him until his return from the race course.
+As a matter of course, it was not to be contemplated that she should
+rise at dawn for a tête-à-tête breakfast with the guest, at this period
+when all the fine elements that composed their relation hesitated at the
+point of crystallization. But she scarcely regretted the postponed
+interview. It would be better to meet each other differently, at more
+leisure. He would come again to the fountain arcade, where she watched
+for Corrie's return.
+
+When Flavia reached her own room, there stood on her dressing-table a
+long silver-paper and filigree box. Wondering, she raised the lid, to be
+met with a gust of exquisite perfume and confronted with a mass of frail
+yellow roses, lovely with the quaint, virginal beauty of suggestion that
+separates them from all their other-colored kin. Across the glistening
+petals lay a cover cut from a pocket dictionary, bearing written upon it
+one sentence: "Definition of the meaning of Flavia Rose."
+
+She laid her head beside the flowers, gold upon gold. She, also, the
+fancy came to her, had placed this day in the vase of Al-Mansor. But the
+day to come outshone it, as a rosy pearl one merely white.
+
+"To-morrow," she whispered to herself. "To-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+WRECK
+
+
+Gray, sluggish, slow in coming and sullen of aspect, a reluctant dawn
+succeeded the night. A wet mist clung everywhere in the windless
+atmosphere, muffling sound as well as light. There was not even a
+servant stirring in the Rose house, when Gerard descended the dark
+stairs and went out into the chill, damp park.
+
+In the garage one bright point shone out; under a swinging electric lamp
+Rupert was preparing his machine to go out, a solitary figure in the
+expanse of wavering shadows and dim bulks.
+
+"Where are Rose and his man?" Gerard questioned, as he came across the
+floor.
+
+His voice rolled startlingly loud in the lofty, echoing room. Moving to
+reply, the mechanician let fall a tool and the crash repeated itself
+sharply from every stone arch and angle.
+
+"Rose won't be out at the course till late; I guess our peaceful life
+ain't what he's used to, exactly. He 'phoned over last night to Dean,
+who's sleeping yet."
+
+Gerard nodded, eyeing the Mercury racer with affectionate attention.
+
+"All right, is she?" he asked.
+
+Rupert straightened himself and proceeded to close the hood.
+
+"I ain't supposing we'll need to be towed," he conceded sarcastically.
+"But I'll put in a rope, if you're worried bad, and take my copy of
+_Motor Repairing at a Glance_."
+
+"Do," Gerard urged. "I'd like to have it found on you, Rupert. Start her
+up, then, if you're ready."
+
+He crossed, with the last word, to the shelf where lay his racing mask
+and gauntlets. The melancholy drip from moist eaves and trees, the
+dreary half-light and heavy air had absolutely no depressing power upon
+his flawless nerves and vigor of life. By the open door he paused to
+look out, unconsciously clasping his hands behind his head with the
+leisurely grace and relaxation of one who found pleasure in mere
+movement.
+
+"There'll be a wet course," Rupert's muffled tones came from the
+opposite end of the room.
+
+"Well?" Gerard queried lazily. "What of it?"
+
+There was no answer. Instead sounded the click of moving throttle and
+spark, and the place burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted
+from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the vibrating car as it
+moved forward to its master's side.
+
+"I don't like this morning, and I don't like this course," stated
+Rupert, sombrely definite, through the roar and rattle of irregular
+reports from the cut-down motor. "But I guess I've got to stand for
+them. Anyhow, I couldn't have a classier Friday-the-thirteenth emotion
+equipment if I had been to a voodoo fortune teller who had a grudge
+against me. What are we waiting for?"
+
+Gerard lingered in taking his seat, his amazed eyes travelling over the
+small, discontented dark face of his companion.
+
+"Something's wrong, Rupert?"
+
+"I ain't saying so--yet."
+
+The driver's own expression shadowed slightly; he looked again and more
+searchingly at the other. In common with most men who had lived in the
+tense atmosphere of the most dangerous form of racing yet evolved, he
+had witnessed more than one case where a presentiment did not fail of
+fulfilment. Irrespective of whether catalogued as coincidence, occult
+foresight or absurdity, the facts did exist, occasionally to be read in
+the prosaic columns of a newspaper, more often lost except in camp
+annals. He knew, and Rupert knew, of a mechanician who suddenly refused
+absolutely to go out with the driver by whose side he had ridden
+countless miles, having no better reason than a disinclination for the
+trip. And they both had seen the substitute who took his place brought
+in dead, an hour later, after his car's wreck. A widely-known victor of
+many races, one of Gerard's close friends, had come to shake hands with
+him in a state of causeless nervousness that would have shamed a novice,
+just before starting on the ride from which he never returned. The price
+of debate is too high to argue with some things; Gerard temporized.
+
+"I don't want to take you out feeling like that. Give yourself a day
+off," he suggested. "I'll find one of the factory men to go out with me
+for the morning's practice."
+
+"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician acidly, and flung himself
+back in his narrow seat.
+
+The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding drives, plunged into the
+sandy Long Island road, and sped lurching toward the course.
+
+There was nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the
+Motor Parkway. Before the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted
+some of the cars, surrounded by their force of workers; in other camps
+the men stood, watch in hand, timing the machines already out.
+Reporters vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring group, two
+world-famous French and Italian drivers were pitching pennies for the
+last cigarettes from a box of special brand. Only the tiers of empty
+seats in the grand-stand and the absence of spectators in fields and
+parking-spaces distinguished this practice morning from the actual race.
+
+There was a general movement of greeting as the Mercury rolled in and
+Gerard sprang out at his own camp.
+
+"Where's your pink pet, Allan?" called a driver, from the starting line.
+"What's up--mornin' air too crude for millionaire kids?"
+
+"He _isn't_ up," was the blithe reply. "Never mind Rose, he's coming;
+tell me where you got your five-cylinder machine, Jack."
+
+"A late Rose, eh? Oh, I've got six cylinders here, all right, but I
+daren't run on all of them now for fear my speed would make the rest of
+you quit, discouraged. I'm goin' to make your yesterday's record look
+like a last year's timetable, this mornin'."
+
+"You look out that you don't break your neck. Rupert says it's a hoodoo
+day. We don't want you in the hospital twice this season."
+
+"Is Rupert sad?" questioned the big blonde pilot of the neighboring
+camp, leaning over the railing.
+
+"I ain't been so near it since I put my foot in a hole and sprained my
+ankle ten minutes before the start, when I was racing with Darling
+French at Philadelphia," admitted the mechanician. "It hurt me fierce."
+
+"Your ankle?"
+
+"No, seeing him start without me."
+
+"Say, Gerard, there's your pink Rambler," a distant voice signified.
+
+About to send his car forward, Gerard paused to glance over his
+shoulder, and caught the pink flash behind a row of mist-draped trees
+edging the cross-road. Sudden mischief curved his lips, his amber eyes
+laughed behind their goggles.
+
+"Tell Corrie Rose I'll give him that game of auto tag, if he happens
+along while I'm on a straight stretch," he called across to one of
+Corrie's men, by way of farewell.
+
+A little breeze stirred the mist, as the Mercury shot down the course;
+the gray light was brightening by slow gradations.
+
+There was small probability that Gerard's car and the rose-colored
+machine would soon find themselves together on the twelve-mile circuit,
+allowing for their difference in starting time. But as the Mercury
+turned into the straight stretch of back road, on the second time
+around, there sounded a sharp report, the car staggered perilously, and
+a tire tore itself loose from a rear wheel to hurtle, a vicious
+projectile of rubber and steel, far across the stubble fields. Reeling,
+but held to its course by the driver's trained hand, the Mercury
+slackened its flight and was brought to a stop. Rupert was already
+leaning over the back, dragging free a spare tire; Gerard slipped out of
+his seat.
+
+For experts the task was not long. A white car thundered past the
+workers, leaving a swirl of dust and flying pebbles, its mechanician
+turning to survey the halted Mercury. As Rupert swept the last tool into
+its place with precise swiftness, the throbbing of a second motor
+drifted to them, a pink streak darted around a distant curve.
+
+"It's Corrie," identified Gerard. "Get in, Rupert. If he wasn't forced
+by his money into the amateur ranks, that boy would make some of us work
+to keep our laurels, all right."
+
+The panther-agile figure swung into place beside him.
+
+"I ain't a market gardener," Rupert drawled, fitting one small foot in a
+strap support, as the car leaped forward. "But I guess those plants
+ain't apt to flourish in too rich soil."
+
+The Mercury did not gather speed too rapidly, rather it lingered until
+the pink car bore close down upon it.
+
+"How near?" suddenly demanded Gerard, above the noise of the motor.
+
+The mechanician reconnoitred.
+
+"Hundred feet," he made report.
+
+"Wave to him."
+
+Rupert raised his hand obediently. The Mercury sprang ahead under
+Gerard's touch, and with an answering roar the rose-colored machine sped
+in pursuit.
+
+There was no doubt that Corrie understood the play; nor that his car was
+easily capable of passing the sixty-mile an hour gait now held by the
+Mercury. But he was not allowed to pass. Each time he essayed it, the
+other racer swerved in front and cut off the road.
+
+It was as dangerous a game as could well be designed, had either driver
+been less skilled, but it was safe enough now. Gerard was laughing as he
+drove, when the first tiny missile rattled against his car.
+
+"He's pitching spare bolts," shouted Rupert, at his companion's ear,
+himself grimly amused. "Peevish, ain't he?"
+
+Gerard nodded, and crossed the narrow road with an unexpected turn that
+drew a baffled explosion from the checked car behind. A brass nut
+smacked the Mercury's gasoline tank. It was not difficult to imagine
+Corrie's excited tempest of defeat, to those who knew him.
+
+"The turn's ahead--we'll call it off there," Gerard answered mirthfully.
+"Give her some oil."
+
+The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile of straight road.
+Rupert was stooping to reach the oil pump when the pink car made its
+final attempt to pass and was again forced back, but across his
+outstretched arm he glanced up to Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying
+missile as it came.
+
+"_Duck!_" he shouted harshly, "Look out----"
+
+There was no time for action. As Gerard turned his head, the heavy steel
+wrench struck him below the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was
+too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel before the
+mechanician could snatch it from the inert grasp. With a lurch the
+speeding Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the road and, leaping a
+yard-high embankment, crashed through a row of trees to roll over and
+over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage over the
+farmhouse enclosure beyond.
+
+The light breeze of half an hour earlier had freshened and gained
+strength, the pale-gray sky was changing to delicate blue. When the
+horrified knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the nearby
+Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard to join the pale-faced farmer
+already there, the sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds,
+glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the still figure that lay
+beneath it, illumining the dishevelled, gasping mechanician who
+struggled dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to safety, fifty
+feet from the wreck.
+
+It is difficult for any group of men, however willing, to work without a
+leader. While the inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the verge
+of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing costume sprang up the bank,
+his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood
+where his teeth had bitten through.
+
+"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to
+be jacked up. Hurry up--do you want him to die under there? _Jump!_"
+
+His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor
+transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's
+brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such
+aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the
+semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.
+
+Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes
+later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed
+lithograph of _The Trial of John Knox_. A plush photograph album was
+jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove
+upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the
+flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with
+dull red here and there.
+
+"They stopped here yesterday for some water," sobbed the mistress of the
+house hysterically. "Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard at
+the little dark one, he was, and both of them making fun."
+
+The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first
+of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room,
+stripping off his coat while appraising with keen eyes the unconscious
+patient.
+
+"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely. "Here, I want a helper--you,
+Rose?"
+
+Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up and dragged himself
+erect. Gerard's face was no more drawn and colorless than his, but he
+answered to the call, as half an hour before he had answered the demand
+of the situation for a guide.
+
+"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I deserve it."
+
+Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest of the men were
+retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly
+thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and
+pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across the threshold.
+
+"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive? What?"
+
+"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve, Rose--gently! Clear out,
+you; the ambulance men will take care of you when they get here."
+
+Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the scene, and encountered Corrie.
+
+"You----" he snarled, choking, and whirled to face the witnesses,
+extending one slim shaking hand toward the workers beside the couch.
+"Here, I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing headlines for
+paper rags--print down that Allan Gerard was killed by that man. I'm
+saying it; Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he pitched a wrench
+that knocked him out. Go down to the course and you'll get the wrench to
+Missouri you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard and our car ran
+wild."
+
+The concentrated vehemence and force of the arraignment stupefied even
+the reportorial instinct. Dazed, the hearers stared from the
+mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale young driver who
+offered neither surprise nor defense, but went steadily on with his
+unsteadying task.
+
+"He wrecked us----" Rupert made a limping step forward. "Well? Did you
+guess I was reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you taking him
+out of here? Put _his_ mechanician through the third degree and get his
+story--who nailed you fast here? Why don't you _move_?"
+
+The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from Corrie's grasp. Livid
+with wrath, the surgeon stood up.
+
+"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you," he stormed. "Not a word;
+I don't care if Rose has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now.
+Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."
+
+He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert into the retiring group,
+and the door closed.
+
+Outside, the reporters became themselves. While ambulances dashed up,
+motor cycles, official cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around
+the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was hurried apart and his
+story coaxed from him in detail.
+
+The last automobile to come up, an hour after the accident, was a
+gilt-monogramed foreign limousine. From it descended a gentleman who,
+after a comprehensive glance over the disordered, crowded orchard,
+crossed straight to where Rupert sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite
+the shattered car.
+
+"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's shoulder. "Rupert,
+what's been happening here?"
+
+Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face, its grimness not lessened
+by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical
+exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard resolve.
+
+"Your son's finished Gerard, Mr. Rose," he stated, monotonously
+explicit. "He slipped his temper and fired a wrench at Gerard for not
+giving him the road. It hit him, and we ran wild without a driver till
+we struck here. Ask him--he's in there with what's left of Gerard--why
+he's sent Dean where he ain't to be found, if I'm lying."
+
+Mr. Rose released Rupert's shoulder, both men equally oblivious of the
+pain his grasp had inflicted on bruised flesh and muscle, and turned his
+gray face to the surrounding group in dumb quest of confirmation. Then,
+moving stiffly, he walked toward the house.
+
+There was an authority in his bearing that gained him unopposed
+entrance. In the hall, nauseating with the ominous odor of antiseptics,
+he was met by one of the doctors.
+
+"You can turn my house into a hospital," Mr. Rose said briefly. "I want
+Gerard taken there instead of to your places. You can have all the money
+you like."
+
+The man looked at the card presented, his professional impassivity
+flickering, but shook his head.
+
+"He would better not be moved at all, sir; at least, not to-day. He can
+be asked, if you wish."
+
+"He is conscious, then?"
+
+"Just about," he shrugged, reaching for the door. "Here, if you care to
+go in."
+
+The room was glaring with light, the lace curtains were dragged wide
+apart from the windows and the shades rolled high. Idle now in the
+presence of more skilled attendants, but recognized as one who had
+earned the right to be there, Corrie stood near the foot of the
+improvised bed, leaning against the wall with his fair head slightly
+bent. At the sound of the door he turned that way, as Mr. Rose stopped
+on the threshold.
+
+The snapping latch, or some more subtle influence, aroused someone else.
+Slowly Gerard's heavy lashes lifted, and he saw father and son looking
+at each other across the parlor strewn with the tragic litter of the
+last hour's work. There was nothing to interrupt the triple regard; it
+endured long, with steadfast intensity.
+
+In a corner two surgeons were holding a subdued consultation, a third
+was busied at the marble table, the attention of all fully engaged.
+
+"Put a pillow under my head, someone," suddenly bade the shadow of Allan
+Gerard's voice, across the hush. "And give me a cigarette."
+
+There was a startled flurry in the room. Familiar enough with the last
+request from his masculine patients, the man at the table took a case
+from his own pocket and, lighting one of the cigarettes, stooped over
+the bed.
+
+"Keep your grip on yourself," he approved brusquely. "But don't move."
+
+It was in his left hand that Gerard took the tiny narcotic, his right
+arm and shoulder were a mere bulk of splints and linen bandages.
+
+"Thanks," his difficult voice spoke again. "Now open that door and let
+everyone in--I want to talk to them."
+
+"Mr. Gerard!"
+
+His clear eyes, dark with suffering but absolutely collected, met the
+surgeon's.
+
+"I've got to talk to them, doctor, and I may be out of my head or in a
+box, to-morrow. Let them in--the reporters, I mean."
+
+The listeners gazed at each other, a shock ran through the group. Every
+man there knew Rupert's story of the accident, every man guessed that it
+was Gerard's own version that was to be given now. Someone offered Mr.
+Rose one of the horse-hair chairs, during the moment of rearrangement
+before the youngest of the doctors left the room. Only Corrie remained
+unmoved, not changing his position or looking at Gerard. There was a
+certain dignity of utter quiescence in his pose that comprehended
+neither defiance nor submission, but a strange, aloof patience.
+
+The representative reporters from the city journals filed in, avidly
+expectant. With them came two officials of the racing association, and a
+metallic-eyed man whose plain clothes were contradicted by the badge
+visible under his coat. There was silent orderliness; the grim
+significance of the room, the presence of the watchful surgeons, the
+central figure of the driver so well known to all of those who entered,
+were subduing to the least sensitive. Nor was the effect less hushing
+because of that other driver who attended in the background, the strong
+sunlight shining on his glistening pink garb and still face.
+
+Gerard let fall the hand holding the cigarette, when the company was
+complete, and slowly turned his brown head on the pillow to face them.
+
+"You newspaper men have been first-class to me for a good while; it's my
+chance to reciprocate now," he asserted. "Well, I'll give what copy I
+can. I know you want it, boys--you've often been after me for less."
+
+The familiar gayety rippled above his aching effort of speech, his will
+locked to composure each rebellious line of expression. No one stirred
+in the room.
+
+"I wish it were a better yarn. But when two tires blow out at the same
+time, while a car's turning----"
+
+This time, there was a general sigh of quick-drawn breath. Mr. Rose
+stood up.
+
+"When two tires let go, at ninety miles an hour, there's apt to be a
+wreck. I----" his lashes fell wearily. "I couldn't hold the machine to
+the road. The shock broke my control--there's no one to blame but
+me----" The cigarette crumpled in his clenching fingers, his straight
+brows knotted.
+
+"Gerard," burst forth the racing official, excitedly urgent in his
+suspense. "Your tires wrecked you? That's your last word? Gerard, if you
+can speak, do!"
+
+The amber eyes re-opened in answer, to meet the fixed gaze of the eager
+men who waited opposite.
+
+"Yes," gasped Gerard, casually definite. "What else? Corrie, leave me
+your smokes, they're a better brand----"
+
+If there had been any doubt left the witnesses, that comrade request
+beat it down. The surgeon flung out his hand in a sweeping gesture of
+dismissal, as he sprang toward his fainting patient. Gerard had
+finished.
+
+Mr. Rose went out with the other men. Some of his florid color had come
+back, he walked more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness. On
+the narrow porch the referee from the racing association held out his
+hand with frank congratulation.
+
+"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before they got any further, Mr.
+Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in
+the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country,
+crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank.
+They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up
+to-morrow sane as ever. Nice way your son took it."
+
+"Oh, Corwin B. is straight," declared Mr. Rose, proudly self-contained
+in his relief. "I guess there wasn't much need to worry about that part.
+I'll wait here and take him home with me, now; he's had about all of
+that room he ought to stand, fond of Gerard as he is."
+
+"He looked done up, yes. Well----"
+
+A long shout sounded down the course, a clamor of excited speech. A
+troup of men appeared, running toward the house in the wake of a
+chauffeur who held up some object that glittered in the sun.
+
+"I've got it!" the leader called ahead. "I've got it where he said,
+beside the road!"
+
+The thing in his hand was a small, heavy nickel wrench. The men on the
+porch and the men in the yard stared at each other, mute. After a moment
+Mr. Rose drew out his handkerchief, passed it across his forehead and
+lips, then went down to his limousine, got in and sank back against the
+cushions.
+
+"Home," he issued his order.
+
+"Mr. Corwin is not coming, sir?"
+
+"Home."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"THE GREATEST OF THESE"
+
+
+It was nearly two hours after the Mercury car had crashed into ruin
+under the aromatic apple-trees, before knowledge of the disaster came to
+Flavia. Breakfast was over, at least the breakfast of Mr. Rose and his
+daughter; no other member of the family had appeared. A maid reported
+that Isabel had ordered her horse and had departed on an early ride to
+the neighboring golf club, where she was engaged to play with an equally
+athletic college girl, that morning. There was nothing to disturb the
+customary pleasant routine or to suggest uneasiness. At the usual hour
+Mr. Rose left for the city; he was on his way to New York when he first
+caught the rumor that sent him instead to the farmhouse at Westbury.
+
+Flavia, roseate, softly irradiated, moving in an atmosphere of undefined
+expectation as difficult to breathe calmly as the rarefied air of a
+mountain-top, had held herself to the accomplishment of her daily
+charges. She was seated at her little white-and-gold desk in her
+white-and-gold study, setting the household affairs in order for the
+day with the dainty precision of all her methods, when Isabel came into
+the room and stopped upright and rigid, near the door.
+
+"You had better hear it now," the younger girl dully announced. "There
+has been an accident on the course."
+
+Flavia's hands flew over her heart, the room blackened.
+
+"Corrie----" she gasped.
+
+"No; Mr. Gerard. He is alive, that's all I know."
+
+The scent of the yellow roses Flavia had put in her hair dilated to a
+stifling heaviness that hindered breath; she covered her eyes with her
+small cold fingers, seeking the dark, mute under torture. He was
+alive--that niggard concession was made to Allan Gerard, whose rich
+fullness of vigor and dominant presence last night had seemed the one
+firm reality in a world of pleasant vagueness. Weak, conscious of
+nothing but what her inward vision showed, she lay in her chair;
+questioning no more, making no sign.
+
+Suddenly Isabel, the self-assured, evenly poised Isabel, was on the
+floor at her cousin's knees, burying her face in Flavia's pale-yellow
+dress and sobbing in frantic hysteria.
+
+"Flavia, Flavia, I can't bear it! I am afraid, I am afraid--if he should
+die----"
+
+Shocked back into strength, Flavia bent over her, soothing and caressing
+with soft touches and inarticulate phrases of affection.
+
+"Hush, dear, hush! Put your head here. Let me call Martha; you frighten
+me, Isabel!"
+
+The tempest did not last long. As abruptly as she had lost self-command,
+Isabel regained it. Rising to her feet, she swept back the disordered
+auburn curls from her flushed face and stood silent beside the desk, in
+a state approaching exhaustion. She was wearing a dark riding-habit
+soiled with dust and stained in several places with oil or grease, her
+high-laced boots were scratched and sand-covered. But Flavia was beyond
+notice of costume and saw only her cousin's sullen misery of expression.
+
+"Dear, you loved him," escaped her, in her double compassion for the
+woman whom Gerard had not chosen.
+
+Isabel's gray eyes were crossed by a spark.
+
+"No--I _hate_ him!" she flared viciously. "What did he do it for? He had
+no right. He, he----" She pressed her drenched handkerchief hard against
+her lips. "Corrie, poor Corrie----"
+
+Flavia shrank, commencing to tremble before a looming premonition of
+something still worse to be endured.
+
+"What of Corrie? Isabel, what?"
+
+"You will hear soon enough," she assured bitterly. "I've said all I can.
+No--don't ask me, don't follow me. They will tell you downstairs. I'm
+going."
+
+Downstairs, meant the servants. Flavia Rose was, above all things,
+maiden-proud; as Gerard's fiancée, as Gerard's wife, no cost of pain or
+humiliation would have kept her from him. But she was neither. She had
+only her own interpretation of his mirthful glances and graceful speech,
+only a few yellow roses to hint that he did not regard her as the most
+casual of friends. Suppose she had been mistaken, suppose he had meant
+only courtesy to a hostess whose youth exacted gallantry?
+
+Isabel had gone. Flavia turned her face to a diminutive mirror lying
+among the trifles on her desk. Could she go down to the curious servants
+so--pale, quivering and emotion-spent? Even as she looked into her own
+reflected eyes, the tears at last overflowed.
+
+It was half an hour later before Flavia, quiet, dignified and only
+betrayed by her absolute pallor, trusted herself to descend the stairs.
+
+The Rose house was too near the race course, too intimately concerned in
+the drama, for the information she sought not to be already rife gossip
+there. When Mr. Rose came home, near noon, he had little left to tell
+his daughter except Gerard's condition and his defense of Corrie.
+
+"Then Corrie did not hurt him," she grasped the exquisite relief.
+
+Mr. Rose shook his head, reluctantly discouraged and discouraging. He
+had not gone to the city during those intervening hours; he never, then
+or afterward, spoke of where he had been or what he had felt.
+
+"There was the wrench," he heavily reminded her. "And where has he sent
+Dean, who must have seen all that happened and could have given Gerard's
+mechanician the lie? I've not seen Corrie except across the room," the
+recollection of that ghastly room broke the speech. "We have got to wait
+until he comes home to answer."
+
+Flavia slipped her hand into his, nestling to him, and he put his arm
+about her. Both were remembering Corrie's brief, simoon-hot tempers, his
+hasty tongue and ready hand--and swift repentances. Had an occasion come
+when the repentance was too late, too vain! And what repentance! To the
+sister who knew with life-long knowledge the ardent, passionate Corrie,
+his young rigidity in honor and high pride, his tenacious affections,
+this menaced downfall was almost as appalling as his death. She thrust
+the possibility from her with revolted condemnation of herself for
+crediting this libel, this slander of her brother. What had he ever done
+to justify such a belief?
+
+"Papa, he could not!" she defended. "Corrie could not. Not, not
+_Corrie_!"
+
+"I hope not, my girl."
+
+Something in his tone, some quality she did not recognize, brought her
+gaze to his face with a fresh dread. What would it mean to Thomas Rose,
+if this were true of his son? And what would the change in Thomas Rose
+mean to Corrie?
+
+The early autumn dusk had fallen and the lamps were lit, when Corrie
+came home. The routine of the household had gone on through the long
+day; under the eye of convention, Flavia and Mr. Rose had dressed for
+dinner and now sat together in the drawing-room, each holding an unread
+book. But at the closing of the outer door both started erect, pretense
+forgotten.
+
+"Corrie!" his father summoned. Not Corwin B.; by a trick of usage the
+nickname had become formal, the formal name a playfulness not to be
+spoken now.
+
+Corrie came quietly between the velvet curtains. He still wore the pink
+racing costume, its hue in marked contrast to his worn young face. That
+one day had drawn white lines about his boyish mouth and set black
+circles under his blue eyes. As if feeling himself on trial, he stopped
+just within the room and stood with the quiescent endurance that he had
+shown in the farmhouse parlor and which sat so strangely upon him.
+
+"First--Gerard?" required Mr. Rose hardly. "You've been there?"
+
+"Yes, sir. They say he will live."
+
+"Live! What----"
+
+"They say he will never drive again."
+
+Flavia cried out faintly, grasping the arms of her chair, and there was
+a pause.
+
+"I've heard Rupert's story, and I've heard Gerard's," slowly pronounced
+Mr. Rose. "I haven't heard yours, yet. Nor I haven't learned that anyone
+has. What wrecked Gerard's car?"
+
+There was no answer. Corrie's breathing quickened slightly, but he
+neither moved nor spoke, nor lifted his eyes to the two who watched him.
+After moments, Mr. Rose put out his hand and pushed away a tinted
+electric lamp from which the light fell too strongly on his face.
+
+"Rupert isn't lying," he asserted. "He might be crazy. If he is, say
+so. I saw your nickel wrench picked up, myself, and a dozen people along
+the line saw you and Gerard racing just before the smash. Where is your
+mechanician, Dean? What has he got to say? It looks bad, your hiding
+him."
+
+"He was not with me," Corrie replied, his voice oddly smothered.
+
+"Not with you? Rupert talks of seeing him beside you in the car."
+
+"Rupert is mistaken. Dean was not yet out at the course and I started
+alone. Ask the men at my camp and the race officials; they will tell you
+that I took out my machine without a mechanician."
+
+"Then Rupert is crazy? Gerard told the truth? Speak out! Are you afraid
+or sulky?"
+
+This time the lash took effect. Corrie moved sharply and spoke.
+
+"I am not going to talk," he declared definitely. "Nor ought you to ask
+it of me, sir. If you don't know how I loved Allan Gerard, if you can't
+feel that I would rather have killed myself than hurt him and would have
+turned my car against a stone wall sooner than see to-day, there is no
+use of my saying it. I don't care what anyone thinks or says. I stood
+the worst that can come to me when I helped his surgeons to-day and
+heard him clear me----I'm going to my room; you needn't fear I'll run
+away."
+
+Mr. Rose was across the room before his son could leave it, gripping the
+satin-clad shoulder.
+
+"You'll keep what Gerard lied to give you," he promised with inexorable
+menace. "And that's what is left of your reputation. You'll neither run
+nor skulk in your room; you'll go dress for dinner and come down here
+and eat it. We'll have no scenes. The medicine you have got to take is
+nothing to the black dose Gerard has to swallow."
+
+"Papa!" Flavia appealed, unheard.
+
+"Yes, sir," Corrie answered simply.
+
+On the wide landing of the staircase Flavia overtook her brother. There
+was just one thing she could say to him, must and would always have to
+say whatever his faults or the rest of the world's condemnation.
+
+"I love you," she panted, clasping her little hands around his arm.
+"Corrie, it is hurting you so! I love you, let me come."
+
+Under the soft hall-lights he turned to her, blue eyes meeting blue
+eyes; then for the first time in their lives he took her in his arms
+with a man's touch and kissed her.
+
+"You stick close, Other Fellow," he said unsteadily. "I'm pretty
+lonesome; you're a help. But don't come now."
+
+Pretty lonesome. Yes, that expressed the atmosphere of aloofness, the
+air of being suddenly walled around and set apart, that now marked the
+impulsive and social Corrie. It was with him when he came down to the
+dreary dinner, an hour later.
+
+The one who failed to play out the wretched farce of customary life was
+Isabel. She kept her room, alleging illness, and did not appear to lend
+aid to the evening which the three spent in silent endurance of one
+another and their own thoughts. The very surroundings insisted on the
+image of Gerard; a book he had been reading lay open on the table, the
+music he preferred was waiting on the piano rack. At nine o'clock,
+unable to bear more, Flavia rose, hurriedly pleading fatigue. Corrie
+also rose with her to retire, or to escape.
+
+"Wait," his father bade, at his movement, laying down a newspaper. "You
+will not be out with your automobile, to-morrow."
+
+Corrie looked at him without rebellion or surprise, unflinching from the
+decision.
+
+"I shall never drive a racing car again, sir," was his quiet statement.
+
+And only Gerard could have gauged what that renunciation cost his
+fellow-driver.
+
+Gerard, at that hour, was not conscious of many things. The night that
+was long at the rose-colored villa, was longer yet in the little
+farmhouse. But when the first pale light of dawn made the parlor windows
+grow into glimmering squares of gray, the patient suddenly spoke out of
+what was rather stupor than sleep.
+
+"'And the greatest of these is charity?'" he said strongly and clearly.
+
+The nurse hurried to his side, but it was many moments before he again
+aroused and asked for Rupert.
+
+"Now, and alone," he insisted, when she demurred, urging rest.
+
+Even in his helplessness he was compelling. The nurse went in search of
+Rupert, who had kept vigil in the kitchen, scoffing at the suggestion of
+bed while that battle was being waged in the other room.
+
+Gerard turned his fever-burnished eyes upon his small mechanician's
+sullen face, when that visitor entered. Both men understood perfectly
+well the contest of wills about to ensue. Both were coolly determined
+and prepared with the fine weapon of mutual knowledge of one another.
+
+"There's a silver case on the table; get me a cigarette and light it,
+will you?" requested Gerard, in his low, unsure voice.
+
+Rupert complied. He had not altogether escaped, himself, with mere
+scratches; he limped as he came across to place the cigarette in the
+languid fingers.
+
+"I guess there ain't any special need to ask if it's hurting bad, when
+you're wanting these dopes," he drew grim inference. "Here."
+
+"It is, all the time. Thanks. I didn't bring you here to talk about
+that, when you should be asleep, though. Rupert, no more is to be said
+about Corrie Rose. There has been too much of that already, I can see."
+
+Rupert's black eyes hardened and narrowed to lines of glinting jet.
+
+"I've got the truth stripped down to running facts, carrying no
+trimmings, and I'm demonstrating it to everybody I meet," he imparted
+dryly. "And I mean to keep on. I know what you want, all right, and I
+ain't intending to do it. Let him stand for what is coming to him."
+
+Gerard lifted his cigarette, seeking the narcotic smoke. His superb
+vitality and undrained youth had turned upon him like traitorous
+servants upon a fallen master, denying him surcease in unconsciousness
+and holding him as a sensitive instrument for pain to run its gamut
+upon.
+
+"Why?" he queried.
+
+"Because I want to see him get his. You don't? I do. I guess my say
+goes, this time. I ain't enjoying being sore wherever I ain't worse, but
+I'd go out and take another smash like we had to-day to see him wearing
+zebra clothes in a jail. Missing that, I'll make that pink millionaire
+palace red-hot and get him ruled off every race course in the country."
+
+"Rupert----"
+
+The mechanician's gesture cut off protest.
+
+"There ain't any use! I mean it."
+
+"You liked Corrie----"
+
+"I ain't noticing it, now. When you were behind the steering-wheel, your
+say so was what happened--if you'd said to light the gasoline tank, I'd
+have struck a match. That's business. This ain't. Rose stands for what
+he did, for I'm free to put it through."
+
+"Very true; I am helpless," Gerard acquiesced, his white lips
+compressed, and averted his head on the pillow.
+
+Checked, Rupert stared at the other with many shifting expressions
+twitching his own angry dark face.
+
+"Do you know what the doctors say?" he demanded, at last. "Are you
+knowing, when you ask me to let Rose off, what he's done to you?"
+
+"Yes," was the laconic answer.
+
+There was no retort to that all-sufficient brevity. None was attempted.
+
+The windows had gradually paled from gray to white, streaks of gold
+caught and reflected in the glass panes as the sun drew up above the
+horizon. All night the air had been filled with a steady murmur and dull
+flow of sound, unobserved because of its very continuity. Now, across
+the hush of the sick room unexpectedly crashed a roar of rapid
+explosions, growing thunderous as it approached nearer; cheers of joyous
+excitement pealed from many throats. Gerard started, his eyes blazing
+wide.
+
+"The race," flung the mechanician bitterly. "It's on."
+
+Gerard slowly raised his left arm and dropped it across his face as
+those who yesterday were his mates rushed past the house. With the
+movement a spot of crimson sprang into view against the linen swathing
+his shoulder, enlarging ominously, but even the alarmed Rupert knew
+this was no time to summon doctor or nurse, whatever the physical cost.
+
+"Don't you think?" Gerard presently asked, quite gently and naturally,
+"that I've got enough to stand, Rupert?"
+
+The sound that broke from the vanquished mechanician was less cry than
+curse.
+
+"I'll shut up!" he cast his submission before the victor. "I ain't going
+to lie--I'd choke--but I'll hold my tongue. Don't ask more or I'll take
+back that. You've got me down; I'll shut up."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AFTERMATH
+
+
+The newspapers were mercifully brief upon the subject of the unsupported
+accusation brought against Corrie Rose, although diffuse enough in
+accounts of the much-known Gerard's disaster. The driver's own
+explanation of his accident was accepted; his attitude towards the young
+amateur fixed the attitude of the public. Moreover, Jack Rupert was
+stricken suddenly dumb; no reportorial blandishments could obtain from
+him, on the second day, so much as an admission of the charges made by
+him on the day previous. Rupert surrendered like a gentleman: he laid
+down all his weapons. Dean's appearance at his usual duties and
+explanation of his absence from the pink car quashed the last rumor, for
+the finding of a wrench beside a motor course meant nothing, considered
+alone.
+
+The first things for which Mr. Rose looked each morning were the daily
+papers. After which, he invariably shot a glance of blended relief and
+smarting humiliation into the wide, earnest eyes of Flavia, as she sat
+opposite him behind the gold coffee-service, and addressed himself to
+his breakfast. He never looked towards his son at that moment, nor did
+Corrie ever break the ensuing silence. The change that had fallen upon
+Allan Gerard's life was scarcely more absolute and strange than that
+which had come upon the Rose household of innocent ostentation and
+intimate gayety.
+
+But the greatest outward alteration was in Isabel. Flavia and Mr. Rose
+maintained the usual calm routine of events at home and abroad, Corrie
+rigidly obeyed his father's command to live so as to provoke no comment.
+But Isabel's boasted, perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control.
+She moped all day in her own room, rejecting Flavia's companionship, and
+fled from Corrie with unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as the
+days passed, but rather grew worse in condition.
+
+It was in the sixth week after the accident whose echoes threatened to
+linger so long, that Isabel entered her cousin's study, one afternoon.
+
+"Flavia, I am going away," she abruptly announced. "Mrs. Alexander has
+asked me to go South with Caroline and her, you know. Uncle says I may
+do as I like, and I am going. I can't bear it here," her full lip
+quivered.
+
+Flavia turned from the window by which she had been standing, catching
+and crushing a fold of the drapery in her small fingers as she faced the
+other girl.
+
+"You mean that you cannot bear Corrie," she retorted, in swift reproach.
+"You treat him--_how_ you treat him! You hardly speak to him, you hardly
+look at him. Oh, you are cruel, you will not see how he suffers for one
+moment's fault."
+
+Isabel grasped a chair-back, commencing to tremble.
+
+"I can't bear to stay," she repeated hysterically. "Don't talk to me
+about Corrie."
+
+"I never will again," Flavia assured, pale with extreme anger. "Yet you
+might remember that he loves you; a little kindness from you would help
+him so much. Do you know where he spent yesterday? He was out in his
+motor boat; out in November with a north gale blowing, alone in that
+speed-boat that is half under water all the time. You do not care, you
+have no pity."
+
+"I----"
+
+Flavia imposed silence with a gesture, herself quite unconscious of how
+overwhelming was this contrast to her usual gentleness.
+
+"He has done wrong--you have nothing to give him but more punishment.
+Yes, go away, that is best. But he would have been kinder to you,
+Isabel."
+
+Isabel let go of the chair, her gray eyes dilating unnaturally. Her gaze
+dwelling on Flavia, she slowly retreated a few steps towards the door,
+then suddenly turned and fled, leaving no answer.
+
+With her going, Flavia's passion died, something like fear taking its
+place. That was what Corrie had felt, reflected Corrie's sister; a sweep
+of flame-like anger that blinded judgment, a slipping of self-mastery
+that loosed hand or tongue. Only, she had not wanted to hurt Isabel,
+that was a point she could not conceive reaching, herself.
+
+When she had somewhat recovered, Flavia went to find her furs and
+outdoor apparel. She knew where Corrie had gone; she would meet him and
+herself break the tidings of his cousin's coming departure. He would be
+walking; he had not touched an automobile since he left the seat of his
+pink racer to rescue Gerard from beneath the crushed Mercury, and he had
+no patience with horses.
+
+It was on a bleak, sandy stretch of Long Island road that she met
+Corrie, a solitary figure against the flat landscape as he came towards
+her. At sight of her little carriage and the cream-colored ponies he
+himself long before had taught her to drive, he stopped, his boyish
+face brightening warmly.
+
+"Other Fellow," was all he said, when she leaned towards him with her
+unaltering love of glance and smile.
+
+There was no need to ask where he had been.
+
+"How is Mr. Gerard, dear?" she ventured, after he was seated beside her
+and they had commenced the return.
+
+"Better."
+
+"You go there every day to ask?"
+
+"Every day."
+
+"And, he----"
+
+"He has seen me every day, even the worst. He talks about politics, the
+aviation meet, the motor magazines,--about everything except himself or
+me. It is his right arm, now, the other hurts are almost well. To-day I
+met the doctor, going out as I was coming in. I asked about him----"
+
+Flavia raised her eyes to meet his, shrinking from the verdict that
+speech must establish beyond the refuge of doubt. Very gently he laid
+his hand over hers upon the reins and brought the ponies to a
+standstill.
+
+"Do you remember this place, Flavia? Well, all that is over for him."
+
+Beside them sloped away a brown, frost-seared field; in its centre still
+showed the outline of a baseball diamond, with the bags forgotten at the
+bases. Flavia's heart contracted sharply, the reins escaped her grasp.
+For the moment memory and vision fused; she saw the straight, slender
+pitcher poised with arms raised above his brown head, saw his laughing
+glance go questing down the field, and the swift, graceful movement that
+launched the ball with unerring unexpectedness. And because she could
+not speak without inadvertently lashing Corrie, she sat mute.
+
+She did not know how long it was before he spoke, with the new steady
+seriousness so strange to meet in him.
+
+"Where are we getting to, Other Fellow? Because we have got to get
+somewheres, you know; we don't stand still. Gerard will go away to his
+own home, soon. You and father and Isabel and I can't just sit here
+looking at each other, like we've been doing."
+
+Gerard would go away, soon. That was the sentence that gripped Flavia.
+Go, without seeing her, without pursuing the purpose he had shown her in
+the fountain arbor? It seemed so impossible that the thrill that shook
+her was not of fear, but of startled expectancy. Yet she answered
+Corrie with scarcely a pause, and with all tenderness.
+
+"Dear, Isabel will not be here, for a little while," she told him,
+hesitatingly. "She is going South with Mrs. Alexander and Caroline. She,
+she needs the change."
+
+"That's good," he approved. "She will be better off, away from here, and
+you will be better for her going. She worries us all with her fidgets."
+
+Amazed, Flavia turned in her seat to regard him.
+
+"Corrie!"
+
+"You thought I would mind?" He smiled whimsically. "Flavia, I've had a
+lot of nonsense knocked out of me. It took a bad shock to cure me of
+Isabel, but I'm well. There's nothing left of that. In fact, I feel all
+full of holes where ideas have been jolted out of me--I feel rather
+empty."
+
+The beautiful foreign motor car had stolen along the road so silently
+that neither brother nor sister perceived its approach until the grind
+of applied brakes sounded beside the stopped carriage.
+
+"I should have supposed that there'd be views in the countryside more
+pleasant to this family than that field," caustically observed Mr.
+Rose. "You can take the machine on home, Lenoir; I'll drive with Miss
+Rose."
+
+He descended, the chauffeur stooping to open the door, while Corrie and
+Flavia looked on, too much surprised to find reply.
+
+"Keep your seat," he curtly ordered, as his son rose to yield the place
+beside Flavia. "I'll get up here. Drive ahead, my girl."
+
+He took the rear seat of the little carriage, resting his arm on the
+cushioned back so that his strong, square-set head was between the two
+who sat in front. The automobile obediently sped on, and only the beat
+of the ponies' hoofs interrupted the chill afternoon hush for the first
+half-mile.
+
+"It's a long time since I found out that you had some points that I
+didn't just understand, Corrie," Mr. Rose stated, his matter-of-fact
+accents carrying a deliberate finality. "I didn't wonder, nor I didn't
+try to force you to fit my pattern; we were solid friends and I was
+willing to take on faith your ways of being different. Once in a while
+I'd bring you on the carpet when you got across the line, not often. You
+were given about everything you wanted and only told that you must keep
+straight. You haven't done it."
+
+An odd shiver ran through Corrie, but he said nothing.
+
+"This isn't a theatre; there won't be any talk of cutting you off with a
+shilling or any other kind of child's talk. What we have got to do is to
+make the best of a bad thing. You will have to go away for a year or
+two, keep apart from automobile racing and automobile people, and live
+gossip down. Poor Gerard did his best for you--God knows why--but there
+are rumors whispered around yet. It would have looked like running away
+to go before; now, Gerard is out of danger. Well?"
+
+"I have been thinking that I should like to go away for a time, sir,"
+Corrie answered, gravely self-contained.
+
+"Very good. To speak out, it will be better for our future living
+together if you're not in my sight for a while now. If we stay
+housemates, there is likely to be another kind of a crash, and two
+crashes don't mend a break. You'll have all the money you want and I
+don't care where you go or how much you spend. Just put in a year as
+well as you can, until we all settle down and go on again. We have got a
+lifetime before us to get through."
+
+After a moment Corrie quietly took the reins from Flavia; blinded by
+tears, she was letting the ponies stray at will.
+
+The brief November day was ending; it was dusk when they reached the
+house, and perhaps none of the three were ungrateful for the shadows
+which veiled them from one another. On the veranda, Corrie detained his
+sister, allowing Mr. Rose to enter alone.
+
+"I'm not coming in just yet, Other Fellow," he said. "Ask father to
+excuse me from dinner; I have an errand that cannot wait. I don't want
+you to worry about me or to be unhappy. I did a lot of thinking
+yesterday, out in the speed-boat by myself; I know what I am going to do
+and that I will put up the best fight I can. Go help father; don't fret
+over me."
+
+He kissed her soft mouth with the man's firmness so different from his
+former casual caresses, and went down the broad steps, walking across
+the lawns in the direction from which they had just come.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE HOUSE AT THE TURN
+
+
+Dinner at the Rose house took place about two hours after the
+corresponding meal occurred at the farmhouse near the Westbury Turn. So
+while Corrie was walking through his five miles of desolate, dark road,
+the evening became well under way in the country parlor; sick-room no
+longer.
+
+There had been changes in the room since Gerard's occupancy of it.
+Bright rugs and coverings mitigated the severity of the horse-hair
+furniture, a couple of easy-chairs stood there like velvet-clad
+cavaliers in a Puritan meeting. If the hues ran to vivid scarlets and
+unexpected contrasts, why, Rupert had done the shopping and had
+consulted his own taste. In the midst of his artistic work, that
+one-time mechanician and self-installed nurse of Gerard's was now seated
+beside a red-shaded lamp, engaged in reading aloud to his companion from
+a classic found on the family book-shelf.
+
+"'Thaddeus, his eyes cast down, glided from the room in a gentle
+suffusion of tears,'" he concluded a paragraph, and broke off, stunned.
+"Gee! And I was understanding that was a man! I ain't qualified for the
+judges' stand, but--did you ever strike this joy-promoting endurance run
+of language before?"
+
+"Once. I didn't have you to read it to me, or I would have enjoyed it
+more," Gerard returned, stirring in his arm-chair opposite the ruddily
+glowing German stove. "Don't you want to give me a cigarette; I haven't
+had one since noon."
+
+He was thinner and still colorless, otherwise there was little to show
+what the last month and a half had meant to Allan Gerard. Except when he
+rose or moved, the inert uselessness of his right arm was not obvious.
+And however hard the battles and rebellion he inwardly had passed
+through, tone or expression carried no outward intelligence of past
+conflict as he smiled across at his entertainer. Gerard possessed in
+full measure that Anglo-Saxon reticence which abhors the useless display
+of emotions. Rupert balanced the volume upon his knee and proceeded to
+comply with the request, twisting his dark little face sardonically.
+
+"When I was racing with Darling French," he reminisced, "we gave out of
+oil, once, on a practice run across country. There was a house by the
+busy curb representing itself as the only one combination garage and
+grocery store, so Darling contracted for a can of warranted cylinder oil
+in a speed dash that left the man all used up and rattling mad. Being in
+some haste, we didn't look up that can's inner life, but chucked the
+stuff where it would do the most good."
+
+"Poor quality?"
+
+"I ain't saying so. The complaint wasn't quality, it was kind. That can
+surrounded the finest brand of Koko Korn syrup, extra rich. They had to
+knock down our motor with a set of cooking utensils, and the man who did
+the job said it was a candied peach."
+
+Gerard laughed.
+
+"Well?" he anticipated.
+
+"Here's your smoke. Well, that type of literature makes my thinks-motor
+feel as if molasses was being poured into it for lubrication--it sticks.
+Will you take it hard if I raise my voice over the sporting page of the
+evening paper, instead?"
+
+Gerard nodded consent, but checked the reply on his lips, listening. The
+outer door had opened and closed, someone could be heard speaking to the
+mistress of the house.
+
+"Corrie Rose!" he marvelled.
+
+Rupert carefully laid _Thaddeus_ on the table and stood up,
+straightening his small, wiry figure.
+
+"I'll crank up and run out," he observed nonchalantly. "Signal
+when you want me back."
+
+There was no need of explanation; since the day of the Mercury's wreck,
+Rupert had never voluntarily remained in the same room with Corrie or
+had exchanged speech with him. The two passed at the doorway, now, with
+a curt nod on the part of the mechanician in response to the visitor's
+salute.
+
+It was not a heartening reception, nor could Gerard's cordial greeting
+lift the shadow of it from Corrie's expression. That long solitary walk
+had left his young face drawn with a white fatigue not physical. But his
+eyes did not avoid Gerard's, and for the first time he spoke of the
+subject always present in the minds of both.
+
+"You ought to hate the sight of me worse than Rupert does," he abruptly
+opened. "But--you don't. I don't know why, but you don't."
+
+"No, I certainly do not," Gerard confirmed, his grave eyes on his guest.
+
+Corrie rested one hand upon the narrow mantel, looking down at the
+fire-bright squares of the stove. He still wore his gray overcoat and
+held his cap, as if prepared to accept dismissal.
+
+"You understand how easily things can go wrong," he said. "I never used
+to understand that, but I do now. You have seen drivers go wild in the
+race fever, more than once. We have both seen the nicest, sweetest
+fellows curse and strike their mechanicians because of a lost minute,
+seen men whose nerve never balked at a risk sit down and cry like girls
+when their car went out of a race. There is a mark on my car now where
+Ralph Stanton once scraped off the paint in passing because I was slow
+in getting out of his way. I suppose you judged mine such a case and
+forgave a moment's insanity. No one else ever will. You," his
+violet-blue eyes suddenly sought the other man's, "you won't think I am
+trying to excuse any such thing as was done to you or to justify my
+part."
+
+"No," Gerard answered, compassionately translating the last weeks'
+writing on the candid face. "I am not likely to think that, Corrie. But
+do not give me credit not due; I am not unusually forgiving or wise, it
+is, indeed, merely that I understand fairly well. And when one
+understands the other man, there seldom is anything to forgive."
+
+"Thank you. It's because you always understand one that I've come here
+to-night. I, I guess I've about realized that I'm not quite nineteen
+years old yet and pretty much a fool. I don't suppose anyone ever meant
+better than I did, or ever did worse at it. Gerard, my father has sent
+me off. Oh, not like that!" as the other man moved, startled. "I mean,
+he has told me to go away for a year or two, anywhere I like, until
+people forget. He says he doesn't want to see me for a while. No one
+does, except my sister. There is no one on earth for whom I care who
+looks the same as before at me except her, and you. I'm sent off to live
+alone and I have never been alone in my life. I'm afraid of myself,
+sick, afraid to be alone--take me with you."
+
+"Corrie?"
+
+The boy's impetuous gesture interrupted.
+
+"Don't say no! It ought to kill me to look at you, it almost does, but
+it's worse away. Let me go where you are going, let me work in your
+factory, if it's at shovelling coal. Don't send me off alone with more
+money than I can spend and nothing to do with myself. I can't stand
+it--I'd go under! You would better have let Rupert send me to prison for
+wrecking your car. I've tried to stand what seemed up to me, but I'm
+near my limit. Gerard, help me see it through."
+
+There was a quality of desperation in the appeal that was like a
+clutching grasp. Gerard felt his own nerves draw tense while his answer
+leaped to the present and future need.
+
+"You are the exact man I want at the factory, Corrie," he assured, with
+all steadying naturalness and calm. "Take off your overcoat and come sit
+down; you are not going right out again. I've got work for you that will
+keep you guessing, as Rupert says. Let me see, it's eight o'clock and
+you walked over; I'll wager you have had no dinner."
+
+"I don't want anything," Corrie refused, his face averted, his fingers
+gripping the mantel-shelf until his nails showed white from pressure.
+
+"All right; I do. I declined my coffee and some of Mrs. Carter's
+ambrosial apple pie, this evening, and I have been repenting ever since.
+You are a fine pretext for having them brought in to us now. Besides, I
+shall have to keep you in good shape if you are going to help me put
+through a scheme of mine. Of course, I am not altering my plan of living
+merely because I have got one arm to use in place of two. I have to have
+some things done for me instead of doing them myself, that's all. I need
+you," he paused, and lifted to his companion the cordial brilliancy of
+his smile, "and I am glad to have you, Corrie."
+
+When, an hour later, the guest rose to depart, Gerard detained him for a
+final word.
+
+"One thing before you go," he said, with a quiet force of command that
+belonged to the other Allan Gerard whom Corrie had not yet
+encountered--the master of many men and affairs, instead of the racing
+driver and social playmate. "We will not speak again of the subject we
+have concluded to-night. I do not wish the accident to the Mercury
+recalled or discussed between us, ever. We are beyond that. Good night;
+I suppose you would rather start with me, day after to-morrow, than
+alone, later?"
+
+Long afterward Gerard came to remember that straight glance of utter
+helplessness and struggling confusion from Corrie's tired eyes.
+
+"I, I can't _think_," confessed Corrie Rose. "I'm in too deep to find a
+way out. I--my head----" he pushed back his heavy fair hair. "Yes, I'd
+rather start with you, if you will let me. Tell me whatever you want of
+me, Gerard; I'll always do it. Good night."
+
+The closing of the outer door was the signal for Rupert's return to the
+parlor.
+
+"Your time on the track is up," he reminded, "and you need your sleeps."
+
+"I am not sleepy, Rupert. We will go home to the factory, day after
+to-morrow, and continue work on that special racing car of mine. Corrie
+Rose is going to drive it when it is done, since I cannot."
+
+The mechanician slowly stiffened.
+
+"Not precisely?" he refused credence.
+
+"Oh, yes; for practice and testing, at first, and racing later. Until it
+is built I shall put him in training on one of the ninety Mercuries. He
+doesn't yet know anything about it, himself, and he isn't going to be
+told until I am ready. You are going to ride with him and break him in.
+He has to be taught a good deal to change him from a clever amateur to a
+professional driver."
+
+"When I sit in a car beside Rose, it'll be because I'm taking him to be
+lynched," Rupert explicitly set forth.
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, dearest."
+
+Gerard rested his head against the cushioned chair-back and met the
+inflexible black eyes with the cool, mischievous resolution of his own
+regard, saying nothing at all.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+SENTENCE OF ERROR
+
+
+It was nearly twelve o'clock, that night, when Corrie arrived home.
+Flavia ran down the wide staircase to meet him, finger on lip; a
+childish figure in the creamy lace and silk of her negligee, with her
+heavy braids of shining hair falling over her shoulders.
+
+"You are so late," she grieved. "And so cold! Come near the hearth--papa
+is in the library, still."
+
+Corrie allowed her small urgent hands to draw him towards the fireplace
+that filled the square hall with ruddy reflections and dancing shadows.
+He was cold to the touch, ice clung to the rough cloth of his ulster,
+but there was color and even light in the face he turned to her.
+
+"It _is_ snowing," he recalled. "But I'm not cold. I am going to bed and
+to sleep. I want you to sleep, too, Other Fellow, because the worst of
+it all is over. I don't mean that things are right--they never can be
+that again, I suppose--but I see my way clear to live, now."
+
+She gazed up at him attentively, sensitively responsive to the vital
+change she divined in him. Before he could continue or she question, Mr.
+Rose came between the curtains of the arched library door, a massive,
+dominant presence as he stood surveying the two in the fire-light. He
+made no remark, yet Corrie at once moved to face him, gently putting
+Flavia aside.
+
+"I am sorry to be so late, sir; I have been arranging for my going
+away," he gave simple account of himself. "I should like to leave the
+day after to-morrow, if you do not object. I am going to stay with a
+western friend. I know you would rather not hear much about me or from
+me for a while, but I will leave an address where I can always be
+reached."
+
+It is not infrequently disconcerting to be taken promptly and literally
+at one's word. Moreover, Corrie looked very young and pathetically
+tired, with his wind-ruffled fair hair pushed back and in his bearing of
+dignified self-dependence. A quiver passed over Mr. Rose's strong,
+square-cut countenance, his stern light-gray eyes softened to a
+contradiction of his set mouth.
+
+"I'm not in the habit of saying things twice," he curtly replied. "I
+gave you leave to go when and where you pleased. To-morrow I'll fix your
+bank account so you can draw all the money you like."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Corrie acknowledged.
+
+"You've no call to thank me," his father corrected. "I guess that when I
+own millions you've got the right to all you can spend. It won't help
+anything for you to be pinched or uncomfortable. I've no wish to see it.
+I am going to take your sister to Europe for the winter, as I told her
+this evening, so we ourselves leave soon after you. Try to keep
+straighter, this time."
+
+There was no intentional cruelty in the concluding sentence, delivered
+as the speaker stepped back into the inner room, but Corrie turned so
+white that Flavia sprang to him with a low exclamation of pain.
+
+"It's all right," he reassured her. And after a moment: "Flavia, I am
+going with Allan Gerard, to work under him and help him in his factory."
+
+"Corrie?"
+
+"I have been with him to-night. I don't want father to know this because
+he wouldn't understand; he might even forbid me to go. Unless he forces
+an answer, I shall not say where I am to be. But Gerard said I must tell
+you everything and write to you often--I would have done that, anyhow.
+You won't mind my going away, now, when you know I am with him?"
+
+She comprehended at last the change in him, the change from restless
+uncertainty to steady fixity of purpose, from an objectless wanderer to
+a traveller towards a known destination, comprehended with a passionate
+outrush of gratitude to the man who had wrought this in a generosity too
+broad to remember his own injury. The eyes she lifted to her brother's
+were splendidly luminous.
+
+"No," she confirmed, in the exhaustion of relief. "I can bear to let you
+go from me, if you are to be with Mr. Gerard."
+
+They nestled together--as each might have clung in such an hour to the
+mother they had left so far down the path of years--on the hearth from
+which one was self-exiled and the other about to be taken.
+
+"Do you remember the story he told us?" Corrie asked, after a long
+pause. "About that Arabian fellow's vase and the pearls, you know?
+I--well, I meant what I said, about expecting to have lots of days like
+that, pearl-days. I couldn't see any farther than that! Yet that
+night--I don't expect now, what I did then; I've lost my chance for it.
+But I would like to do something for Allan Gerard before I die. I'd like
+to make all my pearls into one, and put it into his vase. Instead, he is
+doing things for me."
+
+Her clasping arms tightened about him. Heretofore she always had turned
+a steady face to her brother, sparing him the reproach of grief, but
+now she helplessly felt her eyes fill and overflow. One comfort, one
+hope she had that he did not share. If he went with Allan Gerard, and if
+Gerard took home the wife he had seemed to woo, brother and sister would
+not be separated. Flavia Gerard would be in Allan Gerard's house, where
+Corrie was going.
+
+Had Gerard thought of that, also? Dared she tread on this nebulous
+fairy-ground? Dared she lead Corrie to set foot there, with her?
+
+"Dear," she essayed, her voice just audible, "dear, has Mr. Gerard ever
+spoken to you of me?"
+
+Surprised, Corrie looked down at the bent head resting against his rough
+overcoat. Himself a lover, he yet had not suspected this other romance
+flowering beside his own; he did not guess the obvious secret, now.
+
+"Of you? Oh, yes; he asks if you are well, each day. He never forgets
+such things. Why?"
+
+She had no answer to that natural question. In spite of her reason,
+Flavia was chilled by the flat conventionality of Gerard's apparent
+attitude, as represented by those formal inquiries. Almost she would
+have preferred that he had not spoken of her at all; silence could not
+have implied indifference.
+
+"Nothing," she faltered. It clearly was impossible to speak as she had
+imagined. "Only, as his hostess, and your sister, I fancied that he
+might----"
+
+"He wouldn't say that sort of thing to me, Other Fellow. No doubt he
+will come to pay a farewell call before he leaves. He isn't very fit,
+you know; he hasn't been out yet. He _must_ be at his western factory
+this week, he said, or he wouldn't try to travel."
+
+Her color rushed back. Why had she not remembered that? Why should he
+speak of her to anyone, since to-morrow he would come to see her?
+To-morrow? The clocks had struck midnight, to-day they would see each
+other.
+
+"It is late," Corrie added, as if in answer to her thought. He sighed
+wearily. "You are tired, I suppose we both are. Come up."
+
+He passed his arm about her waist, and they went up the stairs together,
+leaning on one another. But Allan Gerard was a third presence with them,
+and in their sense of his guardianship brother and sister rested like
+children comforted.
+
+The following day was one filled with an atmosphere of disruption and
+imminent departure. The very servants caught the contagion and hurried
+uncomfortably about their tasks. Corrie's preparations were
+unostentatious, but Isabel's agitated the entire household. Also, Mr.
+Rose issued his instructions that Flavia should be ready to start for
+France on the next steamer sailing. The house that had been rose-colored
+within and without was become a gray place to be avoided.
+
+Flavia thought all day of Allan Gerard. She knew her father went in the
+afternoon to pay him a farewell visit, she knew Corrie was with him all
+the morning, and when each returned home she suspended breath in
+anticipation of hearing the step of a guest also--the step of Gerard
+coming towards the goal which he had half-showed her in the fountain
+arbor. But Corrie and Mr. Rose each entered alone.
+
+Nevertheless, she chose to wear his color, that night; the pale,
+glistening tea-rose yellow above which her warm hair showed burnished
+gold. He must come that evening, if at all; she would be truly "Flavia
+Rose" to him.
+
+She was standing alone before her mirror, setting the last pearl comb in
+place, when her cousin came into the room.
+
+"You look as if you were happy enough," Isabel commented fretfully. "I
+don't believe you care at all about Corrie's going away. Of course you
+don't care about me. What are you putting on that old-fashioned thing
+for?"
+
+Flavia gravely turned her large eyes upon the other girl; the unjust
+attack fell in harsh dissonance with her own mood of hushed
+anticipation. She could not have robed herself for her wedding with more
+serious care and earnest thoughtfulness than she had used in preparing
+to receive Gerard to-night. This was no time for coquetry; as he came
+for her, she would go to him, she knew, without evasion or pretense to
+harass his weakness. She shrank, wincing sensitively, from this rough
+criticism, but every member of the family had learned not to reply to
+the new Isabel's peevish tartness.
+
+"It was my mother's," she explained, to the last inquiry, tenderly
+lifting the long chain of pearl and amber beads ending in a lace-fine
+pearl cross. Never could she attempt to tell her cousin the blended
+motives from which she had chosen to wear this rosary. "And her mother's
+and again her's. It is very old Spanish work. Shall we go down?"
+
+"What for? It is not time for dinner. Oh, Martin told me there was a
+messenger waiting to deliver a letter, just now, as I came here."
+
+The color flared up over Flavia's delicate face.
+
+"A messenger, Isabel?"
+
+"Yes, who would not send up his message. I told Martin that we would
+ring."
+
+Flavia slowly wound the chain around her throat. There was no escape
+from Isabel's insistent companionship, she realized.
+
+"Ring, then, please," she requested, and passed into her little
+sitting-room, beyond.
+
+Isabel followed curiously, ensconcing herself in one of the easy-chairs
+and idly twitching blossoms from the hyacinths in a bowl near her. All
+day she had been especially nervous and irritable, her least movements
+were characterized by an impatience almost feverish.
+
+The messenger who appeared on the threshold was Jack Rupert, not in the
+familiar guise of the Mercury's mechanician, but Rupert at leisure; a
+small, immaculate figure as New Yorkese as Broadway itself. The movement
+that brought Flavia across to him was impulsive as a confident child's
+and accompanied by a candid radiance of glance and smile flashed
+straight into the visitor's black eyes. She had no attention to spare to
+the fact that Isabel also had risen.
+
+"You have been so good as to bring a message to me, Mr. Rupert?" she
+questioned happily.
+
+"I ain't denying it was a pleasure to come," he made gracious reply,
+with his slight drawl of speech. "I've been given this to deliver to
+Miss Rose, from Mr. Gerard, under orders to bring the answer back unless
+it was preferred to send it by Mr. Rose, junior, to-morrow."
+
+"This" was a letter. As Flavia held out her hand to receive it, Isabel
+reached her side and seized her wrist so fiercely as to bruise the soft
+flesh.
+
+"It is mine!" she panted. "Give it to me--it is mine!"
+
+Flavia stood still, looking at the other girl with slow-gathering,
+incredulous resentment and wonder.
+
+"Yours? You expected this from Mr. Gerard, Isabel?"
+
+"I--no--yes--Corrie warned me he would," Isabel stammered. "You shall
+not read it, Flavia Rose, you shall not! It is for me, for me--no one
+must see it."
+
+She was trembling in a vehement excitement half-hysteric. Very quietly
+Flavia disengaged her arm from the grasp holding it; for the moment
+Isabel's touch was loathsome to her.
+
+"For whom is the letter, my cousin or me?" she asked the bearer.
+
+"I guess there ain't any answer; I don't know," avowed Rupert, troubled
+and hesitant. "I was sent out to report to Miss Rose."
+
+"But you, yourself, for whom did you suppose it?"
+
+"I ain't certain I did any supposing. Mr. Gerard began it after Mr. Rose
+had been with him, yesterday, and it took from then till to-night to
+finish."
+
+"It is _mine_," Isabel reiterated passionately.
+
+The scene was utterly impossible, not to be prolonged. It was the
+strong, cool determination inherited from Thomas Rose that held Flavia
+equal to the demands of her mother's bequeathment of reticent pride.
+
+"Pray give the letter to my cousin," she requested, her calm never more
+perfect. "I am sorry to have confused so simple a matter. She will of
+course recognize for which of us it is intended."
+
+But she meant to see the letter. Even as she watched Isabel snatch the
+surrendered missive, Flavia told herself that this sentence of error
+could not be accepted without sight of the letter. Moving with
+deliberate stateliness, she crossed to a chair near a small table and
+sat down, taking up a book. She was conscious that Rupert watched her,
+and she would make no sign that might constitute a self-betrayal when
+recounted to Gerard if she were indeed so pitifully wrong and he had
+from the first chosen her cousin. What she was not in the least aware
+of, was the inevitable impression made upon the mechanician by the
+dazzling little room and her central figure of gold upon gold and
+pearl-and-amber, and by her still, colorless face set in all this sheen
+and lustre. Had he been as dull as he really was acute, this scene could
+not have been made casual to him.
+
+Isabel's shaking fingers shredded the envelope in extracting the sheet
+of paper, her eyes scanned the page avidly. The result was
+unanticipated; there was a sharp cry, an instant of indecision, then as
+savagely as she had claimed the letter she sprang to thrust it into the
+startled Flavia's lap.
+
+"I can't do it! Flavia, I can't see him--I can't bear it! Tell him
+no--to go away--it's all over, now."
+
+The desperate terror and dread of the cry charged the atmosphere of the
+room with vibrant intensity. Flavia caught the letter.
+
+"I am to read this?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes; read it, help me."
+
+Isabel had seen and still claimed as hers the message. Yes, and had
+expected it, so that there must have been other communication between
+her and the sender. The conviction of her own utter mistake struck
+Flavia down with a force that crushed reason under feeling. She was
+physically giddy as she unfolded the page.
+
+The writing was uncertain and angular; different indeed from the firm
+smooth script that had accompanied the box of yellow roses in giving the
+"definition of the meaning of _Flavia Rose_." The mute evidence of that
+difficult left-handed task pierced the girl who loved Allan Gerard,
+before she read the words.
+
+The letter commenced abruptly, without superscription.
+
+    "I think you will know how hard it is for me to speak to you
+    calmly, even this way, across this distance, remembering how we
+    last met. To you I can confess what I could to no one else,
+    since there is now an end of concealment between us; that is,
+    that Allan Gerard is so weak as to feel shame at being a
+    cripple. So much so, that the idea is intolerable of first
+    remeeting you amidst your household's pitying curiosity. I never
+    used to know I had a personal vanity; I fancy it is not quite
+    that, but rather the humiliation of the man who has always been
+    well-dressed and who suddenly finds himself sent into public
+    sight in a shabby, tattered garment. I had accepted my physical
+    conventionality as part of my social equipment. I do not say
+    this in reproach to anyone or to affect you; I am perfectly sure
+    that you will not offer me the last insult of supposing so or of
+    answering me from that viewpoint. I say it only to excuse my
+    very great presumption in asking you to drive with Corrie to the
+    little railway station, to-morrow morning, to take leave of
+    him--and to tell me whether I am to come back. I want you to see
+    me as I am now, before you determine. Perhaps, left to my own
+    impulse of shielding you, I would have gone in silence, but
+    justice is higher than sentiment; you have the right to hear
+    what I must say and to answer it as you will.
+
+    "I am going to do my best for Corrie, whatever happens. Please
+    trust me so far, and if I have offended or seemed to fail in
+    this letter, remember my past months in excuse.
+
+    "Allan Gerard."
+
+Flavia laid down the sheet of paper. In that moment she suffered less
+from the destruction of her own happiness than from the destruction of
+Gerard's. This cry out of his anguish to the one for whom alone he had
+broken the stoical muteness in which he had wrapped his endured pain of
+mind and body, this self-revelation that was the difficult baring of a
+heart not used to show itself and avowal of weakness at the core of so
+much strength, drew from her an outrush of maternal protectiveness that
+rolled its flood above personal grief. If she could have sent Isabel to
+him, then, an Isabel worthy of the high trust and pathetic dignity in
+humility of that letter, she could have accepted her own sorrow. But she
+knew Isabel Rose, knew the vanity of that hope even as she tried to
+realize it.
+
+"You know what Mr. Gerard wishes to say to you, to-morrow?" she asked
+composedly. If the composure was overdone, it was the error of a novice
+in acting.
+
+The other girl shrank back.
+
+"Yes--I----"
+
+"Then, why do you not answer him? Surely, if you expected him to write
+this, you must answer him."
+
+"I will not!" Isabel cried loudly and rebelliously. "I will not go, I
+will not see him hurt like that and hear him, hear him----" she broke
+off, fighting for breath. "Tell him to go away. I can't help it now, I
+can't see him. It's all over!"
+
+This was the woman Allan Gerard had chosen, Flavia thought in bitter
+wonder; this self-centred, hysterical girl whose love could not survive
+the marring of her lover's outward beauty. Isabel could not bear to go
+to him; the irony of it sank deep into the girl who could scarcely bear
+to stay away. But Flavia turned to the mute Rupert, holding her dignity
+steadily above her pitiful confusion of mind, striving, also, to ease
+this blow to Gerard, who was so little fit to receive it.
+
+"Pray inform Mr. Gerard that Miss Rose is unwell and hardly able to
+answer his letter now," she directed. "I hope she will be able to
+accompany Mr. Corwin Rose, to-morrow morning, as he suggests."
+
+"No!" Isabel denied.
+
+"I'll report, Miss Rose," Rupert asserted with brevity.
+
+The keen black eyes and the deep-blue ones met, and read each other.
+Flavia took a step forward and held out her hand.
+
+"It is not probable that we shall meet again, ever. Thank you," she
+said.
+
+It would not have been possible to bribe Rupert into silence, but Flavia
+had done better. She knew, and the mechanician knew, as he touched her
+soft fingers, that he would keep to himself the knowledge that she had
+elevated to a confidence--the knowledge that she loved Allan Gerard, and
+was not loved in return.
+
+So it happened that when Rupert returned to the Westbury farmhouse, he
+literally repeated Flavia's dictated message and contributed nothing of
+additional information or detail--except that he made one dry comment
+before retiring for the night.
+
+"There's just one of the Rose family that ain't got any yellow streaks,"
+he volunteered.
+
+"Who?" was asked absently.
+
+The response to his letter had left Gerard paler than usual and very
+grave. He did not recognize in it the Flavia he knew; the girl who had
+watched her brother with such rich lavishness of affection, the girl
+whose most innocent eyes had held the possibilities of all Corrie's
+ardent young passion without his impulsive faults, and whose warmth of
+nature had drawn him as a fireside draws a wanderer. He would not doubt
+her for such slight cause, he would wait for morning and her further
+answer, but he felt a premonitory dread and discouragement. He had
+expected so much more than he would now admit to himself. He even had
+thought vaguely, unreasoningly eager as a wistful boy, that she might
+come to him with Corrie that evening, that he might see and touch her.
+
+"The lady you didn't write to," answered his mechanician. "Good night."
+
+The next morning Corrie Rose went to the little railway station, alone.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+GERARD'S MAN
+
+
+The hard, glittering macadam track that swept around the huge western
+factory of the Mercury Automobile Company and curved off behind a mass
+of autumn-gray woodland, was swarming with dingy, roaring, nakedly bare
+cars. The spluttering explosions from the unmuffled exhausts, the voices
+of the testers and their mechanics as they called back and forth, the
+monotonous tones of the man who distributed numbers for identification
+and heard reports from his force, all blended into the cheery
+eight-o'clock din of a commencing work-day. Three brawny,
+perspiration-streaked young fellows were engaged in loading bags of sand
+on the stripped cars about to start out, to supply the weight of the
+missing bodies, and whistling rag-time melodies to enliven their labors.
+
+In the shadow of one of the arched doorways Corrie Rose stood to watch
+the scene, drawing full, hungry breaths of the gasoline-scented,
+smoke-murked air. There was more than frost this December morning; ice
+glinted in the gutters and on the surface of buckets, the healthful
+lash of the wind flecked color into the men's faces as they pulled on
+heavy gloves and hooded caps. The spirit of the place was action; the
+lusty vigor of it tugged with kindred appeal at the inactive, wistful
+one who looked on.
+
+The heavy throb of the machinery-crowded building smothered the sound of
+steps; a touch was necessary to arouse the absorbed watcher.
+
+"You've been here for almost a week, Corrie. Don't you feel like getting
+to work?" queried Gerard's pleasant tones.
+
+The boy swung around eagerly.
+
+"Yes," he welcomed. "Give me something to do, anything."
+
+Gerard nodded, his amber eyes sweeping courtyard and track until,
+finding the man he sought, he lifted a summoning finger.
+
+"Have someone bring out my six-ninety, Rupert," he called across. "Right
+away." And to his companion, "Get into some warm things; you will find
+it cold, driving."
+
+Corrie stiffened, flushing painfully and catching his lip in his white
+teeth.
+
+"Gerard, you mean _me_ to drive?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I shall never drive a car again."
+
+"You will drive the six-ninety Mercury for six hours a day, every day,"
+Gerard corrected explicitly. "Until I get the big special racer built,
+and then you will drive it. You are going to work into the finest kind
+of training and drive until you can drive in your sleep. Too bad the
+winter is shutting in, but that will not stop you any more than it does
+the testers. In fact, driving in the snow is good practice."
+
+Helpless, Corrie looked at the other man, his violet-blue eyes almost
+black with repressed feeling.
+
+"Gerard, you must know how I want to; don't ask me! You know how I ache
+to get ahold of a wheel, but I've forfeited all that."
+
+"You have placed yourself in my factory, under my orders," Gerard
+stated, with curt finality. "While you are here you will do what I tell
+you to do, precisely as does every other worker; precisely as does
+Rupert, for example, who is really tester at the eastern plant and
+ordinarily works under its master, David French. I have decided to give
+you a branch of the work that I once planned to do myself and now
+cannot. Go into the office and put on your driving togs."
+
+"I ain't expecting to shove this ninety through a letter-slot,"
+remonstrated caustic accents from across the busy courtyard. "Move over,
+girls, you're crowding the aisles! Say, Norris, this ain't a joy-ride
+down Riverside Drive, it's a testing run; reverse over there and take
+about six more sachet-bags of mud-pie aboard where your tonneau ain't,
+before you start. Don't it hurt you bad to hurry like that, you
+fellows?"
+
+There was a drawing aside by the cars opposite a wide door, and the
+machine guided by Rupert rolled through, winding a devious course toward
+where its owner waited. Without a word, Corrie turned and went into the
+office.
+
+Gerard remained still, following with his gaze the approach of the
+beloved car he would drive no more, until it came to a halt before him.
+
+"If we're going out, I'll fetch my muff and veils," suggested the
+mechanician, leaning nearer.
+
+"Thanks, Rupert. I am going with Rose, myself, this first time. You can
+be ready this afternoon, though."
+
+Rupert's dark face twisted in a grimace, his black eyes narrowed.
+
+"We're laboring under some classy mistake," he dryly signified. "I was
+inviting myself to go with you. As for Rose, he and I won't perch on the
+same branch unless we get lynched together for horse stealing--and you
+know how I don't love a horse."
+
+The amusement underlying Gerard's expression rippled to the surface.
+
+"All right," he acquiesced. "Detail someone else. But, Rupert----"
+
+"Ma'am?"
+
+"I think you will race next spring as Corrie Rose's mechanician."
+
+Their glances encountered, equally cool and determined.
+
+"I'll take in washing with a Chinese partner, if you and Darling French
+throw me out," assured Rupert kindly. "Don't worry about my future like
+that."
+
+And he slipped across the levers out of his seat, eel-supple, as Corrie
+issued from the office.
+
+There was a mile loop of the perfect macadam track circling the factory
+buildings, then the way ran off into the country roads, inches deep with
+heavy sand, littered with ugly stones, rising over and pitching down
+steep grades where holes and mud-patches abounded. Over this the new
+Mercury cars were driven at top speed, each one reckoning many miles
+before the makers allowed them to be clothed with bodies and gleaming
+enamels and to be sent to the purchasers. No flaw escaped unnoticed, no
+weakness passed. Jaws set under their masks, keen eyes on the road and
+keen ears listening for the least false note in the tone-harmony of
+their machines, the sturdy testers drove through a day's work that would
+have prostrated the average motorist. Out among these men went Corrie
+Rose, more self-conscious than he had ever been on race track or course.
+
+"I never had a ninety before," he confided to Gerard, as they finished
+the mile circuit. "A sixty was my biggest. She's, she's a _beauty_!"
+
+The car slammed violently off the macadam onto the sand road, skidded in
+a half-circle and righted itself with a writhing jerk.
+
+"Mind your path," cautioned Gerard, in open mirth. "This isn't a motor
+parkway. Hello!"
+
+One of the smaller cars was coming towards them, limping back to the
+shops with a broken front spring. The man driving it touched his cap to
+Gerard as they passed, swinging one arm behind him in a significant
+gesture and shouting a warning concerning the bridge ahead. Corrie
+checked his speed, and barely skirted the deep washed-out hole that had
+caused the other machine's disaster.
+
+"There was rain yesterday and freezing weather last night," Gerard
+communicated, at his ear. "Now it is beginning to melt again and
+playing the mischief with the roads. There is a right-angle turn
+coming."
+
+Corrie nodded, fully occupied. His blood sang through his veins, his
+fingers gripped the steering-wheel lovingly; he was revelling in the
+speed exhilaration he had never expected to feel again. The driver who
+hoped for no such commutation of sentence watched him with quietly sad
+eyes; eyes in which no one ever was allowed to surprise their present
+expression, least of all Corrie Rose.
+
+Near noon a tire blew out. Gerard sat on the side of the Mercury and
+gave bits of ironical advice to the worker while Corrie changed a tire
+alone for the first time in his life. Corrie bore the teasing sweetly,
+even when a tool slipped and tore his cold-sensitized fingers.
+
+"I know," he deprecated. "Dean always did it and I just helped. I never
+did anything thoroughly; an amateur isn't a professional. We would have
+lost time by that in a road race."
+
+"You will learn. Rupert and I used to do it in two minutes from stop to
+restart," Gerard returned. "There--gather up your tools; we will go home
+to luncheon."
+
+"To the factory, first?"
+
+"No. Go slowly and I will show you a short cut."
+
+But Corrie was not in a mood to go slowly, so that they almost missed
+the driveway that branched from the macadam track to curve around into a
+park set thickly with fragrant cedars, central in which grove stood the
+quaintly stiff house of dark brick and stone.
+
+"Run around to the garage," Gerard directed. "Since you will want the
+car all the time, you might as well keep it here and use the short cut
+out to the road. I will get out here and go into the house."
+
+Corrie obediently bent to his levers.
+
+"All the time?" he repeated, with an indrawn breath of reluctant
+ecstasy. "All the time!"
+
+As Gerard turned to the house, a small figure advanced to meet him.
+
+"We've sent out a gang to massage some of the freckles defacing the
+speedway," Rupert informed him. "Briggs chugged in with a broken spring,
+Norris side-wiped a fence, and Phillips fell into a hole without
+publishing a notice, so that his mechanician got off over the bonnet and
+broke his collar-bone. That ain't testing cars, it's promoting funerals.
+It's easier to motor into heaven on that road than to drive a camel in
+New York. What?"
+
+"Yes, have it put in order, of course. I supposed that Mr. Dalton would
+attend to the matter, since I was out. Rupert, who is the
+sharpest-tongued, most cross-grained and least ceremonious mechanician
+we have?"
+
+"I am," was the prompt reply. "Were you wanting me?"
+
+Gerard looked at him and laughed.
+
+"You have ruled yourself off the list of eligibles," he declared. "I
+want a man to ride with Corrie Rose."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Rupert. His malicious, shrewd face gained
+comprehension. "_Oh!_ Well, I ain't boasting, but I could do that job up
+pretty fine. Failing me, Devlin is the nastiest thing on the place. You
+couldn't pat his head without pricking your fingers."
+
+"Very well. Tell him to report to Rose hereafter,--and do not tell him
+much else. Let all the men know that Rose is training to take my place
+in the racing work, but do not let them know anything about his
+millionaire father or his share in the Cup-race affair."
+
+Rupert directed his gaze towards the inert right arm hanging by Gerard's
+side.
+
+"Your place," he echoed. "Are you giving in without putting up a stiff
+fight?"
+
+Gerard's chin lifted, his eyes sprang to meet the sharp challenge of the
+mechanician's.
+
+"No. The fight will soon be on. Are you going to be my second in it?"
+
+"I'm guessing I'll be there when you look for me."
+
+Their eyes dwelt together for a long moment.
+
+"I should like the men to treat Rose as they do each other, so far as
+possible," Gerard casually resumed his original theme. "It will be good
+for him. He needs roughing!"
+
+Rupert ran his fingers through his crisp black locks, wheeling to
+depart.
+
+"He'll slip control and run wild," he predicted, grimly vicious. "He
+needs the training you're planning for him, all right, but he ain't got
+the stuff in him to stand it. He'll slip control--here's hoping he
+smashes himself this time!"
+
+Gerard moved his head in disagreement.
+
+"Wait," he advised. "You once said he could not last out a certain
+twenty-four-hour race."
+
+"He didn't."
+
+"He finished in third place."
+
+"Because you helped him through, that's why. He didn't have to do it
+alone."
+
+"He doesn't have to do this alone, either," reminded Gerard.
+
+Rupert looked at him, then walked away, every line of his body
+reiterating the prediction he could not sustain argumentatively.
+
+It was half an hour later that Corrie came into the room to join his
+host, carrying a letter in his hand.
+
+"It is from Flavia," he volunteered. "She promised to write as soon as
+they got across, but she did better; she wrote this on board the steamer
+so that it was all ready to send." He sat down in his place and rested
+his arms on the table in the boyish attitude so associated with the
+massively rich dining-room of his father's house and the light-hearted
+group who had gathered there. "It was like her to do better than her
+word,--she doesn't know how to do less. One, one can tie up to _her_."
+
+Gerard continued to gaze out the window opposite, his expression setting
+as if under a sudden exertion of self-control.
+
+"I--well, I was always fond of my sister, but one learns a good deal
+more of people when things go wrong than when they just run along right.
+She asks me about you, how you are now."
+
+"Miss Rose is too kind."
+
+Some quality in the brief acknowledgment compelled a pause. The once
+self-assertive Corrie had become acutely sensitive to any suggestion of
+rebuff or disapproval. He could not in any way divine this rebuke was
+not for him, or know of the bruise he innocently had touched.
+
+When the first course of the luncheon was served, Gerard came over to
+his seat and opened a new subject with his usual kindness of manner. It
+was a curious fact that, although Gerard had felt the awakening of love
+for Flavia Rose from his first glimpse of her, he never had aided Corrie
+for his sister's sake. Even when he had dragged himself from the
+overwhelming blackness of pain and the numbing effects of anæsthetics to
+defend the driver whose foul blow had struck him down, it was of Corrie
+alone he thought, not of Flavia, Corrie whom he had shielded from
+disgrace and open punishment. Man to man they had dealt together, no
+woman, however dear, entered between them. So when Flavia had seemed to
+fail her lover, again the separateness had held and Gerard never even
+imagined visiting her desertion on her brother. He had not resented
+Corrie's natural speech of her, now, but he could not listen to it; not
+yet.
+
+"You will find your regular mechanician waiting for you when you go out
+again," he observed. "You can learn much with him, if you choose,
+Corrie, although he is no Rupert. Take your machine where and how you
+please; it is all practice. I will see you again at dinner, unless you
+grow tired before then and would like to come up to the draughting-room
+to meet my chief engineer and designer."
+
+Corrie looked down, crumpling a fold of the table cloth between nervous
+fingers.
+
+"Gerard, do they know?" he asked, his voice low. "I mean, how you were
+hurt and what Rupert accuses me of?"
+
+"Certainly not. You are no one to them but my new driver."
+
+A still ruddier color tinged the young face, the fair head bent a little
+lower.
+
+"That is all I want to be, ever. Thank you, Gerard; I'll make good."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE MAKING GOOD
+
+
+Corrie did not slip control during the weeks that followed. There was no
+running wild to record. At first he used to come in from his driving
+reddened by more than the cold wind, and there were rumors current of
+certain vigorous word-duels between him and his sullen assistant,
+Devlin. But he never complained to Gerard or exhibited any smart of
+excoriated vanity. The testers accepted him as a little more than their
+equal, after watching him drive, and he gladly met their comradeship
+with his own. It was very easy to like Corrie; soon he was surrounded by
+friends.
+
+Only Jack Rupert never spoke to him. The thing was not done obtrusively,
+but it was done. He never openly slighted Corrie Rose or showed him
+discourtesy, he simply failed to come in contact with him. And Corrie
+tacitly accepted the situation, avoiding the inflexible mechanician, on
+his part. So winter shut in, with blizzards that frequently drove
+everyone off the roads until snow-ploughs and shovels had accomplished
+their work. Then Gerard would summon Corrie to the inside of the huge,
+reverberant factory, where amid its lesser brothers the Titan racing
+machine was slowly growing to completion; the Titan of Gerard's past
+speed-visions, the dream-planned car that was now for another's control.
+He taught, and Corrie learned hungrily.
+
+It was in February Corrie first noticed that Gerard and Rupert
+simultaneously disappeared for an hour and a half every morning. No one
+knew why, or had interested enough to speculate, it seemed. Gerard
+always sent Corrie off on some duty, at that time each day, and only
+accidental circumstances awoke the young driver's attention to a custom
+without an explanation.
+
+Of course, Corrie asked no questions. He was not temperamentally curious
+and he was well-bred. But, returning unexpectedly to the house, one
+morning in early March, he passed Rupert going out and realized himself
+encroaching on the tacitly established period of retirement. Sobered,
+half-doubtful of his course, he ran up the stairs, and in the upper hall
+came suddenly upon Gerard leaning against the wall.
+
+"Gerard!" Corrie exclaimed; goggles and gloves fell to the floor as he
+sprang to his friend. "Gerard, you're ill? Let me help you--lean on me!
+I'm strong enough to _carry_ you."
+
+"It is nothing," Gerard panted. "I tried to come after Rupert in too
+much of a hurry, that's all. I remembered something I had forgotten to
+tell him. What are you doing here? I sent you out."
+
+Once Corrie would have flashed hot retort to a reproof certainly
+undeserved, not now.
+
+"I am sorry; I didn't understand," he apologized. "You never said I
+_must_ stay out. Let me help you, get you something."
+
+"I know; I'm unreasonable!" Gerard straightened himself. "Never mind me,
+Corrie; I am all right now."
+
+He was white with a singular pallor that Corrie was too inexperienced to
+recognize, but he smiled reassurance to his assistant and himself led
+the way to the room opposite.
+
+"There is some dose in the glass on the table," he indicated, finding a
+chair. "I might drink it, if I had it here. And, don't you want to get
+me a cigarette?"
+
+In silence Corrie complied with the requests. Beside the slight,
+colorless Gerard, he radiated vigorous health and that scintillant
+freshness drawn from days passed in sunlight and sweet air, but his
+eyes at this moment held a desperate anxiety and unrest that left the
+advantage of contrast to his companion's clear tranquillity of regard.
+
+"You are getting worse," he declared abruptly. "There is no use of
+trying to spare my feelings, Gerard; instead of gaining, you are losing
+strength."
+
+"I beg your pardon; I am getting better," Gerard corrected with perfect
+assurance. He put aside his glass and leaned back in his chair. "You do
+not in the least know what you are talking about. Since you are here, we
+might get a bit of business done that I had meant to leave until you
+came in to luncheon. You understand that the formalities must be
+preserved; are you willing to sign one of our regular driver's
+contracts, to drive for the Mercury Company this year, and for no one
+else?"
+
+"I will do," said Corrie, "whatever you want. Is this the paper?"
+
+He took up a pen and, still standing, wrote his name across the foot of
+the document, the other man's attentive gaze following his movements.
+
+"Is that the way you sign legal papers, Corrie, without reading them?"
+
+The blue eyes gave the questioner one expressive glance.
+
+"You gave it to me," was the answer.
+
+Gerard contemplated him, then drew another printed sheet from a pile on
+the desk and pushed it across.
+
+"All right. I want you to sign this, too," he signified.
+
+As carelessly as before, Corrie set down his signature and turned away
+from the half-folded page.
+
+"I came back early because I had a letter from Flavia," he explained. "I
+wanted to answer it right away. She says that father doesn't intend to
+come home until autumn. I don't believe she likes it much, but of course
+she wouldn't tell him so. He has enough to stand."
+
+Gerard drew the two papers towards him and put them into a drawer. It is
+hard to be consistent; the temptation of seeing Corrie read Flavia's
+weekly letters had long since vanquished the resolution of the man whose
+love for her seemed to himself to illustrate that the economies of
+Nature do not include human passion. Corrie found a willing, if mute,
+listener to all confidences in regard to his sister.
+
+"She has never told Mr. Rose that you are with me?" Gerard asked,
+to-day.
+
+"No," he responded, surprised. "Oh no! She promised me that, the night
+before I left home."
+
+"Yet, living so close in thought with your father as she does, I should
+have fancied----"
+
+"That she couldn't help telling him? I don't know who started that story
+that women can't keep secrets." Corrie laughed mirthlessly. "From what I
+have seen, they can keep quiet a secret that would tear itself out of
+any man I ever met, if the wrench killed him."
+
+He unclasped the heavy fur coat he still wore and pushed it aside from
+his throat with an impatient air of oppression.
+
+"But Flavia could not hurt anyone, and she knows that would hurt me," he
+added, more gently.
+
+Flavia could not hurt anyone. Allan Gerard considered that statement,
+not so much in bitterness as in a wonder that made all life uncertain.
+He recalled the fountain arcade of rose-colored columns and delicate
+lights, the sweetly demure girl who waited there for her brother, and
+her last brief glance of virginal candor and innocently unconscious
+confession. Flavia could not hurt anyone. Yet she had dismissed the man
+who loved her, without even granting him the poor alms of courteous
+sympathy, had left him to learn her decision from her silence. Long
+since, he had decided that he had been condemned as the cause of her
+beloved brother's downfall, and now he again excused her hardness to
+himself as a result of her over-tenderness for Corrie. Either that, or
+he himself had somehow failed, in some way had been found lacking.
+
+He never did Flavia Rose so much wrong as to suppose her affected by the
+physical injury he had suffered. If she had loved him, no such change
+could have come between them. He knew that no marring of her beauty
+would have had effect upon his steadfast love for her, and he rated her
+far above himself in all good things.
+
+It was quite a quarter-hour before Gerard looked up and saw that Corrie
+had remained standing by the table in an abstraction complete as his
+own, lips pressed shut and straight brows contracted. Startled out of
+self-contemplation, the older man leaned forward to give his aid to a
+moment whose bitterness he divined.
+
+"Corrie, take off your furs and come to luncheon," he directed, crisply
+energetic. "You have got to take out the Titan for its first run, this
+afternoon."
+
+Effectively aroused, Corrie swung around.
+
+"The Titan?" he echoed. "To-day?"
+
+"Yes. Come on."
+
+In the thin, clear March sunshine, two hours later, the Mercury Titan
+rolled out onto the mile track, shaking earth and air with its roar and
+vibrant clamor. The force of testers and factory operatives crowded
+about, busy men found time to cluster at the buildings' doors and
+windows in keen interest.
+
+Opposite Gerard and his little staff, the men who had designed and
+evoked the winged monster, Corrie Rose was in his seat, flushed with
+excitement, but collected and at home in the powerful machine which he
+was to be the first to test and master. "Until you give it to its racing
+driver, let no one except me take it?" he had begged of Gerard. And
+Gerard had given the promise, smiling oddly.
+
+But if Corrie was eager for the start, his mechanician palpably was not.
+The place beside the driver remained vacant until the last moment, when
+the reluctant Devlin slowly climbed into it.
+
+"Devlin is nervous," Gerard gravely commented, to his own one-time
+mechanician. "He is a very good factory man, but this is too big work
+for him. If they were going on a longer trip, I should not like to send
+Corrie out with him."
+
+"I ain't denying anything," snapped Rupert, scowling after the departing
+car as it leaped for the open track like an animal unleashed.
+
+That first afternoon's trial of the Mercury Titan proved it much faster
+than either the track or road would stand. Also, Corrie Rose was proved
+fully capable of handling his wheeled projectile. When he came in, at
+dusk, the testers regarded him with unconcealed respect; there was
+genuine admiration mingled with the congratulations offered him by the
+car's designers. He had become, after Gerard, the most conspicuous man
+in the great automobile plant.
+
+Devlin crawled out of his seat and complained of nausea.
+
+On the third day of practice, when Corrie brought the car back to the
+factory at noon, Rupert suddenly walked up to him and broke the silence
+of months.
+
+"What's the matter with your fifth cylinder?" he demanded.
+
+Amazed, Corrie slipped off his mask and turned his fatigued face to the
+questioner.
+
+"I couldn't help it," he deprecated, quite humbly. "Devlin was too busy
+holding on to do much, and I was driving."
+
+Rupert darted a glance of blighting contempt at the sullen Devlin, and
+walked away.
+
+Gerard had not seen the episode, nor did it reach his ears. But he was
+chatting with Corrie, late on the same afternoon, when Rupert emerged
+from the factory and thrust an overcoat at the young driver who stood
+beside his car.
+
+"I ain't hanging out a diploma," he stated acridly, "but this ain't
+summer by some months and you're qualifying for a hospital--which I
+don't guess is what you were brought here for."
+
+"Thank you," faltered Corrie, and wonderingly put on the garment.
+
+Gerard continued to survey the machine before him, not a flicker
+crossing his expression or betraying consciousness of any unusual event.
+Rupert's swift look of blended defiance and embarrassment directed
+towards his chief glided off an impenetrable surface.
+
+Corrie followed with wistful eyes the mechanician's return to the
+building.
+
+"I knew a West Point fellow, once, who had been given the 'silence'
+treatment--I used to wonder why he minded so much," he laughed, apropos
+of nothing, but his voice caught.
+
+It was the first time Corrie had ever admitted knowledge of Rupert's
+ostracism of him, or revealed how deeply the hurt had been felt. Gerard
+laid a caressing hand on his shoulder, wisely saying nothing. After a
+moment Corrie grasped the Titan's steering-wheel and swung himself into
+his seat behind it, but paused before summoning Devlin to start the
+motor, and rewarded Gerard's tact by another impulsive confidence,
+spoken just audibly:
+
+"I miss my father all the time. I think I always will. And I would miss
+him most if he came home and I had to live along side of him. He--well,
+he stays in Europe. I'll put up the car for the night, if you're ready
+to have me; it's getting pretty dark to run any more."
+
+"The car is in your hands; put it where you please, when you please,"
+responded Gerard; that mark of trust seemed the only comfort he could
+offer, then; he was too fine not to ignore the other issues.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE TITAN'S DRIVER
+
+
+There was a letter for Corrie in the evening mail, next day. At least,
+there was an envelope containing a gaudy picture-postal. It was at this
+last that Corrie was gazing, when Gerard came to remind him that dinner
+waited, and of it he first spoke.
+
+"It's from Isabel. I--she need not have sent it!" He abruptly pushed the
+card across the table toward Gerard and turned away to complete his
+preparations.
+
+"A postal?"
+
+"Oh, yes. She used to be fond of writing long letters, but she has quit
+the habit. Flavia tells me she has not received but three postal-cards
+from Isabel since they parted, although they used to be such chums."
+
+"I am to read?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+The red and green landscape represented, libellously, the Natural Bridge
+of Virginia. Across the glazed surface ran a few blurred lines of
+script:
+
+      "Dear Corrie:
+          May I marry someone else, if I want to, or do you
+    say not?
+                                    I.R."
+
+Gerard laid down the card and regarded, troubled, his companion's
+straight shoulders and the back of his erect head, the only view
+afforded as Corrie stood before his mirror employing a pair of military
+brushes upon his unruly blond hair.
+
+"I did not know that the affair--that matters were so far arranged
+between you and your cousin," he said.
+
+He spoke with hesitation, uncertain of how to venture upon a subject
+never before broached between them, yet feeling speech tacitly invited.
+In the stress of his own suffering at the time following the accident,
+preoccupied by the witnessing of Corrie's hard punishment of dishonor
+and grief and his struggle to fall no lower under it, he had forgotten
+that the boy-man also had to bear the loss of the girl upon whom he had
+spent his first love. For it required no deep insight to recognize that
+Isabel Rose was not the type of woman who is a refuge in time of
+disaster.
+
+But the embarrassment was his alone; Corrie answered without confusion:
+
+"We were engaged, yes. But that is ended. She had no need to write. She
+might have known, or have taken it for granted."
+
+Gerard studied the view presented of his companion, striving to draw
+some conclusion from pose or tone. He had no mind to have his work of
+months marred and his driver distracted by an interlude of useless
+sentimentality; the temptation to congratulate Corrie upon his freedom
+from an unsuitable marriage was almost too strong. But what he actually
+said was quite different, and escaped from his lips without
+consideration of its effect.
+
+"I should not have supposed your cousin had so fine and strict a sense
+of honor."
+
+The oval brush slipped through Corrie's fingers and fell to the floor,
+rolling jerkily away with the light glinting on its silver mounting in a
+series of heliographic flashes. The owner stooped to recover it, groping
+for the conspicuous object as if the room were dark instead of flooded
+with the brightness of late afternoon.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. "What did you say? Her sense of
+honor----?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," Gerard promptly apologized, aware of worse than
+indiscretion. "I, really, Corrie, I hardly realized what I was saying.
+Certainly I did not mean that the way it sounded. I only intended to
+say----"
+
+What had he intended to say? What could he substitute for the spoken
+truth that would not wound the hearer either for himself or for the
+girl he loved?
+
+"I only meant," he recommenced, "that her asking your formal release
+showed a careful punctiliousness not common."
+
+Corrie had recovered his brush, now. He laid it on the chiffonier before
+answering.
+
+"How do we know what is common? What is honor, anyway; what other people
+see or what you are? I fancy she wouldn't have written if she hadn't
+been sure of what I'd say," he retorted, with the first cynicism Gerard
+ever had seen in him. "She likes me to take the responsibility, that's
+about all. Well, I've done it. Did you say I was keeping dinner
+waiting?"
+
+This of the once-adored Isabel! However much relief the older man felt,
+there came with it a sensation of shock and regret. Had Corrie lost so
+much of his youth, unsuspected by his daily companion? Where were the
+old illusions which should have blurred this sharp judgment? He made
+some brief reply, and presently they went downstairs.
+
+The dinner was rather a silent affair.
+
+"Do you want to drive me into town?" Gerard inquired, at its conclusion.
+"I find that I must see Carruthers before he leaves for the East, and
+he is stopping at the Hotel Marion. If you are tired, I will get my
+chauffeur."
+
+"I should like it," Corrie exclaimed, rising eagerly. "I'll get the car.
+Your car?"
+
+"I should think so. I am not exactly anxious to drive into town with
+your racing machine, although we have got to make fair time in order to
+catch him before his train leaves."
+
+Corrie laughed, turning away.
+
+"I'll make the time, all right," he promised. "Your roadster isn't so
+pretty slow, considering. I'll be at the door in three minutes."
+
+He was, driving hatless and without a motor-mask in the fresh spring
+air.
+
+"No overcoat?" Gerard disapproved. "What would Rupert say?"
+
+Corrie flushed like a complimented girl; that the mechanician should
+have admitted him to any intercourse, however cold and slight, moved him
+so deeply that even Gerard's allusion was too much.
+
+"I have it with me; I don't need it," he evaded hurriedly. "Ready?"
+
+"Ready."
+
+The car sprang forward.
+
+The yellow country road merged into macadam, the macadam into asphalt.
+They were in the city, presently, slowly rolling through streets filled
+with playing children who garnered the last daylight moments. On one
+corner a hand-organ was performing, and the group disporting itself to
+the flat, tinkling music broke apart to shout after the car, waving
+grimy hands.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Corrie!" one shrill voice came to the motorists.
+
+The driver lifted his hand in salute, glancing at his companion with a
+blended mischief and diffidence so delightful, so much like the old
+merry Corrie Rose, that Gerard laughed in sheer sympathy of pleasure.
+
+"They seem to know you, Corrie?"
+
+"They do. At least, what they call knowing me. You see, I blew out a
+tire here, on the way home after you sent me in to the postoffice, last
+week, and about three dozen kiddies gathered around to watch me change
+it. Bully little frogs; they nearly lost all the kit of tools trying to
+help me. And talk! So I--well, I gave them all a spin about the square,
+in blocks of as many as could hang on at a time, and I set up the ice
+creams all around. It seemed my treat. You don't mind? I suppose they
+_are_ full of germs and want washing, but I just remembered they were
+kids."
+
+"I certainly do not mind," Gerard assured. He wanted to say something
+more, but found his thoughts singularly inarticulate. There was a
+certain verse commencing with "Inasmuch----" that he would have quoted
+to Corrie, had they been of any blood but the reticent Saxon. "They
+remembered part of your name," he added instead.
+
+"That was all I told them. The Hotel Marion?"
+
+"Yes. Speed up all you dare, our time is short."
+
+The time was indeed short. As they came down the avenue, Gerard uttered
+an exclamation, catching sight of a man who descended the hotel steps
+toward a carriage.
+
+"Cross the street! There he goes. Quick, or we'll lose him! Cross over."
+
+He was promptly obeyed. The car shot across the street regardless of
+traffic rules, and was brought shuddering to a halt beside the left-hand
+curb. Gerard sprang out and went to join the man who had stopped beside
+the carriage to wait for his pursuer.
+
+Left in the car, Corrie took a leisurely survey of the street,
+preparatory to withdrawing from his illegal situation. But it was
+already too late. Even while he looked, a blue-garbed figure appeared
+around a corner, perceived the south-bound automobile beside the east
+curb and marched upon the offender.
+
+To some temperaments there is an undeniable exhilaration in conflict.
+Corrie puckered his lips to a soundless whistle, settled back in his
+seat, and waited.
+
+"What are you doing over here?" the officer challenged, arriving. "Don't
+you know how to drive? You're under arrest."
+
+"What for?" Corrie asked unmoved.
+
+"What for? How did you get a chauffeur's license? For driving on the
+wrong side of the street, of course."
+
+"I'm not driving."
+
+"Don't be funny, young fellow! For stopping on the wrong side, if you
+like it better, then."
+
+"I'm not stopping."
+
+"You----?"
+
+"I am stopped. You did not see me do it. I might have come out of one of
+those buildings, or have come up on one of those sidewalk elevators, for
+all you know. You can't arrest me for something you didn't see me do,
+man. You wouldn't if you could; I can see you have a sweet disposition."
+
+The officer stared, and took a more careful survey of his antagonist.
+
+"You're no chauffeur, I guess," he pronounced dryly.
+
+"Well, I've got a license."
+
+"That may be. Anyway, chauffeur or college student, you can't stay here
+with that machine."
+
+"You want me to leave? Certainly, officer, I always obey the law. Here
+comes my friend; I'll go now."
+
+The policeman's face relaxed into a sour smile, the nonsense snaring him
+into unwilling participation.
+
+"Do," he recommended. "The minute your wheels move, you will be driving
+on the wrong side of the street and I will pull you in."
+
+"When I drive on the wrong side of the street, go ahead and do it. Are
+you ready to start, Gerard?"
+
+Gerard, who had come up in time to hear enough, had interpretation been
+necessary, put an additional argument into the man's hand before
+entering the car.
+
+"My fault, Johnston," he stated, with the quiet serenity of one certain
+of his ground. "You know I am not a law-breaker, I fancy; this was a
+case of necessity."
+
+"It was your friend, Mr. Gerard----"
+
+Corrie reached for a lever, smiling ingenuously across as he interrupted
+to reply.
+
+"The rule says to keep to the right, officer?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, I am left-handed, that's all. Now look at this."
+
+This was the execution of a movement that sent the automobile rolling
+backwards.
+
+"You see, I go north on the east side," the driver called, while the
+machine slid away. "All right, yes? Nothing in the rules about which end
+first you drive your car? No? I thought not. Good-by."
+
+The car was at the corner, rounded it, and darted away in the customary
+method of straightforward progression.
+
+"But if this had been New York, I would be in jail," Corrie added placid
+commentary, when security was attained. "I know all about it; I was
+arrested in Manhattan, once, for driving without a license number
+displayed. The cords must have broken and have let the number-plate fall
+off. Much that policeman listened to me. He ordered Dean into the
+tonneau with Flavia, stepped up into the seat beside me and ordered me
+to drive to the nearest police station."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I drove. It cost me twenty-five dollars, a week later, and I had to
+'phone for the family lawyer with bail to keep me from spending that
+night in a cell. Father----"
+
+The stop was full. Gerard turned his attention to the street traffic,
+giving his companion liberty to evade continuing the theme. The evasion
+was not made.
+
+"Father," Corrie resumed, clearly and steadily, "gave me this diamond I
+wear, when I told him, so that I might always have something with me to
+give as a bond for reappearance instead of having to be locked up until
+I got help. He said one might be caught without one's pocketbook along,
+but not without one's ring. I have never taken it off since."
+
+There was a change in his tone that Gerard had heard before, and never
+had succeeded in analyzing; not the change from gayety to gravity,
+although that was present, but some more subtle alteration that stirred
+the hearer to a strange, illogical sense of discomfort and failure on
+his own part. The feeling was transient and most unreasonable;
+common-sense swept it aside almost as it was formed. He said nothing,
+nor did his companion speak again.
+
+The sunset glow and color were gone, but the delicate after-light still
+remained as a luminous presence in the land when the automobile entered
+the boundaries of the Mercury Company's property. There was a gate
+before the private road to Allan Gerard's house. When Corrie halted the
+car there and descended to open the way, a ragged, unsavory figure rose
+from the grass before him.
+
+"I'll open it, mister," the man volunteered. "Never mind it," as Corrie
+felt in his pocket for coin. "I want more than that. Forgotten me, have
+you?"
+
+Astonished, Corrie scrutinized him, seeking the recollection implied.
+
+"You're the man in the _Dear Me_!" he identified suddenly. "The man I
+threw overboard."
+
+"Ah! You're it." He drew nearer, blinking intelligence. "I served you a
+square turn for your grub and clothes, too. Get rid of your friend; you
+an' me has got to talk."
+
+Before the bearing of confident familiarity, the unclean personality and
+significant smile, Corrie slowly stiffened in rigid distaste.
+
+"What do you want to say to me?" he demanded curtly. "What do you mean
+by serving me a square turn? Speak out. There is nothing concerning me
+that my friend doesn't already know."
+
+The man projected his unshaven chin, cunningly interrogative. The
+intervening months had altered him, not pleasantly. The tramp of the
+_Dear Me_ had been unattractive; this man was repellent.
+
+"Is he on to what happened on the day before the last Cup race? Given
+him the inside story of that, have you? Or was he there?"
+
+The pause was not noticeably long.
+
+"He is Allan Gerard," said Corrie, his voice suppressed. "Say what you
+wish."
+
+"I saw you ridin' past without a hat on, a while ago, an' I knew you.
+Want? I want you to stand somethin' for me to live on, Mr. Rose, you
+bein' a millionaire. I was on the spot after the smash an' heard the
+talk an' saw your wrench picked up. You'd treated me right, so I just
+lifted a bunch of tools from one of the machines standin' empty, an'
+sprinkled them around that twelve-mile race track. The newspaper fellows
+found the things, too, an' kind of thought less of findin' the one where
+you smashed Mr. Gerard. One fellow help another, eh? No use of goin' to
+Sing Sing, neither."
+
+Corrie's movement was swiftly accurate and uncalculated as the leap of
+some enraged primitive creature. His ungloved fist struck with an impact
+sounding like the slap of an open hand, and flung the man crashing
+through the hedge of lilac-bushes to roll over and over on the ground,
+clutching blindly at the turf strewn with broken leaf-buds.
+
+"Corrie!" Gerard cried stern warning, too late, starting from his seat.
+
+Corrie swung about, his blue eyes blazing in his flushed face, his lips
+parted in a scarlet line across the white gleam of his set teeth.
+
+"If he comes near me again, I'll _kill_ him!" he panted savagely.
+
+"It seems to me you have done enough of that sort of thing, already,"
+Gerard retorted, equally angered.
+
+The biting reminder was not premeditated; it leaped out of brief wrath
+and all the aching memories stirred by the episode. But it was none the
+less effective. Gerard himself did not realize how effective until he
+saw all the color and animation wiped from the young face and saw Corrie
+put his hand across his eyes.
+
+"Corrie!" he exclaimed, cut deeply by his own cruelty, amazedly furious
+with himself. "Corrie----"
+
+Corrie had turned his back to him, not in offence, but as a woman would
+cover her face. He answered without moving.
+
+"It's--all right. I understand; it is--all right."
+
+Gerard left the car, more humiliated in his own sight than he ever had
+been in his life. For the moment his own lack of self-control loomed
+larger than Corrie's, past or present.
+
+"Corrie, I said what I did not mean," he appealed, laying his hand on
+the other's shoulder. "Forgive me. Don't take it like this!"
+
+Corrie slowly turned to him.
+
+"There isn't anything you can say to me, that I can complain of," he
+checked apology, quietly serious. "It is all right, of course. I--no one
+can understand just what it was like to hear him talk that way to me, no
+one can, ever. But I should not have struck him."
+
+The expression in his eyes as they encountered Gerard's was not of
+remorse or shame, or resentment, was not any mingling of these, but
+simply of utter loneliness patiently accepted. Gerard stood back in
+silence, helplessly aware of having inflicted a hurt no contrition could
+heal.
+
+The man was sitting up, dazed and bruised, his stupid gaze following his
+assailant. To him Corrie went, dragging forth a handful of paper money.
+
+"Keep away from me," the victor cautioned with harsh dislike. "I mean
+it. Here, take this and go. I'm giving it to you because I knocked you
+down and not because of anything you claim, understand."
+
+The man grasped the money eagerly, peering up with more admiration than
+sullenness.
+
+"You've got a good punch, mister," he conceded. "I'll get out. I
+wouldn't have come, only I thought you'd really done what they said,
+that time."
+
+Corrie drew back sharply, staring at the other. His right hand was cut
+and bleeding from the blow he had dealt, red drops trickled and fell as
+he stood, but he did not seem aware of the fact, either then or when he
+turned away to take his place at the steering-wheel. Gerard took the
+seat beside him without comment; he fancied he could imagine very
+exactly what Corrie Rose, gentleman, was enduring.
+
+But whatever Corrie had to endure then or at any time, he was quite
+masculine enough to hurry it out of sight. At the house, he turned to
+Gerard his usual matter-of-fact glance.
+
+"I will put the car in the garage and go over to the factory for a
+while," he said. "Mr. Edwards was going to examine that throttle which
+jarred open--on the Titan, I mean--so it would be ready for me to start
+early to-morrow. I told him I would be over, this evening."
+
+"As you like. But do not stay too long; the house is lonely without you.
+And, do something for that cut hand, Corrie, or it may make you
+trouble."
+
+They looked at each other.
+
+"Thank you," acknowledged the younger.
+
+The Titan was ready next morning, as due, and the early start was made.
+
+The great machine had run for several days without especial incident,
+but this morning Devlin's nervous incompetency manifested itself in a
+new direction. He forgot to fill the oil-tank of the car he served as
+mechanician, before Corrie took it out. One of the testers drove into
+the busy courtyard, about ten o'clock, shouting the information that the
+Titan was stuck eight miles out on the back road and Rose wanted the
+emergency car to bring him oil.
+
+Sardonic of eye, caustic of tongue, Rupert himself attended to the
+carrying out of the request and watched the rescuing car depart on its
+mission. Half an hour later the Titan rolled past, missing fire and
+running with a sound like a sick gatling gun. Bare-headed and without
+his mask, Corrie was driving with one hand and striving to aid his
+mechanician's efforts with the other, as they swept around the mile
+track. In gritting exasperation Rupert stared after them, then snatched
+up a red flag and ran to the edge of the road.
+
+Gerard, notified of trouble with the big car, arrived from his office in
+time to see the Titan halt, flagged, and the lightning strike Devlin.
+
+"Get out," snarled Rupert, his dark face black with scorn, swinging one
+small arm in a wide gesture. "I ain't had any explanation of what you're
+doing behind anything except a baby-carriage, and I don't want it. Get
+out and don't come back. Quick!"
+
+Dazed, Devlin obeyed. Rupert dragged open the motor's hood, busied
+himself for thirty seconds and crashed the metal cover shut again. As he
+flung himself into the seat beside the stupefied Corrie, he first caught
+sight of Gerard standing on the stone portal.
+
+"Better send someone to hold down the yard," he sharply advised. "I
+ain't going to be there. What?"
+
+Corrie had sufficient presence of tact to send the car forward without
+pause or comment, not daring to look at his new companion. But he
+gathered a jumbled view of Gerard's mirthful face and of Devlin standing
+sulkily at bay before his grinning mates.
+
+When the Mercury Titan returned from its morning's work, it was running
+with the velvet purr of a happy tiger, the flames from its exhausts
+shimmered in the violet tints of perfect mixture, and the indicating
+dial pointed to the fact that Corrie had found some stretch of road
+where he had passed the hundred mile an hour gait.
+
+"She's in exact shape," approved Gerard, who had come out to meet them.
+"Good work, Rupert."
+
+Rupert turned a hard dark eye upon him.
+
+"I ain't pining for this," he signified measuredly. "But there's
+something coming to any decent car, and this one's suffered cruel."
+
+Gerard nodded.
+
+"I have been wondering where I could find a mechanician fit to race with
+Corrie this season," he confided, nonchalantly serene.
+
+The double bombshell dealt full effect.
+
+"Well, rest yourself," urged Rupert tartly, leaving his seat. "I'll do
+it. I know I'm a liar, I guess, but that won't hurt my work none."
+
+"Race?" gasped Corrie. "Race? _I!_"
+
+One rebel vanquished utterly, Gerard surveyed the other, preparing for
+his first conflict with the new Corrie Rose he had himself created; the
+Corrie Rose who in his twentieth year was a full-grown man.
+
+"I have had you and the car entered for the Indianapolis meet, next
+month," he announced; "after that we are going to Georgia, then down to
+try the sea-beach along the Florida shore, where you can let out all
+the speed the machine has got. Of course you will race. What else have
+you been training for?"
+
+Corrie's full red lips closed, his blue eyes braved Gerard's.
+
+"I will not. Gerard, I cannot. To go back as the millionaire amateur of
+the pink car, to stand the toleration of the professional drivers, who
+cannot really handle their machines better than I can mine, to know that
+the story of how you were wrecked is being whispered after me--I'm not
+big enough to face it all! I might be challenged and sent off the track,
+for all I know."
+
+"You will not go back as an amateur," Gerard corrected. "You are entered
+and registered as a professional automobile racer, enrolled on the books
+of the A.M.A., under their protection and subject to their rules and
+authority for the future. You will find your certificate of the fact
+lying on your table. Yes, I did it without consulting you. You signed
+the necessary papers yourself, without reading them, and you cannot undo
+this without a formal resignation--unless you contrive to get yourself
+suspended."
+
+Corrie's fingers gripped the wheel, the varying expressions changing his
+face like storm-swept water, while the hunger of his gaze besought
+Gerard.
+
+"You--it's _true_? Gerard, you've done _that_ for me? They, the A.M.A.
+officers, they accepted me?"
+
+"Yes. Once for all, there are no whispers connecting you with my
+accident. That matter is dead. You go back to the racing as a recognized
+driver in the employ of the Mercury Company, I acting as your manager
+and Jack Rupert as your mechanician. Do you think it probable that
+anyone would credit the idea of trouble between us, Corrie?"
+
+"Give me a moment, or I'll lose the only honor I've kept," said Corrie
+Rose, and turned away his face. "I shall do whatever you bid me, of
+course."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+VAL DE ROSAS
+
+
+On the day that Corrie in his American home consented to drive the
+Mercury Titan through the racing season, Flavia and Mr. Rose arrived at
+the tiny Spanish village of Val de Rosas--arrived, not so much through
+design as through the bursting of a tire on their motor car.
+
+"It seems as if the name of the place might be one of our lost titles,"
+observed Mr. Rose idly. "And there is the castle to match, on the
+hillside. Come stroll through the town, my girl, while Lenoir repairs
+damages."
+
+Smiling, Flavia stepped down beside him, throwing back her silk veils
+and lifting her fair, almost too delicate face to the Andalusian
+sunshine. After her stepped a great dog, with the sedate,
+matter-of-course bearing of a constant attendant.
+
+"I wonder who lives in the castle," she responded to his mood of
+playfulness. "_Our_ castle. We should dispossess them."
+
+"Lets," proposed her father.
+
+There was an inn in the village, kept by a ravishingly plump landlord of
+sixty who wore a short velvet jacket. He informed the travellers that
+the diminutive white castle was not only vacant, but to let, being the
+property of a mad Englishman who had bought it to live in while writing
+a book, and having finished the book had departed. Mr. Rose regarded his
+daughter speculatively.
+
+"We have been going from one place to another for five months, and we
+have got to put in six more," he said with brief decisiveness. "I mean
+to stay on this side of the water until fall. Do you want to try living
+here for a while, or would you rather keep moving?"
+
+"Let us stay here," Flavia voted eagerly. "Dear, I am so tired of
+hotels."
+
+Mr. Rose studied her as she stood, slim and frail, before him, her large
+eyes fixed on his.
+
+"I guess we are tired of more than that, you and I," he pronounced. "But
+I'll run up and see if the place can be made fit to live in. You had
+better rest here, in the shade; Frederick will take care of you and
+Lenoir is within call. Here, señor, set a chair here under these trees."
+
+She moved to the seat placed for her by the deferential host, and
+watched her father's departure up the winding road. They were both
+thinking of Corrie, lacking whom all places were blank, with whom, in
+one winter's enthusiasm, they had studied this soft Spanish tongue they
+now used without him. They had planned a trip to Puerto Rico, then, that
+never had been taken. But Flavia also was thinking of Allan
+Gerard--Allan Gerard, who loved Isabel and for whose sake Flavia carried
+a double sorrow, his and her own. As he had found excuses in his mind
+for her apparent failure of him, so she on her part never had blamed him
+for what she considered her own misunderstanding of his purpose. They
+were not given to the small vice of ready condemnation. There is no
+comfort in blaming the one loved, where the love is great.
+
+A murmur of wondering dismay aroused Flavia from her musing, a sound
+scarcely louder than the murmur of the bees busied among the heavy
+waxen-white lemon-blossoms overhead. She lifted her chin from her hand,
+and saw a brown-haired, brown-skinned, brown-eyed girl standing on the
+path, gazing at the huge dog that barred her passage.
+
+"Pray do not be frightened," Flavia begged. "Come here, Frederick!
+Indeed, he is only a young dog and very gentle."
+
+"He is very large, señorita," the girl smiled, half-reassured,
+half-fearful. "He bites, no?"
+
+"No, indeed. See."
+
+"He loves the señorita. That does not surprise," with Latin grace of
+compliment.
+
+Flavia smiled, too, drawing the Great Dane's bulky head against her
+knee.
+
+"I love him, perhaps."
+
+"One sees it, since he voyages with the señores in that splendid
+automobile, where a man might find place with joy."
+
+A wistfulness in the comment moved the listener to give explanation,
+almost in apology for lavishing upon an animal what might have rejoiced
+a human being.
+
+"He is my brother's dog. But my brother went away, and the poor dog
+grieved for him all the time, except with me. I could not leave him to
+fret, without either of us, so he came abroad, too."
+
+"Across the ocean, señorita?"
+
+"Across the ocean. From America."
+
+The two young girls considered one another in a pause full of cordial
+sympathy. Different in race, station and experience, the bond of
+maidenhood drew them to each other with delicate lines of mutual
+comprehension and accord.
+
+"It is the dog's name which is on the great silver-and-leather collar,
+or the name of the señorita?"
+
+Flavia's small fair hand guided the plump brown one tracing the legend
+upon the massive band.
+
+"'_Federigo el Grande, que pertenece á Corwin Basil Rose, Long
+Island_,'" she translated.
+
+"Don Corwin--that does not say itself easily!"
+
+"We called him Corrie."
+
+"Ah, that I can say; Don Corrie."
+
+The soft household name sounded yet softer in the Andalusian accents.
+Flavia looked away, feeling her lips quiver.
+
+"Will you tell me your name?" she asked, by way of diversion. "Mine is
+Flavia Rose. Perhaps we shall see more of each other, if I stay here and
+you do also."
+
+"I am called Elvira Paredes, señorita. And I shall be here--I cannot go
+for so long, so long, perhaps never."
+
+Flavia leaned forward, her clear eyes questioning.
+
+"You want to go away? To leave this place for some other?"
+
+The confidence came with an outrush of feeling, a wealth of expression
+and expressive gestures.
+
+"Señorita, to join my betrothed. Ah, there never was one like him, so
+beautiful, so brave, so constant like the sun in rising! You cannot
+know. No one can know who has not seen it. And sing! Under my window he
+would sing until the birds would hush, hush to listen. I have no
+marriage-portion, I who am an orphan living with the sister of my
+mother's cousin. Not for that did Luis hesitate. But the time came when
+he must do military service; serve in Morocco, señorita, serve among
+savages who would torture him! And to come back poor as he went. So he
+left. Far away he journeyed, to New York, which is in America, to find
+peace and make a home."
+
+"Where you will go to him?"
+
+"Señorita, we hope it. He works, I wait. We write long letters. But it
+is three years. It costs much to cross the ocean, and one grows old."
+The brown eyes looked the tragedy of hope deferred.
+
+"For men must work and women must weep----" The old refrain came to
+Flavia. But not this woman, not if her American sister could prevent.
+And the preventing was so easy! She drew the girl down on the seat
+beside her, impulsive as Corrie could have been.
+
+"Listen, Elvira--I may call you Elvira? Let me help you. I have so much
+money, so much more than I can spend, and I am not very happy. Let me
+think that I have given you what I cannot have; let me send you to Luis.
+My father will tell us how, he will arrange everything so that you will
+not have to trouble at all. We will send a message to Luis so that he
+may meet you."
+
+"Señorita!"
+
+"You will let me? You will not say no? Why, Elvira!"
+
+The girl dropped her face in Flavia's lap and burst into hysterical
+tears, covering her hands with kisses.
+
+When Mr. Rose returned, half an hour later, this time in the big
+automobile whose rushing passage stirred whirlwinds of dust on the
+age-old road, his daughter met him eagerly.
+
+"Papa, I want to send Elvira Paredes to America, to her fiancée. She is a
+kinswoman of the inn-keeper, here. Will you arrange it for us? I think
+she would be frightened if you sent her by first-class, but second-class
+would be very nice. She knows how to go in the train to Malaga, if you
+get the ticket, and ships sail from there, do they not? Oh, and would
+you cable to Luis Cárdenas, in New York, so he will know she is coming?
+I will find the street and number from Elvira."
+
+His children long since had trained Mr. Rose to be surprised at no
+charming vagaries. He contemplated Flavia, amused, and well pleased with
+her animation.
+
+"Found something to play with, eh? Very good, we will fix it. But your
+Elvira will have to wait until I get an answer from her lover through
+the cable company; I'm sending no girls to New York without knowing
+they'll land in the right hands. Now, I believe that house up there will
+suit. We'll have some luncheon and then drive up for you to see it. I
+like the place, myself. It opens well."
+
+It opened well, if the happiness of Elvira Paredes was a good augury.
+
+"All the rest is from my father," Flavia said, in parting from her. "But
+take this from me, to wear or for a marriage portion, as you choose."
+
+The gift was a sapphire ring slipped from Flavia's slim finger.
+
+"It resembles the eyes of the señorita; may they always be as bright and
+clear," fervently returned Elvira, who was an Andalusian and therefore a
+poet.
+
+"That cost some money, when I bought it," Mr. Rose practically observed,
+from his seat in the motor-car. "Tell her not to flash it in New York,
+alone, if she wants to keep it. You can put that into classic Spanish
+for me, my girl."
+
+That was the beginning of an interlude whose placid monotony was
+tempered by much equally placid incident. The Americans liked the
+village, and the village rejoiced in the Americans, so that they came to
+know each other very well. More than once Flavia thought of the legend
+of Al-Mansor, and that if one of these days could be deemed happy enough
+to record by a pearl, the vase could be filled with the gem-chronicles,
+so much alike were the weeks.
+
+For the white castle on the hill kept its visitors, and so it happened
+that the summer most crowded and busy of any Corrie ever had known,
+slipped drowsily by in drowsy Val de Rosas for the two most interested
+in him.
+
+He never told Flavia what he was doing. The new Corrie Rose was more
+considerate than the self-centred thoughtlessness of youth had permitted
+the boy Corrie to be. He would have remembered her anxiety for his
+safety and dread of danger for him, of himself, but his silence was
+further impelled by Gerard, who had pointed out--in a few brief
+sentences that avoided Flavia's name--the responsibility she must feel
+in keeping such a secret from her father. But, because it was so
+difficult to write to his "Other Fellow" without telling her all,
+Corrie's letters came with greater intervals and were less in length.
+
+"I am still touring with Gerard," he wrote to Flavia, in the last note
+of his that came to Val de Rosas. "Don't mind if my letters come slower,
+please; I am pretty busy. I guess you will understand what it means to
+me when I can say that I am doing some work for Gerard and that he calls
+it good. I wish it cost me more to do. I hope father is well; you didn't
+say, last time. Keep on writing often, you know, it's the next thing to
+seeing you."
+
+He wrote that note the night after he broke a track record in
+California, wrote it on the chiffonier of the hotel bedroom while making
+ready to attend a motor club dinner at which he was to be chief guest in
+honor of the day's event. Four weeks later Flavia read it, under the
+flowering almond trees that surrounded the house so closely as to
+overhang the balcony on which she sat. Read it, then kissed the
+careless, boyish _Corwin B. Rose_ that slanted crookedly across the foot
+of the page. Holding the letter, she sat quite still.
+
+From the room within drifted the voices of Mr. Rose and the mild Father
+Bartolomé, between whom the last months had established a cordial basis
+of esteem. The village priest had dined with them; it was in deference
+to his presence that Flavia wore a gown whose lace collar came up to her
+round chin, and now had left the two gentlemen to after-dinner
+conversation instead of herself entertaining her father. She had the
+sense of being horribly alone; her longing for Corrie became physical
+pain, so that she crushed the letter in her fingers, catching her breath
+with difficulty. Close to one another they always had been, still closer
+together trouble had drawn them, but now half the world stretched its
+empty spaces between. The impulse that goaded her was to cry out to her
+father that she must see Corrie--to take her to him--yet she did not
+speak or move, resolute in endurance. To make that appeal to her father
+would be to separate Corrie from Allan Gerard, she knew, to bring her
+brother back to the atmosphere of constraint and reproach to escape
+which he had left the rose-colored Long Island villa they called home.
+
+"Taxes are taxes," Mr. Rose's raised accents set forth. "Governments
+have to be maintained. If the tax collector is due to-morrow, Val de
+Rosas has got to pay up."
+
+There was a murmured reply in the softer tones.
+
+"No money?" the American echoed. "I suppose I could guess that." There
+came the crisp sound of parting paper. "Now, if you will make a figure
+for the total, Father, I'll give you this check to pay for the whole
+thing. I've lived in this town five months, and I like the people--it's
+my treat. No, I haven't counted the chickens and measured the houses,
+but I can see the amount isn't exactly ruinous. Now, we won't talk any
+more about it; here you are."
+
+"Señor Rose," solemnly said the old man, with inexpressible dignity and
+authority,--Flavia heard him rise,--"this will be repaid by the One to
+Whom you lend through the poor--repaid to you, and to your daughter."
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"You might include my son in that; I've got one, you know," suggested
+Thomas Rose, carefully casual.
+
+Flavia covered her eyes, and the tears trickled through her slender
+fingers.
+
+When the moon was up and the pant of a distant motor announced that the
+guest was being conveyed to the village by Lenoir and the big
+automobile, Flavia went in to her father. Both of them maintained their
+usual composure, as they smiled at one another across the room, but the
+young girl's extreme pallor was not to be disguised when she came into
+the light. Mr. Rose looked at her, and continued to look.
+
+"You're not well, my girl," he asserted, concerned. "Never mind drawing
+that curtain; come over here. Don't you think it's time to tell me why
+you sent off Gerard? I know how hard it must have hit him, when he was
+down already, and I've felt sorry often enough, but a man has to take a
+woman's answer and I've said nothing. But I believed at home that you
+liked him, and I believe you have been fretting ever since."
+
+Flavia grasped the heavy curtain, gazing at him in an utter confusion of
+thought that amounted to actual giddiness.
+
+"I--I sent away Mr. Gerard?" she marvelled.
+
+"Who else? Or if you accepted him, why was I not told?"
+
+"Will you tell me what you mean?" she asked brokenly.
+
+"Mean? I mean that the last time I saw Allan Gerard alone, on the day I
+met you and Corrie driving home together, he asked my permission to
+propose to you. I rather guess that hour with him didn't make me very
+easy on Corrie, although I was given no cause to be otherwise by Gerard.
+Gerard said frankly that he wouldn't have offered you such a wreck as he
+felt himself, much as he loved you, if he had not gone so far before he
+was hurt that he had no right to leave in silence. He said that as a
+matter of honorable justice he must lay the decision before you and
+abide by your will. Very quiet, he was--I told him that I would rather
+give you to him than to any other man on earth, and I meant it."
+
+The room blurred before Flavia's dilated eyes.
+
+"You never told me! Papa, you never told me!"
+
+The passionate cry of grief brought Mr. Rose to his feet.
+
+"Told you? Gerard was to tell you. I wanted to carry him home with me
+that afternoon, but he refused. In fact, he was not fit, nor I either,
+to stand any more sentiment just then. He said he would write and ask
+you to see him, if you cared to have him speak or come back at all. That
+trip West he had to take. Didn't he write?"
+
+She saw the softly-lighted little room at home where Jack Rupert had
+come to her, and Isabel's suffused, desperate face as she snatched the
+letter from its owner. And as a pendant picture she saw the bleak,
+solitary railway station in the gray December morning, where Gerard, ill
+and reft of his splendid strength, had waited alone for the girl who did
+not come.
+
+Mr. Rose reached her as she swayed forward.
+
+"Take me home," she gasped, clinging to him with small fierce hands. "I
+never knew. Dear, take me home."
+
+The next morning they left Val de Rosas.
+
+It is a long journey from Andalusia to New York. But it was on the
+morning they boarded the ocean liner that Mr. Rose purchased a New York
+journal--and met a news item that gave him material for thought during
+the rest of the trip. The item was on the sporting page, and stated that
+the Cup race course was now open for practice; among the first of the
+cars to commence training being the Mercury Titan, driven by Corrie
+Rose--one of the cleverest young professionals in America, whose work
+with the Mercury Company's special racing machine had given the greatest
+satisfaction to its owner and designer, Mr. Allan Gerard.
+
+There was no longer any cause for concealment. When Mr. Rose carried the
+journal to Flavia, she told him quite simply to whom Corrie had gone in
+his exile and what she knew of his life with Gerard. Of his racing she
+herself had been left ignorant; she could guess whose forgiving
+tenderness had spared her that anxiety.
+
+"You are not angry with Corrie," she ventured, before her father's knit
+brow and squared jaw. "You did not forbid him to race or he would not
+have done so, I am sure."
+
+"No, I did not. I didn't think I had to," was the dry response. "Angry?
+He and I are past that. The days are gone when we used to have our
+differences and shake hands on them. We'll get along together quietly
+enough, I dare say."
+
+"Now, I would rather you said you were angry," she grieved.
+
+Thomas Rose thrust his hands into his pockets, looking down at the
+newspaper page. He had altered during the last year in a way difficult
+to characterize. It was not that he looked older or more hard, there was
+no bitterness in the strong face, but he looked like a man who stood in
+the shadow instead of in the sun.
+
+"So would Corrie, I fancy," he said heavily.
+
+Corrie's sister folded her hands in her lap.
+
+"Is there no chance if one falls once?" she rebelled in futile reproach.
+"He was so young, he has suffered so much--can he never pay?"
+
+"I'm not much of a reader, as a rule, but I did a good deal of it at Val
+de Rosas, this summer," Mr. Rose slowly returned. "And a line from an
+Englishman's work stuck in my memory. He said that tears can wash out
+guilt, but not shame. I can give Corrie all I've got, I have always been
+fond of him and I am yet, but I can't give him my respect. It was a
+shameful thing to strike down an unprepared man from behind, because he
+was losing in a game. Some things can't be paid for, because they are
+not bought and sold. Of course he will have every chance possible. He
+isn't what I supposed; well, there is no use of complaining, we will
+make the best of what he is. I sent him away while we settled down to
+living on the new basis; I guess we are as ready to go on, now, as we
+ever will be."
+
+"If he heard you say that, I think he would die," she stated her
+hopeless conviction.
+
+"People don't die so easily, my girl. I tell you he and I will get along
+well enough. Pass me those books over there."
+
+Flavia obeyed, having no words. Mr. Rose sat down and compared the date
+of the steamer's probable arrival with that of the Cup race.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE STRENGTH OF TEN
+
+
+It had required more than eloquence or tact, it had required actual
+compulsion to bring Corrie Rose back to race at Long Island. All his
+successful work, all the cordiality that met him wherever he went, and
+the temptation to essay new conquest, failed to overcome his repugnance.
+But he could not defy Gerard.
+
+"I don't see how _you_ can bear to look at the place," he had flung, in
+his final defeat.
+
+"My dear Corrie, I am not any further from that here than there," Gerard
+had quietly replied.
+
+Corrie understood, and submitted dumbly thereafter. And, in spite of
+himself, his first day's practice on the course swept everything aside
+except eager exhilaration. He was too superbly healthy for morbidity,
+too masculine for continuous dwelling in memories; if Gerard had not
+been very certain of that fact, he would never have brought his ward
+there. When Corrie was driving, Corrie was happy. He drove with a sober
+intensity of devotion, his passion was serious, whereas Gerard had raced
+fire-ardent and won or lost laughing.
+
+There was a small hotel near the course which the motor-men had made a
+rendezvous. Here Gerard established his party, during the two weeks of
+practice work. He did not choose to have Corrie in New York, although
+Rupert chafed and he himself was obliged to go in to the city
+frequently, at considerable inconvenience.
+
+On the last afternoon before the race, he returned from such a trip, and
+arrived before the hotel just as Corrie rolled up with the Mercury Titan
+and halted it opposite him.
+
+"It's five o'clock," the driver explained, stilling his roaring motor
+and leaning out. "Everyone is coming in, to get ready for to-morrow."
+
+There was little trace left of the petulant, gaudily dressed boy who a
+year before had driven the pink car, in this serious young professional
+clad in the Mercury's racing gray and bearing the Mercury's silver
+insignia on his shoulder. The bend of his mouth was firmer, his
+dark-blue eyes had acquired the steady, all-embracing keenness of
+Gerard's--the gaze of all those men with whom the inopportune flicker of
+an eyelid may mean destruction. He was clothed with his virile youth as
+with a radiant garment, as he smiled across at Gerard.
+
+"Yes, get some rest; you will be out at dawn," approved Gerard, coming
+closer. "Where is Rupert? What is the matter, Corrie? You look
+disturbed."
+
+"Rupert got off at the corner, back there. I suppose if I look rattled,
+that _he_ is what is the matter. He----" Corrie suddenly dropped his
+face in his folded arms as they rested upon the steering-wheel, his
+shoulders shaking.
+
+"He? How? He has been talking to you?"
+
+"He sure has been talking to me," Corrie affirmed, lifting his
+laughter-flushed face. "When I think that he once gave me the silence
+treatment! His tongue would take the starch out of a Chinese laundry and
+make a taxicab chauffeur feel he couldn't drive."
+
+"You do not let him talk to you when you are driving!"
+
+"Oh, when I am driving he is the perfect mechanician. He wouldn't open
+his lips if I hit a right-angle turn at ninety miles an hour or disobey
+if I told him to climb out and cut the tires off the rear wheels. No, it
+is when I am not officially driving that he gives me some remarks to
+study about. Good pointers, too! I like it, really. I only wish," his
+expression shadowed abruptly, "I only wish I didn't have to remember
+that nothing could bring him to shake hands with me."
+
+"Corrie----"
+
+"I know--I beg your pardon for speaking of that to you. But, Gerard," he
+bent to grasp a lever, "I'd take what you got last year, I'd consent to
+be picked up dead from under my car to-morrow, if I could that way buy
+one hour to stand clean before you and Jack Rupert. That's all--don't
+think I want to flinch, please. If you will go on in, I'll put this
+machine away and be back to dinner in fifteen minutes. I see Rupert
+coming to help me, now. We're starved to death and some tired. By the
+way, George shouted over to me that he would be in as soon as he got the
+Duplex canned for the night, and to order a few dozen eggs and a couple
+of hams fried for him. Would you attend to it on your way in?"
+
+"I surely would," Gerard answered, the great gentleness of his tone
+mating oddly with the light words. "What do you want ordered for
+yourself?"
+
+"Anything, and plenty of it."
+
+Gerard did not smile as he went into the building. He too would have
+given much to spare Corrie Rose the memory of that October morning's
+fault. From all punishment except that memory he had sheltered him,
+further aid no one could give. But because he loved Corrie, he climbed
+the hotel stairs in slow abstraction and failed to perceive the
+limousine that came up before the Mercury Titan, and stopped.
+
+He was standing by a table in the empty parlor of the hotel, when the
+door opened, and closed. Thinking some other guest had entered, he did
+not turn from the letters he was reading, nor was there any further
+movement or demand upon his attention. That which slowly invaded his
+consciousness was a summons more delicate than sound, a faint,
+distinctive flower-fragrance that proclaimed one individual presence.
+Flavia Rose was in the room; he knew it before he swung around and saw
+her standing there.
+
+The shock that leaped along his pulses was less of hope than of renewed
+pain.
+
+"Miss Rose!" he exclaimed.
+
+She moved a little forward. Against her dark velvet gown, under her wide
+velvet hat, her soft, earnest face showed whitely lustrous and
+irradiated, her beautiful eyes dwelt on his.
+
+"I never knew," she said, her clear voice like rippled water. "Your
+letter, the night before you went away, never came to me. I never knew
+you had sent for me, until last month."
+
+The movement that brought Gerard across the room was as nakedly
+passionate as the incoherent simplicity of her speech.
+
+"You never knew? Flavia, you would have come?"
+
+"I would have come; I wanted to come long before, while you were so
+ill----"
+
+They had waited a year on the verge of that moment; it was enough to
+touch one another in this security of understanding. There was no
+question between them, no doubt, now that they saw each other face to
+face; all their world flowered into light and fragrance, present and
+future one dazzling marvel.
+
+But at last they drew slightly apart, gazing at each other with an
+incredulity of such happiness, both Flavia's little hands held in the
+firm clasp of Gerard's left. And then gradually awoke amazement that
+they could ever have been separated, who were so closely bound together.
+
+"My dear, my dear, you knew I loved you," he wondered. "How did this
+happen to us?"
+
+"How could I know? You had never said it."
+
+"Did I need to? I thought the very stones in the fountain arcade must
+have seen it. And I trusted Rupert with the letter; he said he had given
+it to you, he even brought an answer."
+
+"Do not blame him," she quickly defended. "He told you that he had given
+it to Miss Rose; he meant to Isabel, who claimed it."
+
+"Your cousin? What had I to do with her? Why should I have written to
+her? Have written _that_, Flavia!"
+
+The tears rushed to her eyes.
+
+"Your letter--Allan, if I had known that message was for me, I would
+have gone back with Rupert to you that evening. But Isabel took it, for
+some reason she expected a message from you, that night. I have not been
+able to understand that, although I have tried ever since papa told me,
+last month, that it was I whom you chose. She spoke of something Corrie
+had said. I--I think she believed you did care for her more seriously
+than she had meant you should. She was so very sure the letter was for
+her--and you did not call me Flavia once."
+
+"I had no right, I dared not. Dear, I had had a bad month; I did not
+remember that any Miss Rose but you existed. I used to close my eyes,
+when things were worst, and see your eyes against the dark. There were
+days when I did not see much else. But they were not so bad, no day ever
+was so bad as the morning Corrie came to the station without you.
+Forgive me, I hurt you!"
+
+She shook her fair head, wordless. Quiet from the very vehemence of
+feeling that possessed them both, Gerard stooped and kissed her.
+
+"Will you marry me soon, Flavia? After this race, when Corrie can be
+with us? Let us waste no more time apart; I have wanted you so long, so
+very long."
+
+The lovely color flushed her transparent face, but her fingers clung to
+his.
+
+"All the way home from Spain, I have been remembering that I really was
+betrothed to you this whole year," she answered, not turning from him
+the innocent candor of her clear gaze. "Before that, before I knew the
+truth, I used to think how strange a thing it would have been if you had
+died in the accident and I had lived all the rest of my life believing
+myself promised to you, when in fact you had loved Isabel, not me. I
+used to think, often, of that first day when I fell on the stairs at the
+Beach race track--when you caught me and held me close to you--and how
+you would never again hold me like that or miss not doing so. I am quite
+sure that no one ever was wanted so much as I have wanted you. It may
+not be right to tell this even to you, but it is true. And I will marry
+you whenever you ask, Allan."
+
+Allan Gerard, man of the practical world and the twentieth century, went
+to his knee on the floor of the hotel parlor and hid his face against
+her hand.
+
+The room was rosy with the glow of sunset, when someone discreetly
+knocked. In response to Gerard's invitation to enter, the door opened
+and revealed the wiry, jersey-clad form of Rupert on the threshold.
+Grimy yet from his recent employment, he was engaged in deftly winding a
+strip of antiseptic gauze around his wrist while he spoke.
+
+"I ain't one to invite li'l' Artha' Brownskin to meet the A.M.A. on
+Sunday," he began discontentedly, and broke off at sight of Flavia.
+
+"I don't need to introduce you to Miss Rose," smiled Gerard. "What have
+you done to your wrist? Much?"
+
+"Scratched it threading my sewing-machine; I'll be able to sit up in bed
+to-morrow," reassured the mechanician, his acute black eyes travelling
+from the young girl to his chief. "I didn't mean to run into this camp
+without being signalled. As I was saying, I ain't one to promote
+trouble, but there's a gentleman downstairs who's calling off our race."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Mr. Rose is explaining to our driver that he ain't fit to be allowed on
+a race course. And no one's opposing his remarks any."
+
+Gerard divined the situation.
+
+"Go down," Flavia begged, as he turned to her. "I have been selfish to
+keep you here; I might have known! But I saw Corrie just for a moment,
+then father sent me to you. Go to Corrie; Mr. Rupert will bring me."
+
+"I can guess that I'm a fierce bad postman," Rupert dryly acknowledged.
+"But I ain't likely to confuse ladies on the way downstairs. You're sure
+needed below."
+
+In the empty paved space before the hotel, the Mercury Titan still
+reposed its massive bulk, with its driver in his seat, his fair head
+uncovered in the pink-and-gold light and his face turned to the man who
+stood beside the car. There was neither heat nor resentment in either
+Mr. Rose's expression or his son's as the older man came over to shake
+hands with Gerard. Corrie did not move; his left arm was thrown about
+the neck of the huge dog reared up beside him against the machine.
+
+"I'm glad to see you looking so well," Mr. Rose briefly greeted. "I have
+been talking to Corrie, here, while we waited for you, Gerard, but this
+thing won't do."
+
+"What won't do, Mr. Rose?" Gerard questioned, equally matter-of-fact.
+
+"You know, and Corrie knows. I appreciate the way you have stood by him
+and the way he has kept to his work--I'm proud of it--but this isn't a
+question of how any of us three feel. I am sorry to hurt him, but we
+have got to face facts. A man who loses his temper is not fit for
+certain places; a race track is one."
+
+"The Corrie Rose whom I know and who trained under me is fit for any
+place," Gerard gravely maintained. The work of months was on the verge
+of loss; he gauged very exactly what this sentence would result in for
+Flavia's brother.
+
+Mr. Rose glanced towards his son; if his powerful, square-cut face was
+inflexible, it was without hardness.
+
+"Gerard, I am sorry," he repeated. "It's like you to overlook what
+happened to yourself and try him again; he and I have got more to
+consider and to be responsible for. He might race straight for years,
+yes, forever; but his temper might slip him to-morrow. I know he means
+right, but it can't be chanced. I'll risk seeing no more men picked up
+as you were. Corrie, whenever I've said must--that hasn't been
+often--you've answered. I think you will now. Get off that machine and
+come home with me, my boy; we will try a fresh start, you and I."
+
+Corrie stirred slightly; even his lips were gray and dark circles
+appeared suddenly stamped beneath his eyes. He offered no defence or
+demur, but before his movement could spell obedience Gerard had sprung
+across the intervening space and dropped his left hand on the driver's
+arm, forcing him to retain his seat.
+
+"Stay there," he commanded curtly. "You are my employee, under contract
+to drive my cars this season; if you break your signed agreement I will
+bring you up before the A.M.A. board and have you suspended for
+unprofessional conduct."
+
+Corrie gasped as from a dash of cold water in the face, the rough tonic
+effectually bringing him out of his daze of habitual submission.
+
+"Mr. Rose, this is not sentiment, but business," Gerard continued in his
+usual tone. "Corrie is not racing to-morrow for the first time, or for
+the fifth or sixth, this season. He is the cordially liked and respected
+comrade of his fellow-drivers--there is not one who would not laugh in
+your face at the idea of fearing to have him among them. I tell you, for
+the rest, that any other man on the course might let his nerves trick
+his self-control; Corrie Rose never will. I know him, now, better than
+you yet can. But," he snatched a rapid survey of Corrie, then lifted
+his hand from the other's arm and drew back, "he is not a child; let
+him decide."
+
+"Corrie----" his father recommenced, his voice choked.
+
+But Corrie had found himself. He laid one firm, gauntleted hand on the
+beloved steering-wheel and turned to Mr. Rose the serious countenance
+and steadfast eyes of the new Corrie of the Mercury's making. With the
+other hand he pressed the dog's great head closer to him; perhaps only
+Allan Gerard saw and translated the pathos of that unconscious gesture.
+
+"I would do anything else, sir," he stated simply. "But Gerard has
+stayed by me through the worst time I will ever have. I know--you gave
+me money; but he helped me _live_. Afterward I will do whatever you bid
+me, now I cannot leave him without a driver on the eve of a race. All
+the more," his speaking glance went to Gerard, "all the more I must
+stay, because he would rather hold me strictly to a business contract
+than remind me that I owe him anything or that it is through me that he
+is not driving this car himself."
+
+There was a moment of absolute silence. Then the rustle of soft garments
+came with Flavia's swift crossing from the doorway where she and Rupert
+had witnessed the contest. Straight to the side of the gray machine she
+went, and clasping her little hands over her brother's arm, raised to
+him the high trust and unchanging love of her regard.
+
+"Dearest, I hope you win, to-morrow," she said bravely and sweetly. "But
+kiss me, Corrie, and come home afterward. We need you, papa and I--and
+Allan."
+
+"Other Fellow," he thanked her, under his breath, and leaned down to
+give the caress.
+
+Gerard and Mr. Rose were looking at each other.
+
+"You win," conceded the older man, without rancor. "I hope we are not
+sorry. Bring him to the house after you get through, to-morrow, I guess
+we'll be a family party."
+
+The snorting uproar of an arriving racing car crashed across reply.
+
+"Hey, Rosie, did you rope those hams and eggs?" blithely shouted the
+masked driver, checking his machine. "If you didn't, I'll hook a wheel
+off your cart to-morrow when I pass you. Why haven't you canned your car
+yet? Oh, excuse _me_!" perceiving Flavia.
+
+"I roped them, George," assured Corrie. "I'm coming in, now."
+
+Rupert advanced to the front of the Mercury.
+
+"You're giving orders," he signified to his driver. "Do I crank?"
+
+The slight episode was the fitting period to Gerard's argument; he gave
+Mr. Rose his fine, cool smile to point it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frederick the Great did not go home to the pink villa. Not even Flavia
+could win him from the master he had refound. So it happened that when
+Gerard went to Corrie, after midnight, he discovered his driver seated
+beside an open window in the drab, cheerless hotel bedroom, his arms
+folded on the sill and the dog's head resting on his knee.
+
+"Corrie, do you know it is past twelve o'clock?" he exclaimed, purposely
+authoritative in spite of his aching pity. "I saw the light over your
+door and came in to give you what Rupert describes as a calling down.
+How do you expect to be up fresh and fit for a race at dawn? You go to
+bed, young man, where I sent you two good hours ago."
+
+"I am going," Corrie replied, without turning. "I'm--all right.
+Gerard----"
+
+The pause was so long that Gerard came quietly over and put his hand on
+the other's shoulder, waiting.
+
+"Gerard, do you remember what Rupert once said, in the yacht club where
+we fed the tramp, about my getting just what I earned and that no luck
+would soften my brick walls? And I said I was content because I meant to
+earn what I wanted. I didn't know what I was talking about, but he was
+right. I'm not complaining, you know; it's fair enough. No, don't answer
+yet; that isn't what I meant to say."
+
+The dog moved restlessly and whined, nestling closer to the master he
+loved. Corrie dropped a hand to the animal's neck.
+
+"This good old chap and I will go to bed, presently. We've got to win,
+to-morrow; it's the last time. Gerard, did you ever read a poem Flavia
+and I used to like, I wonder? About a man having the strength of ten,
+because his heart was clean? Do you believe it--I mean, that a man can
+stand more if he knows he is right inside than if, if he could not think
+that?"
+
+"Corrie, yes, I do believe it. But there are few stainless Galahads.
+Strength and rightness do not depend on the past, but the present. The
+finest strength I have seen, has been in men who, who----"
+
+The intended conclusion died on his lips, before he found words to
+soften its intrinsically harsh implication. Corrie had turned to him a
+glance so clear, a face so startling in its white resolution and dignity
+of fearless candor, that Gerard drew back with a sensation of rebuked
+presumptuousness. What he had offered as a consolation suddenly loomed
+as an insult.
+
+"Thank you," said Corrie, quite simply. "You're awfully good to me,
+Gerard. I don't know why I said all that--I, I guess something slipped.
+Good night; Fred and I will get some sleep. It's a short night,
+anyhow."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE WHITE ROAD OF HONOR
+
+
+The ruddy dawn that flushed along the edge of the east illuminated a
+vast, waiting multitude. For its twelve miles of twisted length, the
+narrow ribbon of the Cup course was walled in on either side by the
+massed people and uncounted hundreds of automobiles. The neighboring
+States, the great cities of New York and Jersey, the countrysides far
+and near had emptied their motor-car enthusiasts and sport lovers into
+this strip of Long Island, for to-day. Laughing, eating picnic
+breakfasts, laying wagers and preparing score-cards, the crowd swayed
+tiptoe on the keen edge of expectancy; while up and down the course
+drove and pushed the hurrying hundreds who had not yet found
+satisfactory place.
+
+As the dawn brightened into full, golden October day, the crush became
+greater, the haste and anticipation more intense. When a spluttering
+roar announced one of the arriving racers, the press would open,
+cheering, to leave his car passage and close in behind him with
+boisterous comment and criticism.
+
+"That was the six Atlanta, Louis driving, wasn't it, Dick?"
+
+"Rub your eyes, you're asleep yet--that was the Mercury, Rose up. Can't
+you tell a peach from a lemon? Quit shoving, there!"
+
+"Bet you ten a foreign car wins."
+
+"Take you. It'll be the Bluette or the Mercury. Get back, here comes
+another. They start in twenty minutes."
+
+Opposite the grand-stand the excitement was greatest, but most orderly.
+Around the row of repair pits men ran in and out, hovering about their
+cars with solicitous final attentions and eager encouragement to the
+smiling drivers. The first machine was already at the starting-line,
+ready as an arrow on the cord, its pilot smoking a cigarette and
+chatting indolently with the official starter.
+
+"I drew second for you, last night," Gerard reminded his driver, leaning
+against the Mercury to look up at him. "Of course, you have your numbers
+on. You will have to get into line in a moment; don't you want to get
+out and move about, first? You are going to have six or seven hours'
+grind."
+
+"I'm rested best right here," responded Corrie placidly. He nestled
+himself more snugly into his seat and proceeded to fasten on the mask
+and hood that quenched his blond youth into kinship of blank identity
+with every other driver on the course. "The crowd is pretty thick; I
+hope they get the people off."
+
+"The police are clearing the way, now. Corrie----"
+
+The thunderous voice of the car from the next camp interrupted speech as
+it went past them.
+
+"Good luck, Rosie! I'll leave your rear wheels alone," shouted its
+driver. "By-by, Allan."
+
+"If he's worried bad about his, I'll lend him a safety-pin from my
+shirtwaist," drawled Rupert, lounging up, hooking his own mask. "I ain't
+muck-raking, but he broke his rear axle at Indianapolis, last month, and
+lost two wheels."
+
+"Corrie," Gerard pursued, "you are to bring yourself back safely. I do
+not want any victories at the price of your wreck. Remember that I am
+responsible for your being at this work, and remember Flavia."
+
+"If I wreck my car there won't be _any_ victory," Corrie practically
+returned. "Besides, I have got Rupert with me to be looked after; if I
+were making a speed dash by myself I might take a chance or two. You
+never let me out alone. It's all right. They are signalling."
+
+Rupert sprang into his seat like a rubber ball, bracing one small
+legging-clad foot for support; not the least of a racing mechanician's
+arts being that of clinging at all times to his reeling post of duty.
+Gerard held out his hand for Corrie's parting clasp, then exchanged a
+warm grip with Rupert. Between the driver and mechanician who were to
+play the perilous game side by side, there passed no such friendly
+touch. Gerard never looked at the watching violet-blue eyes of the third
+man during that farewell ceremony.
+
+"Take care of yourselves," he bade.
+
+"It's a nice morning for a ramble," observed Rupert. "Don't worry, love,
+we'll be in to tea."
+
+The Mercury Titan rolled into place in the line of flaming, panting
+machines. The driver of the first car threw away his cigarette and sat
+up. There was a pause while the group of officials poised, watches in
+hand, the people rose, then the starter leaned forward and the first car
+sprang from the line.
+
+Amid the gay tumult of music and cheers, Corrie waited the half-minute
+interval, his eyes on the counting official, his hand on the lever,
+until the starter's hearty clap fell on his shoulder with the word:
+
+"Go!"
+
+With an explosive roar the Mercury shot across the line and rushed,
+gathering speed in long leaps, down the white course. Under the first
+arched bridge, out of sight it flashed, followed by an answering roar
+from the countless throats of those between whose dense ranks it sped.
+
+Gerard moved back a few paces. He had become rather pale and grave; his
+gaze remained fixed on the distant arch through which the Mercury had
+vanished, nor did he turn to watch the sending away of the other
+nineteen racers.
+
+The touch laid on his sleeve was feather-light.
+
+"I could not stay away," pleaded Flavia, beside him. "May I watch Corrie
+with you, Allan?"
+
+He wheeled eagerly, catching her retreating hand before it escaped from
+his arm.
+
+"I know why Corrie calls you 'Other Fellow,'" he welcomed. "It is
+because you always know the right thing to do."
+
+They looked at each other in the morning brightness, revelling in the
+fresh wonder of mutual possession.
+
+"This is hurting you," she grieved. "I saw you before you did me, when
+the cars started--you were thinking that last year you yourself would
+have been there."
+
+He checked her with the warm brilliance of his smile.
+
+"Not of myself," he denied. "If there was anything to regret, do you
+think I could remember it since I have you? No, I was thinking that
+Corrie is barely twenty, that I had trained him and sent him out there
+in that machine in defiance of his father's wish--in fact, I believe I
+had an attack of remorseful panic."
+
+"You did it for Corrie," she gave swift comfort. "Can you suppose that
+papa and I do not understand that? You could have found drivers already
+skilled, for your car; instead you troubled to take him and make him
+what he is now. He is so different from the desperate boy we left,
+Allan. Whatever happens out there to-day, you have done the best for
+Corrie."
+
+The feverish activity of the camps was swirling around them. Gerard
+gently drew the young girl to the place where his private roadster
+waited, somewhat aside from the centre of action, and put her in the
+scarlet-cushioned seat. After her paced Corrie's dog and took its place
+beside her in stately guardianship.
+
+"You can see everything here, and it is not so rough for you," he
+explained. "Flavia, a year ago I bought this, when I bought the yellow
+roses on the night before my last drive. Will you let me take off your
+little glove and put it on your finger, now?"
+
+Her lashes sparkling wet, Flavia bent to him, and in the face of crowds
+and camps Gerard set his ring on her hand.
+
+Men were leaning over railings, holding ready watches open. At the
+repair pit next but one to the Mercury's, the mechanics and men in
+charge had drawn together in whispering groups.
+
+"Car coming!" the word passed suddenly from lip to lip.
+
+On the summit of the white hill a mile distant, a red signal flag went
+up. A dark shape darted up over the rise, glanced with incredible
+swiftness down the incline, disappearing momentarily behind the packed
+angle, then again shot into view and sped past the grand-stand like a
+humming projectile; the driver a fixed statue of concentration on the
+road before him, the mechanician half-turned in his seat to watch for
+cars behind.
+
+The place burst into uproar.
+
+"Number two! Number two first!"
+
+"Mercury leads!"
+
+Horns were blown, handkerchiefs waved, the applause breaking out anew as
+a second car rushed past in hot pursuit of the flying Mercury.
+
+"Three! Number three!"
+
+"Oh you Bluette!"
+
+"Here comes another--get back!"
+
+Flavia stooped from her seat.
+
+"Allan, that was Corrie--where is the car that started before him?"
+
+"Tire trouble, perhaps. You are trembling, dear! Let my chauffeur take
+you home and wait quietly there until I bring Corrie to you after the
+race."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, please no. Here I can see him each lap and know he is safe so far.
+Let me stay."
+
+Two cars thundered past, struggling desperately for place. The noise of
+the excited people overwhelmed all conversation and left the two lovers
+silent. From time to time a telephone bell jingled across the tumult,
+blue-uniformed messengers hurried here and there. But when the last of
+twenty cars had passed, the twenty-first not appearing, there fell a
+lull and men settled back to wait for the second lap.
+
+Five minutes passed, ten. The red flags went up again; two speeding
+shapes topped the rise and plunged out of sight.
+
+"Two and three!"
+
+"The Bluette--no--Mercury leads still!"
+
+Excitement flared high as the two racers reappeared. But as they swept
+down the straight stretch, the mechanician of the Mercury raised his
+arms above his head in warning, the car slackened speed and drew to the
+side of the course. As the Bluette machine fled past him, Corrie brought
+his car to a halt opposite the judges' stand, leaning toward the
+official who sprang to his side.
+
+"The America's off the second bridge--send the ambulance to the road
+below," he called, his ringing voice penetrating bell-clear through the
+heavier sounds.
+
+Before his grim message was fairly comprehended, he had slammed into a
+gear and was off to regain the sacrificed moment.
+
+There was a brief flurry in the official stand. One man seized the
+telephone while another went slowly to the lost car's camp. From lip to
+lip the news went.
+
+"Harry was married last week," observed an oil-smeared mechanic,
+touching his cap to Gerard in going by. "I guess there's no show after
+that tumble; Rose might as well have saved his time."
+
+"There is more than one prize in a contest," Gerard disagreed, meeting
+Flavia's awed eyes. "Corrie Rose may win better than a gold cup."
+
+"Corrie----?" she faltered.
+
+"Corrie has given his leading place and one of his hoarded fragments of
+time--these races are won or lost by scant minutes--for the bare chance
+that his report might send aid to the injured men a little sooner than
+if that task were left to the frightened witnesses of the disaster."
+
+Flavia's small head lifted proudly, bright color flashed into the
+countenance whose loving faith had never failed Corrie in his hours of
+disgrace.
+
+"I wish papa had seen," she longed wistfully. And after a moment: "You
+yourself have done the same; he told me so, once. Now you have taught
+him to do what you never can do any more, poor Allan."
+
+A curious expression crossed Gerard's mobile face; hesitation and doubt
+blended with a luminous radiance shining from some inward thought that
+leaped up like a clear flame. He moved as if to speak impulsively, but
+Flavia had turned to watch the approach of a rushing car, and he
+remained silent.
+
+In the next hour, the Mercury passed the grand-stand five times;
+sometimes alone, sometimes the quarry of a coursing group of
+speed-hounds whose flaming breath was close behind, sometimes itself
+curving around some slower rival amid the wave-like succession of
+cheers. The bulletin-board showed Corrie running in third place when he
+passed for the sixth time, with Rupert stretched along the edge of the
+car to relieve his cramped limbs in an ease that suggested imminent
+death by falling.
+
+The seventh time the Mercury did not come around. Gerard, who had been
+in front, returned to Flavia with his steadying reassurance.
+
+"Tire trouble, no doubt," he told her. "He is due to have some; his luck
+has been astonishing in escaping it so far. He is driving to win; no car
+ever held the lead from start to finish."
+
+Flavia folded her hands in her lap, not trusting herself far enough to
+reply. Gerard studied his watch in silent calculation, as the minutes
+ticked past.
+
+"It must have been two tires," he at last hazarded. "When one blows out
+while actually on a turn, the other is almost certain to follow. Of
+course, they might have engine trouble."
+
+A French car rolled up to its repair pit, stopped, and suddenly burst
+into flames. There was a wild scramble among its force of attendants, a
+rush with fire extinguishers and pails of sand. Before the danger was
+realized, it had ended and the mechanics were at work upon the choked
+pipe which had sent the car to its camp.
+
+"Oh!" gasped the young girl, rising.
+
+Gerard stopped her, pointing to the white hill. The roar of an
+approaching car filled the air; as Flavia looked, the Mercury shot past,
+running faultlessly, but carrying two spare tires where she had started
+with four.
+
+"They will be in, next lap," Gerard predicted. "Rupert won't want to run
+with only two extra tires on board, and I don't think Corrie will
+overrule him."
+
+He went forward to give some directions to prepare for the flying visit,
+Flavia watching. She made no demand for attention, no betrayal of
+feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into which she had been
+brought. Men looked curiously at the delicate, serious girl who sat so
+quietly in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information crept out
+that she was Rose's sister and Gerard's fiancée, so that wonder became
+merely admiration.
+
+True to expectation, the Mercury halted before her repair pit, on the
+next circuit.
+
+"Cases," commanded Rupert, tersely, out of his seat before the stop.
+"Move quick! Who's nailed fast now?"
+
+The slur was undeserved; the waiting tires were flung on and secured by
+hurrying hands.
+
+"Drink it," Gerard ordered, thrusting a cup at Corrie, as that young
+driver leaned wearily back. "I don't care whether you want it or not."
+
+"It's the people," Corrie explained, his blue eyes seeking Gerard's
+across the goggles. "I don't mind anything else. They're over the course
+so you can't see ahead. Jim hit a woman, on the back stretch, as we
+passed."
+
+He put the heavy china cup to his lips, but dropped it with a crash to
+seize his levers as Rupert bounded in beside him.
+
+"Have the people cleared off," he petitioned over his shoulder, while
+sending his car forward.
+
+Gerard went to the judges' stand.
+
+Corrie Rose was not the first or only driver to complain of the packed
+course. The Mercury had scarcely departed when the Marathon car came in,
+its experienced and steel-fibred pilot on the brink of nervous
+breakdown.
+
+"I won't drive if the mob isn't put off the road," he defied his
+manager. "I've killed a woman back there--do you hear? A _woman_! There
+are women and kids right against the wheels on the worst turns. Get 'em
+off!"
+
+The Marathon force flocked around him in consternation, while his
+manager ran to the judges and the owner of the car implored and adjured
+the recalcitrant driver to go on without further loss of time. But it
+was Gerard who saved the situation for his rival.
+
+"It's all right, Jim," he called across, issuing from the official stand
+and comprehending the deadlock at sight. "You only broke her leg--a
+telephone report came. Go on; everyone's with you, man!"
+
+The Marathon's mechanician, wise in knowledge of his pilot, at this
+juncture leaned over and thrust between Jim's lips a lighted cigar.
+
+"Buck up! We're losin'," he urged roughly.
+
+The driver's teeth sullenly clamped shut upon the strong tobacco; he
+slammed viciously into a gear and hurled his machine down the course
+before the startled camp realized its victory. The stop had lasted
+exactly three minutes, but it cost the Marathon its hope of the race.
+
+The morning advanced, gaining in sun-gilt beauty. In the next hour four
+racers were taken from the contest, three by mechanical difficulties,
+one as the result of an accident that sent both driver and mechanician
+to the hospital. The Mercury continued to run steadily and evenly,
+keeping a consistent pace.
+
+"How much longer?" Flavia anxiously questioned, once. "Do you think
+everything can stay right to the very end, Allan?"
+
+Gerard laid his warm left hand over her cold one, as it rested on the
+cushions, his loving eyes caressing her.
+
+"Two hours more, my Flavia. Most surely I believe everything can stay
+right; why not? Remember Corrie delights in this. He is happier now than
+when he is what we call at rest. If," again that singular expression of
+blended shadow and inward illumination rose over his face, "if I were to
+be made myself and wholly cured, it would not change Corrie's position
+in Corrie's eyes. I cannot help him there in that hard part, but I have
+given him a way to forget for a while."
+
+Her soft mouth bent grievedly; Flavia's attention was effectually
+distracted from contemplation of her brother's bodily peril.
+
+Gerard turned aside. He had heard the reports arrive of one accident
+after another, he saw driver after driver come in gray-lipped and savage
+under the strain of racing on the crowded path, and he knew what Flavia
+did not--that this was proving the most disastrous affair ever held on
+the Cup course.
+
+"I don't mind risking my own neck, I'm used to that," gritted an
+old-time comrade to Gerard, during a pause for refilling tanks. "It's
+the people under foot; ---- them! Haven't they any sense? Jim's
+Marathon hit a man, ten minutes ago; he's still driving, half crazy,
+because he can't stop. _Damn_ the country police!"
+
+"Rose----?"
+
+"Rose is changing tires at the Westbury turn. I'm off."
+
+That bit of news spared a bad quarter-hour to the two who loved Corrie.
+
+Gerard was at the front of the camp, watching for his car, when he felt
+a hand lain on his shoulder.
+
+"Some racer just went off the turnpike into the ditch," Mr. Rose's
+subdued tones informed him. "Where's Corrie?"
+
+"Safe; changing tires on this side of the turnpike," Gerard gave quick
+assurance. "It's not he. But this has been a bad day; I'm not surprised
+that you couldn't keep away from here."
+
+"I couldn't keep away," Mr. Rose assented heavily. He drew out his
+handkerchief and passed it across his forehead, damp under the line of
+reddish-gray hair, pushing open his overcoat with the abrupt gesture
+that was also a habit of his son's. "I've had a hell of an hour where I
+was, Gerard. This morning I got a letter from my niece, Isabel. It seems
+she is married and her husband made her write it."
+
+The two men looked fully at each other; some quality in Thomas Rose's
+expression communicated its white reflection to Gerard's changing face.
+
+"He never did it--Corrie, I mean. Gerard, Isabel Rose threw the wrench
+that struck you and wrecked your car, last year. He's been shielding
+her. God, how I've ground it into the boy!"
+
+There was a tall pile of spare tires beside them; on it Gerard put his
+hand, steadying himself against the shock that was less of surprise than
+of poignant self-reproach for his own failure to divine this open
+riddle. In that moment of final understanding, he knew that he had seen
+the pitiful truth rise to the surface of Corrie's blue eyes a hundred
+times, and had left its appeal to die out, unanswered.
+
+Far down the course a ripple of cheering started, running nearer in a
+wave of gathering volume. Out around the curve swooped a gray streak,
+fled toward the camps, was opposite, and past. The Mercury was unleashed
+and hunting down its lost lead in the fastest speed of the day.
+
+Mr. Rose brought his eyes from following its flight to meet Gerard's
+gaze.
+
+"You remember how Isabel nagged him to take her around the race course
+in his pink machine," he reminded. "I forbade it and thought no more
+about the thing. Well, she got him alone--you know, I guess, that he was
+wild with boy's near-love for her and would have let her drag the heart
+out of his body--and she got his promise to take her around once. She
+worked the plan all out; Corrie started without his mechanician, and she
+waited for him a mile down the course, dressed in her riding-habit and
+wearing a man's cap and motor-mask. She figured that no one would notice
+her much on the road and Corrie could drop her off after making the
+circuit, just before he reached the camps, so that he would come in
+alone as he started and no one would be the wiser. They were just a
+couple of fool kids on a kid lark."
+
+A yellow car roared to a stop beside them, interrupting clamorously.
+From his seat its mechanician fell rather than stepped.
+
+"He smashed his wrist cranking her," the driver raged. "Someone
+else--quick!"
+
+A blue-clad factory mechanic flung himself into the vacant place,
+bare-headed, without coat or mask.
+
+"Here's my chance!" he exulted. "Go on, I'm it."
+
+The car leaped out, no second wasted in parley. Men gathered up the
+injured mechanician and hurried him away. Mr. Rose looked on as if at a
+stage scene which did not interest him, and dully resumed his narrative.
+
+"It worked all right, Gerard, until they met you on the back stretch and
+you challenged Corrie to race. He didn't want to, with her along, but
+she devilled him to go on, and he did. I can guess it went to his head,
+having her beside him. When you began cutting Corrie off so he couldn't
+pass by, he caught the joke right enough. She says he was laughing when
+he began to pitch odd screws and bolts at your car--he was never angry
+for a moment, just playing, as you were. But she was all excited over
+losing; when she saw he had both hands busy and you were forcing them
+back again, she snatched something out of the open box Corrie had got
+the bolts from and threw it at you, herself. She didn't know what she
+had thrown or done, until she saw you fall stunned across your
+steering-wheel and your car plunge off the road."
+
+"I might have known," said Gerard, and turned his face to the course he
+did not see.
+
+"_You_ might have known!" flared Mr. Rose. "What was the matter with
+_me_? Hadn't I lived with Corwin B. Rose since he was born and never had
+seen him cheat or play foul, win or lose? He was straight, always. I
+should have known when he wouldn't talk--he never was afraid to speak
+out and take his licking. Oh yes, I belong to the brutal common people
+and Corrie wasn't brought up by moral suasion; he had more than one
+flogging before he was fourteen and we called him a man. And he never
+lied to dodge one. I went back on him; he never did on me."
+
+The gay tumult of the tensely-strung multitude was in their ears, the
+band-music crashed blatant aid to the excitement. With a humming purr
+and rush the Mercury car shot past again, followed by the long roll of
+applause.
+
+"We're leading by a minute and a half," one of Gerard's men triumphed,
+running past on some errand. "Oh you Rosie!"
+
+"He stopped his machine as soon as he could, and put Isabel out," Mr.
+Rose continued sombrely. "She says herself that she was scared sick and
+begged him to save her. I can guess that part. Anyhow, he told her to go
+home and say nothing, that he would take care of her. He did. If it
+hadn't been for your protecting him, that morning, he might have ended
+in State's prison. I don't suppose she would ever have cleared him if
+she hadn't fallen in love with one of those Southerners she has been
+visiting, and blurted out the truth when he proposed, the other day. He
+put her in a buggy, drove over to the nearest clergyman, and married
+her then and there; then gave her paper and pen and made her write the
+whole story to me. He is a gentleman; he'd stand with her for whatever
+she had done, but he would not stand for her leaving Corrie to bear her
+blame. I'll make it up to him, yet!"
+
+"Does Flavia know?" Gerard asked.
+
+"I gave her Isabel's letter on the way across to you."
+
+Flavia was sitting in the car with her wet handkerchief clasped in her
+folded hands, her veils drawn across the hushed beauty of her face. As
+Gerard came up, she bent to him.
+
+"Corrie," she breathed. "Corrie, to do this! I am proud and glad and
+humbled. How could he, how could he?"
+
+"He has more courage than I," Gerard gravely acknowledged. "I could not
+have done it. A superb folly, unjust to himself and us. He might safely
+have confided in his father or me and have trusted Isabel to our care."
+
+"Allan, she had his promise to tell no one and she held him to it. She
+was ill and hysterical with terrified shame; Isabel never could endure
+to be found at fault even in little things. She was not bad or wicked,
+but just a coward."
+
+"She found strength enough to watch Corrie under torture week after
+week," he retorted, his golden-brown eyes hardening to agate. "If I had
+been killed under my car, Flavia, do you realize that Rupert would have
+brought your brother face to face with the electric chair? And Corrie
+would have shut his lips and endured it all. Don't ask me to pity Isabel
+Rose--I've lived this year with her victim."
+
+Trembling under the control forced on herself, Flavia slipped her hand
+into his.
+
+"I know, Allan, I know. Yet she did suffer to see his suffering. In her
+letter, she says that Corrie came to her at dawn, the last morning we
+were all at home, and called her out into the empty hall to beseech her
+for permission to tell you. He had not been to bed that night, at all.
+She never afterward forgot his desperate, worn face and that memory
+finally drove her to confession. But she refused him. He did break down
+then, and flashed out at her that he must and would tell you the truth,
+when he left her. Of course he did not do so. Allan, she declares that
+he then told you, that she knows it because you wrote to her that
+evening about your accident and said you would take care of Corrie
+whatever happened."
+
+"I!"
+
+"Your letter to me. She had been insane with dread all day, believing
+Corrie would fulfil his threat to tell you his innocence, and when
+Rupert came she saw only that idea confirmed. She knew of no relations
+between you and me. She thought only of herself."
+
+Gerard looked at her, having no words; presently he sat down on the edge
+of the car at her feet, and they continued silent, hand in hand. Mr.
+Rose had found a camp-chair in the shadow of a wall, and sat watching
+the race in grim quiescence.
+
+When the last hour of the contest was reached, it was noted that the
+Mercury car had suddenly slackened its pace. The difference in speed was
+not great; the car was running faultlessly, but keeping a slower gait.
+The men in the Mercury camp clustered together, waiting and discussing.
+
+The car came around on the next lap with the condition hardly improved.
+Rupert was neither watching behind nor busied with his usual duties, but
+sat erect in his seat with one arm around Corrie's shoulders, apparently
+talking in the driver's ear, head bent to head. Neither glanced toward
+the row of repair pits or the grand-stand, as they passed between and on
+out of view. Gerard's brows contracted sharply; he uttered an excuse to
+Flavia and went front.
+
+"Morton's giving out, too," the manager of the next camp imparted
+confidentially, joining him. "The road-bed is rotten, the men say. Ten
+feet of it caved in at one turn. Too bad!"
+
+"Rose had no sleep last night," Gerard briefly excused his driver.
+
+"God, how I've ground it into the boy," Corrie's father had said; and
+Gerard could have echoed the cry, looking back at what he had meant for
+kindness.
+
+The moments dragged, the next scant quarter-hour stretched long. But at
+last the Mercury's vibrant voice rolled down the white road,
+approaching. Up to her camp the car sped, and stopped.
+
+Before the halt was effected, Rupert had snatched off the driver's
+suffocating mask, leaning over him.
+
+"Oil, gas," he demanded generally. "Jump for those tanks, _quick_. Here,
+Rose----"
+
+His white, fatigue-drawn face bared to the fresh wind, Corrie tried to
+speak, but instead let his head fall forward on his arm as it rested
+upon the steering-wheel.
+
+"Rose, you low-down quitter, you punk chauffeuse!" Rupert stormed at
+him. "You going to chuck up a won race? You mollycoddle----Water, you
+fellows--can't you even wait on a real man? Here, Rose, you ain't
+anything but a fake!"
+
+He carefully splashed the water over the boyish forehead, streaks of
+grime trickling over them both.
+
+"Fill the tanks," Corrie gasped, lying passive under the rough
+treatment. "I'm ready to go on--tell me when."
+
+Gerard was beside the car.
+
+"Corrie," he began.
+
+Rupert unexpectedly flamed out at him across the prostrate figure:
+
+"Let him alone! He ain't a Sandow and the driving's hell. He's going on,
+I tell you. Here, Rose, get some class into you, what?"
+
+But Gerard had a better tonic than cold water or stinging abuse. He
+silenced the mechanician with a glance and laid his hand on Corrie's
+arm.
+
+"Corrie, your cousin has told us the truth," he said. "We know, now, who
+caused the wreck of my car last year."
+
+Corrie started so violently as to overturn the jug in Rupert's hand and
+send its contents over them both, his avid blue eyes flashed wide to
+Gerard.
+
+"Isabel----?"
+
+"Isabel has told us that your companion threw the wrench that struck me,
+and why you bore the charge. You stand cleared."
+
+Corrie slowly drew himself erect in his seat, brushing the water from
+his eyes and pushing back his wet clusters of fair hair. It was not so
+much color as vital life that flowed into his face, mechanically he
+reached for his mask.
+
+"Thanks," he answered. "I can drive, now."
+
+"Tanks full," shouted a score of voices.
+
+Men scattered from around the car's wheels in expectation of the start,
+Gerard stepped back. But Corrie turned in his seat and held out his hand
+to the speechless Rupert.
+
+"You heard--now do it," he required.
+
+Still dumb, the mechanician dragged off his glove and gave for the
+race's finish the hand-clasp that he had denied for its start.
+
+The Mercury sprang from her camp with a roar of unloosed power and
+speed-lust. Car and driver splendid mates, they fled in pulsating vigor
+down their white path where the sun was shining.
+
+During the rest of the hour, people stood up in seats and automobiles,
+watching the Mercury Titan. Not before had they witnessed driving like
+that, never again could the driver himself equal that inspired flight.
+
+Just sixty-nine seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Corrie Rose brought
+his car across the line. As he halted the Mercury before the judges, the
+people burst out over the course and overwhelmed the victors. Music,
+clicking cameras, cheers and congratulations--the current of gayety
+swirled around the winning racer. The first to grasp Corrie's hand was
+the official starter who had sent him out six hours before, the second
+was the driver of the barely-defeated Marathon. After that, there was no
+record possible.
+
+It was some time before Corrie and Rupert could be rescued from the
+enthusiastic press of admirers. When at last the Mercury came over to
+its own camp, Gerard was first able to bring Flavia to her brother.
+
+Stiff, weary and dishevelled, Corrie descended from his car, tripping
+impatiently over the flowers someone had placed in it. There was a
+perfunctory quality in the tenderness with which he kissed Flavia, as
+there had been a restive haste in his acceptance of his present ovation.
+Now, he turned his candid eyes full to Gerard's, baring his inmost need
+to the one who always understood.
+
+"I want my father," said Corrie Rose.
+
+Very lovingly Gerard put his arm around the slim shoulders and drew his
+master-driver to a tent behind the repair pit, there left him to enter
+alone and went back to Flavia.
+
+"I put twelve ham sandwiches and my will in the locker, there," he found
+Rupert sweetly explaining to the young girl. "I guessed I'd have use for
+one or the other by this time. And I guess I guessed right. Oh, no--I'll
+be able to take my regular nourishment just the same, when we get back;
+this won't count. I," he sent Gerard a glance of saturnine intelligence,
+"I've got myself all tired out here lately trying to keep on disliking
+Rose."
+
+"Allan, have you thought that we are going home?" Flavia asked, lifting
+her happy face to her lover, as he stood over her. "_Home_; papa and
+Corrie, and you and I, who were so far apart."
+
+"I have thought that you would put on that lace frock you wore the last
+evening I saw you there, only this time you will come where I can touch
+you. Shall I tell you what you looked like that night? You were a golden
+rose in a sheath of snow, quite out of reach. And you played your dainty
+music so calmly and smoothly, while I was on fire and seeing rose-color
+as I listened to your father's stories. I was like poor Cyrano de
+Bergerac: I had gazed so long at your sun-bright little head that when I
+looked away my dazzled eyes still saw gold."
+
+Her red mouth dimpled into soft mischief and daring.
+
+"Shall I tell you what _I_ saw while I was playing, Allan? I watched you
+under my eyelashes--this way--and I wondered whether anyone else ever
+looked quite so nice even from behind, and, and what it would be like to
+touch your crinkly hair with one's finger."
+
+"Do it now!"
+
+She declined with an eloquent gesture. Around their enclosure the vast
+crowds were streaming back to New York, the course was filled from edge
+to edge with a solid procession of homing automobiles of every type and
+age. Amid noise and congestion and merriment, Long Island's guests were
+trouping out.
+
+But comparative quietness had descended upon the row of pits when, half
+an hour later, Mr. Rose and Corrie strolled casually up to join the
+other two members of the party.
+
+"I don't know how long you propose to stay here," observed the senior,
+tolerantly. "Lenoir is waiting with the limousine, and it strikes us
+it's about time to start for home."
+
+"Chilly wind blowing, too," Corrie suggested, his hands in the pockets
+of his long gray motor-coat. "Fancy Lenoir lugging this old coat of mine
+around in the car, Other Fellow, until now. It's a wonder the
+butterflies haven't eaten it--moths, I mean."
+
+Gerard and Flavia exchanged a glance of infinitely tender comprehension
+of these two.
+
+"I want to show you all something, first," Gerard detained them. "We
+don't want to take any worries home that we can leave here. Give me that
+ball of tape you put in your pocket this morning, Corrie."
+
+Astonished, Corrie obeyed.
+
+"Hello, Rupert!" Gerard sent his clear voice across to where that
+black-eyed mechanician leaned against the Mercury Titan, a hundred feet
+away. "Catch!"
+
+Rupert promptly turned. The improvised ball in his fingers, Gerard
+slowly raised both arms above his head in the old graceful gesture, his
+brilliant amber eyes smiling at his companions, then launched the sphere
+straight to its goal.
+
+It was not Flavia who found overtaxed nerves give way.
+
+"Gerard! _Gerard!_" Corrie's cry rang out; he sank down on a camp-chair
+and covered his face.
+
+Alarmed and remorseful, Gerard sprang to him.
+
+"Corrie--don't take it like that! It is all right; I've been fighting
+for this ten months under a French surgeon's orders."
+
+"You never told me. Oh, Gerard, Gerard!"
+
+"I did not want to tell you until I was sure the cure was real and
+permanent. And I was not sure until I met the surgeon in New York,
+yesterday."
+
+"You could have told me last night. I might have been killed to-day and
+_never_ have known."
+
+Gerard exchanged with Mr. Rose a glance of very sad understanding, a
+mutual acknowledgment of mutual error.
+
+"Would you have driven the Mercury to-day against your father's wish, if
+you had known that I should be able to drive my own car next year? I
+think not. If you were to be taken from me and this life, I wanted you
+to take with you the memory of this race instead of the humiliation of a
+withdrawal. And I believed that I was dealing with an unsteadied boy who
+needed the sharp tonic of work and danger--ah, Corrie, forgive
+me!--instead of the strongest man in endurance I ever knew. But I would
+tell no one else until I did you, although," he turned to the radiant
+girl, "although it was hard not to hold out both hands to Flavia."
+
+She put her hands in both his, then, and felt them close on hers for all
+time.
+
+"Rupert knew," Corrie presently divined, as the unsurprised mechanician
+lounged toward them.
+
+"Yes, Rupert knew," Gerard confirmed. "He helped me go through the
+treatment each day. One reason I did not tell you what we were doing,
+was that the process was not very pleasant, and it used to leave me
+rather upset and sick for a while--you caught me too soon after it that
+morning you signed the contracts. Don't wince; _you_ had nothing to do
+with my smash."
+
+"But I blamed myself, always!" Corrie stood up, thrusting his hands into
+his pockets and squaring his shoulders with the sturdy responsibility so
+easily read now. "I had no business to take Isabel there, and I put the
+mischief into her head by pitching bolts at you. She couldn't tell it
+was in fun. I--I would rather have known you'd get well, Gerard, than
+have known I was cleared."
+
+"Didn't it ever occur to you, Corrie, to blame _us_, when we were so
+ready to convict you and pass judgment?" countered Gerard.
+
+Checked, Corrie surveyed the three with the ingenuous astonishment of a
+new point of view.
+
+"Blame you people?" he marvelled. "Why, when I thought what a low brute
+you had every right to believe I was, I used to feel like thanking you
+for staying in the same room with me. I--Well, I guess it's time to go
+home, isn't it? I'll leave you to start."
+
+"Leave us?" exclaimed Flavia.
+
+"You'll make a line for that limousine right now, Corwin B.," pronounced
+Mr. Rose, with the familiar easy mastery that was a caress.
+
+His son laughingly shook his fair head.
+
+"No, thanks, sir. I'm going to drive the Mercury Titan home and put it
+in the garage. Unless," he looked over his shoulder, "unless Rupert is
+afraid to trust himself to ride with a punk chauffeuse and a no-class
+fake?"
+
+"I ain't real nervous to-day," drawled the mechanician graciously. "Nor
+I ain't supposing but what you're entitled to a chauffeur's license,
+Rose."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE END OF THE ROAD
+
+
+In the golden afternoon sunlight, when tree-shadows stretched long and
+velvet-soft across the lawns and terraces of Mr. Rose's park, amid all
+October's blending fragrances and mellow tints, Corrie Rose came home.
+After all, it was Jack Rupert who put the Mercury Titan in the garage,
+opposite the house; Corrie yielding his seat to his mechanician.
+
+"I believe I'll let you take her around; I want to go in with my
+people," the driver explained. "You might as well get established here,
+you know, since you are going to stay some time. I," it was so long
+since anyone had seen that teasing mischief sparkling in Corrie's
+unclouded eyes, "I have grown so used to your gentle, winning ways that
+I don't know how to get along without you, Rupert."
+
+Rupert settled himself in the great machine, regarding his companion
+with dry intelligence.
+
+"I've got more respect for your morals than I had, Rose, and less for
+your sense," he issued final judgment above the clamor of the motor,
+before sending the car away.
+
+"Right again," Corrie agreed. He turned and looked up at the house.
+
+The three from the limousine were waiting for him upon the columned
+veranda. Weary, stiff and aching from long exertion, soiled with the
+dust of course and road, Corrie, victor of that day and of many days,
+climbed the broad rose-colored steps to them. There was nothing adequate
+to say, had they been a demonstrative family; as it was, no one
+considered speech. But at the open door Corrie stopped, turning his
+bright, clear glance to his father. And Thomas Rose closed his hand on
+his son's shoulder, so that they crossed the threshold together.
+
+Gerard detained Flavia a pace behind.
+
+"When I see you in the lace gown, I am going to kiss you," he stated
+firmly. "I do not care how many people are present or where it is. So
+you had better come down early to the fountain arcade, where I have
+pictured you more often than you will ever know. Will you, flower-lady?"
+
+"Perhaps," she doubted. "If I think of it."
+
+"Heartsease for thought," said Gerard, and kissed her dimpling mouth.
+
+On the stairs a few minutes later, Corrie overtook his sister and caught
+her in his arms.
+
+"I need a bath and some fresh rags and--well, everything," he laughed.
+"I'm not fit to touch--do you mind?"
+
+She clasped her arms around his neck, nestling her soft cheek against
+the rough, grimy cloth of his driving-suit.
+
+"I love you! Oh, my dear, my dear, if mamma had lived, this year could
+never have happened! Not to you, nor to me."
+
+He looked into her upturned face, realizing with her the difference that
+might have been wrought by a mother's clairvoyant tenderness and the
+link of a wife's understanding between her husband and her children. No,
+without this lack in the household the year's deception could not have
+endured. If the chain of Roses had not once been broken, it could not
+have come so near this later destruction.
+
+"Flavia, you know I feel how good they have all been to me? You know
+what nonsense it was for Allan--he tells me I can't call my own brother
+'Gerard'--what nonsense it was for him to suggest that I ever could
+blame anyone but myself for what I had to stand?"
+
+"I know you feel it so, Corrie."
+
+"Then, I want to say there was only you, Other Fellow, who _never_ hurt
+or made it harder."
+
+"Even--Allan?"
+
+"I think there never was a man so generous as Allan--but, only you. I,"
+he drew a breath of inexpressible content, "I see a bully good life
+ahead, but I don't see any woman in it, unless I find one like you. And
+from what I overheard Allan saying, just now when I passed you both at
+the alcove, he's secured the only perfect angel-girl----"
+
+Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand across his lips.
+
+But it was that evening, in the glowing richness and repose of the
+dining-room in the pink marble villa, now reinvested with the dignity of
+a home, that the core of the late situation was touched.
+
+Once more Allan Gerard was intent upon the study of Flavia's young
+beauty as she sat near him in the lace gown, this time with his ring
+flaunting conquest on her fragile hand. Mr. Rose was leaning back and
+idly watching the ice dissolve in his glass, when Corrie broke the
+pause, resting his arms on the table and lifting his gay, mirthful face
+to the man behind his chair:
+
+"Take away those oysters, Perkins! I want my soup right off, and a lot
+of it. I'm about starved----" He stopped, himself struck by the words.
+
+The evoked recollections of that last dinner together were too much.
+Mr. Rose carefully put the glass down, his strong jaw setting. Flavia's
+large startled eyes flashed wet as they went to her brother.
+
+"Corrie, Corrie, I can understand how you began," escaped Gerard
+impulsively. "But how could you carry it on month after month?"
+
+The ruddy color ran up to Corrie's forehead, he looked down at the
+table, sobered.
+
+"It didn't take me long to see I made an awful bungle of things," he
+confessed, half-shy and hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw
+what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given my word. I guess you'll
+understand a lot more than I can say; as Allan will understand, now, why
+I couldn't help knocking down that tramp who wanted money because I
+belonged in prison and wasn't there. It was all too much for me to think
+out! But--isn't there something said about a fellow who puts his hand to
+the plough not taking it off? I used to say that over to myself,
+when--well, at night, for instance. I might have been a chump, but it
+seemed up to me to keep on with the work I had started, and--and not to
+flinch."
+
+"Dear, if you had only spared yourself what you could," Flavia grieved.
+"You could have said it was an accident, at least; that you never meant
+to hurt Allan."
+
+Corrie's violet-blue eyes laughed out of their eclipse and sought his
+father.
+
+"Not much, Other Fellow! No tricks for mine; I had to tell just the
+truth or shut up. No, sir, whatever he _looked_ like, Corrie Rose had to
+plough a straight furrow."
+
+"Straight furrows lead home," said Allan Gerard, not sententiously, but
+musingly.
+
+He also looked toward Mr. Rose, and the senior nodded slow agreement.
+
+"They do, Gerard. And we get more, sometimes, than we've any right to
+expect from anything we give. Where we spent this summer, Flavia and I
+liked the people. What we did for them didn't cost us much; we were not
+looking for any returns. But the news of it got out, somehow, and was
+cabled to New York days before we arrived here. One of the journals got
+the story and worked up a Sunday article about what an American
+millionaire had done for Val de Rosas, and interviewed a certain Luis
+Cárdenas and his wife, Elvira, whom Flavia had brought together--it
+seems they are happy and prospering well, my girl--and printed the whole
+thing along with a photograph of Corrie in his racing clothes, as my
+son. New York papers go everywhere. The Southerner whom Isabel was in
+love with brought that article about her family to her, as an excuse for
+an early call, the morning he asked her to marry him. She says, herself,
+it was the picture of Corrie in the motor dress she last had seen him
+wear on the day of the accident, that broke her up so, and when her
+lover proposed she told him the whole truth. If I hadn't paid the taxes
+for Val de Rosas, Corrie would have been bearing a false charge yet."
+
+The silence held many thoughts; a silence broken by Corrie himself.
+
+"To-morrow we'll write a jolly note to Isabel," he affirmed contentedly.
+"She doesn't need to worry on her honeymoon, poor kid; she has squared
+up. There doesn't seem to be any need for anyone to worry, ever, while
+they're trying to keep straight, since the scheme is a Square Deal, you
+know."
+
+The two older men exchanged a glance.
+
+"I guess some of us need more than a square deal, Corwin B.," his father
+pronounced. "But it's all right; we get that, too."
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+            _MYSTERY AND ACTION A'PLENTY_
+
+                   IN HER OWN RIGHT
+
+                  By JOHN REED SCOTT
+
+ Author of "The Impostor," "The Colonel of the Red Huzzars,"
+   "The Woman in Question," "The Princess Dehra," etc.
+
+             Three colored illustrations
+               By CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD
+          12mo. Decorated Cloth, $1.25 net.
+
+In this new novel Mr. Scott returns to modern times, where he is as much
+at home as when writing of imaginary kingdoms or the days of powder and
+patches. Mr. Scott's last novel, "The Impostor," had Annapolis in 1776
+as its _locale_, but he shows his versatility by centering the important
+events of this romance in and around Annapolis of today.
+
+There are mystery and action a-plenty, and a charming love interest adds
+greatly to an already brilliant and exciting narrative.
+
+                 _CRITICAL OPINIONS_
+
+    "A brisk and cleanly tale."--_Smart Set._
+
+    "A sparkling, appealing novel of today."--_Portland Oregonian._
+
+    "Enjoys the exceptional merit of being a stirring treasure tale
+    kept within the bounds of likelihood."--_San Francisco
+    Chronicle._
+
+    "A charming and captivating romance filled with action from the
+    opening to the close, so fascinating is the story
+    wrought."--_Pittsburgh Post._
+
+    "Just such a dashing tale of love and adventure as habitual
+    fiction readers have learned to expect from Mr. Scott. A well
+    told tale with relieving touches of dry humor and a climax
+    unusual and strong."--_Chicago Record Herald._
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+           _By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ_
+
+
+                =Dawn of the Morning=
+
+      Illustrated in color by ANNA WHELAN BETTS.
+          Decorated cloth. 12mo. $1.25 net.
+
+Like her most successful stories, "Marcia Schuyler" and "Phoebe Deane,"
+Mrs. Lutz's new novel is set in New York State about 1826--quaint old
+days of poke bonnets and full skirts.
+
+It is a refreshingly sweet and charming story and the author has created
+in Dawn, a gentle appealing heroine, whose tangled romance only serves
+to make more happy the beautiful ending when all the threads of Dawn's
+life are straightened out.
+
+
+                    =Phoebe Deane=
+
+ Frontispiece in color and five illustrations from paintings by
+   E.L. HENRY, N.A. 12mo. Cloth, with medallion, $1.50.
+
+Few present-day books are so thoroughly wholesome, fresh and charming as
+this quiet, old-fashioned romance, as refreshingly sweet as the name of
+its heroine.
+
+Phoebe Deane, a motherless girl, meets the trials of a life of
+dependence, and an unwelcome suitor, with a brave, sweet spirit. In
+spite of deceit and treachery, her lover at last comes to her rescue,
+and her happiness is assured.
+
+
+                  =Marcia Schuyler=
+
+Frontispiece in color by ANNA WHELAN BETTS, and six illustrations
+from paintings by E.L. HENRY, N.A. Fifth edition. 12mo.
+            Cloth, with medallion, $1.50.
+
+The story opens upon the wedding preparations for the marriage of
+winsome, wilful Kate to strong and good David. Complications arise by
+which David marries her younger sister Marcia instead and it is only
+after a period of trials and heartaches that Marcia wins her husband's
+love when he comes to understand her worthiness and Kate's heartless
+frivolity and duplicity. The _Chicago Tribune_ pronounces Marcia "One of
+the most lovable heroines that ever lived her life in the pages of a
+romance."
+
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+              _A NOVEL OF THE REAL WEST_
+
+                    "=ME--SMITH="
+
+                 By CAROLINE LOCKHART
+       With five illustrations by Gayle Hoskins
+
+               12mo. Cloth, $1.20 net.
+
+
+Miss Lockhart is a true daughter of the West, her father being a large
+ranch-owner and she has had much experience in the saddle and among the
+people who figure in her novel.
+
+"Smith" is one type of Western "Bad Man," an unusually powerful and
+appealing character who grips and holds the reader through all his
+deeds, whether good or bad.
+
+It is a story with red blood in it. There is the cry of the coyote, the
+deadly thirst for revenge as it exists in the wronged Indian toward the
+white man, the thrill of the gaming table, and the gentleness of pure,
+true love. To the very end the tense dramatism of the tale is maintained
+without relaxation.
+
+    "Gripping, vigorous story."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+    "This is a real novel, a big novel."--_Indianapolis News._
+
+    "Not since the publication of 'The Virginian' has so powerful a
+    cowboy story been told."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
+
+    "A remarkable book in its strength of portrayal and its
+    directness of development. It cannot be read without being
+    remembered."--_The World To-Day._
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                _By ELIZABETH DEJEANS_
+
+                 =The Winning Chance=
+
+      Frontispiece in color by Gayle P. Hoskins.
+            12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.50.
+
+We have no hesitancy in pronouncing this powerful story one of the most
+impressive studies of our highly nervous American life that has been
+published in a long while. It is written with enormous vitality and
+emotional energy. The grip it takes on one intensifies as the story
+proceeds.
+
+
+                =The Heart of Desire=
+
+       Illustrations in colors by The Kinneys.
+            12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.50.
+
+A remarkable novel, full of vital force, which gives us a glimpse into
+the innermost sanctuary of a woman's soul--a revelation of the truth
+that to a woman there may be a greater thing than the love of a man--the
+story pictured against a wonderful Southern California background.
+
+
+                  =The Far Triumph=
+
+       Illustrated in color by Martin Justice.
+          12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.25 net.
+
+Here is a romance, strong and appealing, one which will please all
+classes of readers. From the opening of the story until the last word of
+the last chapter Mrs. Dejeans' great novel of modern American life will
+hold the reader's unflagging interest. Living, breathing people move
+before us, and the author touches on some phases of society of momentous
+interest to women--and to men.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+             _By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT_
+
+               =She Buildeth Her House=
+
+            "The Strongest American Novel"
+                  _Chicago Journal._
+
+Seldom has the author of a first great novel so brilliantly transcended
+his initial success. A man and a woman inspiringly fitted for each other
+sweep into the zone of mutual attraction at the opening of the story.
+Destiny demands that each overcomes certain formidable destructible
+forces before either is tempered and refined for the glorious Union of
+Two to form One.
+
+    With colored frontispiece, by Martin Justice.
+              Decorated cloth, net $1.25
+
+
+               =Routledge Rides Alone=
+
+"A gripping story. The terrible intensity of the writer holds one
+chained to the book."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new story places in the world
+of fiction to furnish the scenes for his narrative--India and Manchuria
+at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. While the novel is distinguished
+by its clear and vigorous war scenes, the fine and sweet romance of the
+love of the hero, Routledge--a brave, strange, and talented
+American--for the "most beautiful woman in London" rivals these in
+interest.
+
+     With colored frontispiece by Martin Justice.
+       12mo. Cloth, with inlay in color $1.50.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                     =PHRYNETTE=
+
+                BY MARTHE TROLY-CURTIN
+
+          With a frontispiece by FRANK DESCH
+           12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net
+
+Phrynette is seventeen, extremely clever and naive, and attractive in
+every way. The death of her French father in Paris leaves her an orphan,
+and she goes to London to live with an aunt of Scotch descent. Her
+impressions of the people, the happenings and the places she becomes
+familiar with, peculiarities of customs and every little thing of
+interest are all touched upon in a charming and original manner, while
+in places there is irresistible humor. Throughout there is a good solid
+love story, and the ending is all that is to be desired.
+
+    "A very charming novel."--_San Francisco Argonaut._
+
+    "Original, clever and extremely well-written."--_Pittsburgh
+    Dispatch._
+
+    "Refreshingly original and full of wholesome mirth. To say that
+    the book is delightful reading is understating the
+    fact."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+              _ROMANCES by DAVID POTTER_
+
+                =The Lady of the Spur=
+
+The scenes of this delightful romance are set in the south-western part
+of New Jersey, during the years 1820-30. An unusual situation develops
+when Tom Bell, a quondam gentleman highwayman, returns to take up the
+offices of the long-lost heir, Henry Morvan. Troubles thicken about him
+and along with them the romance develops. Through it all rides "The Lady
+of the Spur" with a briskness, charm, and mystery about her that give an
+unusual zest to the book from its very first page.
+
+Third edition. Colored frontispiece by Clarence F. Underwood.
+                 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+
+                =I Fasten a Bracelet=
+
+Why should a young well-bred girl be under a vow of obedience to a man
+after she had broken her engagement to him? This is the mysterious
+situation that is presented in this big breezy out-of-doors romance.
+When Craig Schuyler, after several years' absence, returns home, and
+without any apparent reason fastens on Nell Sutphen an iron bracelet. A
+sequence of thrilling events is started which grip the imagination
+powerfully, and seems to "get under the skin." There is a vein of humor
+throughout, which relieves the story of grimness.
+
+       Frontispiece in color by Martin Justice.
+          12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net.
+
+
+              =An Accidental Honeymoon=
+
+A sparkling and breezy romance of modern times, the scenes laid in
+Maryland. The plot is refreshingly novel and delightfully handled. The
+heroine is one of the "fetchingest" little persons in the realms of
+fiction. The other characters are also excellently drawn, each standing
+out clear and distinct, even the minor ones. The dialogue of the story
+is remarkably good, and through it all runs a vein of delightful humor.
+
+   Eight illustrations in color by George W. Gage.
+          Marginal decorations on each page.
+          12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.35 net.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                  _By CAROLYN WELLS_
+
+
+                    =THE GOLD BAG=
+
+"The Gold Bag" is so unlike the usual products of Miss Wells' pen that
+one wonders if she possesses a dual personality or is it merely
+extraordinary versatility, for she can certainly write detective stories
+just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the
+first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to
+ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man.
+Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a
+woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece
+with whom the detective promptly falls in love, though she is already
+engaged to her uncle's secretary, an alliance which the dead man
+insisted must be discontinued, otherwise he would disinherit the girl.
+The story is well told and the interest is cleverly aroused and
+sustained.
+
+ Second edition. With a colored frontispiece. 12mo.
+             Decorated cloth, $1.20 net.
+
+
+                      =THE CLUE=
+
+This is a detective story, and no better or more absorbing one has
+appeared in a long time. The book opens with the violent death of a
+young heiress--apparently a suicide. But a shrewd young physician waxes
+suspicious, and finally convinces the wooden-headed coroner that the
+girl has been murdered. The finger of suspicion points at various people
+in turn, but each of them proves his innocence. Finally Fleming Stone,
+the detective who figured in a previous detective story by this author,
+is called in to match his wits against those of a particularly astute
+villain. Needless to say that in the end right triumphs.
+
+         With a colored frontispiece. 12mo.
+               Decorated cloth, $1.50.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE CAR BEHIND***
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of From the Car Behind, by Eleanor M. Ingram</title>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, From the Car Behind, by Eleanor M. Ingram,
+Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: From the Car Behind</p>
+<p>Author: Eleanor M. Ingram</p>
+<p>Release Date: November 27, 2008  [eBook #27337]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE CAR BEHIND***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Katie Ward, Suzanne Shell,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figtag">
+  <a id="fcover"></a>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img class="plain" src="images/fcover.jpg" alt="Front Cover" title="From the Car Behind by Eleanor M. Ingram" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>FROM THE CAR<br />
+BEHIND</h1>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-bottom: 4em;"><i>SECOND EDITION</i></p>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>ELEANOR M. INGRAM</h2>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller">AUTHOR OF<br />
+"THE FLYING MERCURY," "THE GAME OR THE CANDLE," ETC.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 4em;">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR<br />
+BY JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img class="plain" src="images/i004.png" alt="Pub Stamp" title="Publisher Stamp" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">PHILADELPHIA &amp; LONDON<br />
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</p>
+<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller">1912</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller">COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br />
+COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br /><br />
+
+PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, 1912<br />
+PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY 15, 1912<br />
+SECOND PRINTING FEBRUARY 20, 1912<br /><br />
+
+PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br />
+AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS<br />
+PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center smcap" style="font-size: larger">To My Dear<br />
+and<br />
+Gracious Mother
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3>
+  <p class="TOC">CHAPTER<span class="ralign">PAGE</span></p>
+<ol class="TOC" style="list-style-type: upper-roman;" >
+    <li><span class="smcap">The Kid Amateur</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Corrie and his Other Fellow</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The Household of Roses</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The Vase of Al-Mansor</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Wreck</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">"The Greatest of These"</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Aftermath</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The House at the Turn</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Sentence of Error</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Gerard's Man</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The Making Good</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The Titan's Driver</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">Val de Rosas</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The Strength of Ten</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The White Road of Honor</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="smcap">The End of the Road</span>
+        <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></span>
+    </li>
+</ol>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+  <p class="TOC">&nbsp;<span class="ralign">PAGE</span></p>
+<ul class="TOC" style="list-style-type: none; padding-left: 0;">
+    <li><span class="ralign"><a href="#image_001">Frontispiece</a></span>
+        <span class="smcap">The People Burst Out Over the Course and Overwhelmed the Victors</span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="ralign"><a href="#image_002">14</a></span>
+        <span class="smcap">Giddy, She Willingly Suffered His Support,
+then Drew Back, Her Color Returning Vividly</span>
+    </li>
+    <li><span class="ralign"><a href="#image_003">78</a></span>
+        <span class="smcap">"Wipe It Off," She Requested Resignedly, "Wipe
+It Off and Never Tell"</span>
+    </li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>I</h2>
+<h3>THE KID AMATEUR</h3>
+
+<p>Gerard paused on the steps of the cement
+plateau overlooking the racetrack, his eyebrows
+lifting in the wave of humor glinting across his
+face like sunlight over quiet water.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he wondered. "Who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The grinning mechanician who had just come
+across from the row of training-camps opposite
+supplied the information.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's Rose's rose. Ain't he awful
+tweet?" he mocked.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard continued to smile, but his clear amber
+eyes grew keenly appraising as they followed the
+flight of the rose-colored racing car around the
+circular track.</p>
+
+<p>"He can drive," he gave laconic verdict.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," assented the mechanician. "But he'll
+be the last rose of summer, all right, when the race
+comes off. He'll not last twenty-four hours&mdash;a
+kid amateur. If you ain't coming over, I'll lead
+myself back to my job."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You never can tell," warned Gerard, tolerantly.
+"No, I'm not coming over, Rupert; run
+along."</p>
+
+<p>He moved over to one of the grand-stand seats,
+as he spoke, and sat down, leaning on the rail
+with an easy movement of his supple figure. That
+was the first characteristic strangers usually noted
+in him: an exquisite Hellenic grace of strength
+and faultless proportion. He was a man's beauty,
+as distinguished from a beauty-man; other men
+were given to admiring him extravagantly and unresentfully.
+Unresentfully, because of his utter
+practicality and matter-of-fact atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon sunshine glittered goldenly across
+the huge, green field and the mile track circling
+it, where four racing cars sped in practice contest.
+Two of them were painted gray, one was
+dingy-white; the fourth shone in delicate pink
+enamel touched here and there with silver-gilt.
+Its driver and mechanician were clad in pink also,
+adding the completing stroke to an effect suggesting
+the circus rather than the race track. There
+was much excuse for the laughter of the camps,
+and that reflection of it lying in Gerard's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, the rose-colored machine was well driven.
+More than once the watcher nodded in quick approval
+of a skilful turn or deft man&#339;uvre. Once he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+rose and changed his position to see more distinctly,
+and it was then that he first noticed the girl.</p>
+
+<p>She was so beautifully and expensively gowned
+as to draw even masculine notice of the fact, the
+veil that fell from her silk hood to the hem of
+her cloak would alone have purchased the motor
+costume of the average woman. Against this filmy
+drapery her intent face showed as a study in
+concentration; her dark-blue eyes wide behind
+their black lashes, her soft lips apart, she too
+was watching the pink racer. But there was no
+laughter in her expression, instead there was the
+most deep and earnest tenderness, a blending of
+the childish and the maternal that made Gerard
+catch his breath and glance enviously at the driver
+of the gaudy car.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon was almost ended; as Gerard
+looked, the pink machine finished its last circuit
+and plunged through the paddock entrance, to
+come to a halt before its own tent in the "white
+city" of training camps. Simultaneously the girl
+in the upper rows of seats arose, catching up her
+swirl of pale silk and lace garments and hurrying
+precipitately down the stairway aisle. So great
+was her haste that, coming suddenly to the last
+step, one small, high-heeled su&egrave;de shoe slipped
+from the iron edge and flung her violently against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+a column of the stand. Gerard reached her just
+in time to prevent further fall.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand still," he cautioned, quietly steady.
+"There is a second flight of stairs. You are not
+hurt, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>Giddy, for a moment she willingly suffered his
+support, then drew back on the narrow landing,
+her color returning vividly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered. "I am not hurt. I thank
+you very much."</p>
+
+<p>Thick waves of fair hair lay across her forehead
+above the delicate dark line of her brows,
+her candid regard met his with the dignity of
+utter naturalness and a young confidence in the
+goodness of all men. The impression Gerard
+received was original; he fancied that her home life
+must have been singularly happy and innocent,
+and that he should like to know her father.</p>
+
+<p>"You will let me take you down the rest of
+the way, at least," he offered, accepting the
+situation as simply as she had done.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced down the stairs with a slight shiver,
+still shaken and unnerved.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good. My car is beyond the
+corner, there. I&mdash;I am in haste to reach it."</p>
+
+<div class="figtag">
+  <a id="image_002"></a>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i002.jpg" alt="Gerard and Flavia on the Steps" title="GIDDY, SHE WILLINGLY SUFFERED HIS SUPPORT, THEN DREW BACK, HER COLOR
+RETURNING VIVIDLY" />
+<p class="caption">GIDDY, SHE WILLINGLY SUFFERED HIS SUPPORT, THEN DREW BACK, HER COLOR
+RETURNING VIVIDLY</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That had been obvious. Yet, as she laid her
+gloved hand on Gerard's arm, she lingered to
+look again in the direction of the training-camps.</p>
+
+<p>"The cars will not go out again to-day?" she
+inferred, half-questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think not. It is already late. This
+way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please; to the rear of the club-house."</p>
+
+<p>They descended to the lower floor and crossed
+a strip of sandy ground to where a large foreign-built
+touring car waited, empty save for the
+chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>"I am running away from my brother," the
+young girl explained; then, with a playfulness
+tinged with pathos, "He is practicing out there.
+And it vexes him if I watch him or say I am
+afraid for him. He tells me to stay home and
+forget it. But sometimes I cannot. To-day I
+could not. Thanks to you, I shall escape before
+he finds me."</p>
+
+<p>The "kid amateur's" sister, of course, Gerard
+thought, as he put her in the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you always do as he says?" he queried
+whimsically. "I have no sister, but I did not
+understand that was the rule."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to him her soft, completely feminine
+face, and gleamed into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the only passive member of a strong-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>willed
+family," she told him. "I am always doing
+what some one bids. Thank you, and good-by."</p>
+
+<p>The margin of safe escape was not great. As
+Gerard stepped back on the cement promenade,
+the pink machine shot across and came to a halt
+near the exit, its driver turning in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Any one going to town?" he called, his imperious
+young voice ringing across the open spaces.</p>
+
+<p>"No," came the discouraging monosyllable from
+the official stand.</p>
+
+<p>"No one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The driver slowly sent his car forward,
+temper in every crisp movement, his gaze travelling
+over the empty tiers of seats, to fall at last
+upon Gerard and there rest. With a jerk he
+jammed down the brake and leaned from the
+machine. Thick fair hair lay across his boyish
+forehead above level dark brows, his candid dark-blue
+eyes went direct to their goal: the metal
+badge fastened to Gerard's lapel and just visible
+under the edge of his gray overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>"You're wearing a chauffeur's license," he
+challenged.</p>
+
+<p>"I surely am. Want to engage a man?" was
+the grave response.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's arch glance swept the other's face,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+so definitely stamped with the habit of mastery.</p>
+
+<p>"If I did I'd ask you to recommend one," he
+retorted mirthfully. "I'm not as much mixed as
+I sounded; I wasn't thinking of hiring you. But
+I did want to ask if you would ride into the city
+with me. My mechanician is busy over there, I
+can't find any one else to go with me, and I've
+got to get my car down to the Renard shop to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I wonder," Gerard mused aloud, "why
+you want any one with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I won't be eighteen for a month,"
+he gave prompt explanation. "Under the latest
+law freak turned out at Albany, I'm too young
+to drive a motor vehicle safely on the public roads
+unless I have a licensed chauffeur alongside of me.
+Oh, of course you'd laugh!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was only recalling what I've just been
+watching you do on the track," apologized Gerard,
+steadying his countenance. "And speculating
+upon how the average chauffeur would like to try
+your feats. I shall appreciate the honor of riding
+into town with Mr. Rose and his rose."</p>
+
+<p>The driver colored and laughed together, as
+his guest took the seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"They're always ragging me&mdash;I mean the professional
+racers and motor men," he avowed, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+a burst of resentful confidence. "They called
+me kid amateur, and rosebud, and girlie, until I
+just had my car painted pink and bought these
+pink suits and told them to go ahead getting all
+the fun they could. I'll get my turn to-morrow
+night." He twisted his car through the curved
+gateway, viciously expert.</p>
+
+<p>"You are planning to win?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no trace of mockery in the level
+intonation of the inquiry, yet Rose flushed again.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to, and I mean to try," he answered
+frankly and soberly. "Of course one can't count
+on that sort of thing. I've got a splendid French
+machine here. But Allan Gerard is going to race;
+I'm afraid of him. Why, he hasn't even been out to
+practice! He says he knows the track, they tell
+me, and he'll not come down until a couple of
+hours before the start. That kind of talk <i>rattles</i>
+me&mdash;I wish he'd act like other people and not as if
+he just meant to drop into the motordrome and
+win another cup."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe Gerard intends to pose as
+confident," deprecated his companion. "You see,
+he has his automobile factory to manage as well
+as his racing work; I rather fancy that he didn't
+come out to practice because he was busy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I suppose so. It just gets on my nerves;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+I shouldn't wonder if they were a bit raw from
+so much chaffing by the professional pilots. We're
+the quickest tempered family that ever happened,
+anyhow. I'll go off the handle, I know I will, if
+those grinning drivers get to gibing at me to-morrow
+night&mdash;&mdash;" he broke off, slamming savagely
+into a lower gear as he caught a mounted
+policeman's eye and endeavored to choke his racing
+car's speed down to a reasonable approach to
+the legal limit.</p>
+
+<p>When the desired result was somewhat attained,
+Gerard spoke with quiet seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen considerable motor racing, and I've
+been watching you this afternoon. With some
+really steady training and practice you could undoubtedly
+become one of our few fine drivers. You
+have the gift."</p>
+
+<p>Rose caught his breath, his blue eyes flashed to
+meet the other man's with dazzled and dazzling
+ardor.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;you must not 'go off the handle.'
+Never. You must keep your nerve or quit the
+track."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't nerve, it's temper," amended Rose
+honestly.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard's firm lip bent amusedly, his bronze-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>brown
+eyes glinted a fun as purely boyish as could
+the other's.</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite different," he conceded. "Temper
+doesn't interfere with driving; on the contrary,
+some of the best drivers and most amiable
+men I know are very demons when they are racing."</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard isn't. They say he is the quietest
+ever. Of course he's almost twenty-eight and used
+to it all."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman in question carefully unfastened
+his glove.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard seems to worry you," he commented.</p>
+
+<p>"He does. I don't know just why, but he does."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't let him. This is where you leave
+your machine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I can't offer to take you wherever you
+are going, because I couldn't get back alone. I'm
+awfully obliged to you for coming in with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for the ride." Gerard stepped out
+and offered his hand with a glance deliberately
+friendly. "Good-by; good luck for to-morrow
+and next day."</p>
+
+<p>Rose dragged off his gauntlet and eagerly bent
+to give the clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait&mdash;you're not going like that?" he protested.
+"I'd like to see you again. You haven't
+told me <i>your</i> name."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We will see each other again. That's a safe
+prediction, I assure you." He withdrew his hand,
+laughing a denial of explanation as he retreated.
+"I will tell you my name next time, if you ask
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Already half a dozen people had collected
+around the pink racing car. Others were flocking
+from every direction, the group forming with a
+suddenness truly New Yorkese. Indifferent to all,
+Rose sprang out of his seat and ran through the
+curious men in pursuit of his late companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," he urged, overtaking him. "I want
+to ask&mdash;did you mean that? About my driving
+well, some day? I know I'll never get a chance
+to do it, but do you mean that I <i>could</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant," confirmed Gerard, "just what I
+said. I usually do. Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>The boy remained perfectly still in the midst
+of the crowd, standing in his rose-colored costume
+and looking after the straight, slender figure swinging
+down the street. When Gerard glanced back
+in turning the corner, Rose was still watching him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was some forty-five hours later that Gerard's
+prediction was verified, in the glare-streaked darkness
+of the Beach racetrack amid the medley
+of sounds from excited crowds, roaring cars, and
+noisily busy training camps. Under the swinging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+electric light before the hospital tent, the two
+drivers came face to face.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing wrong, I hope?" Gerard greeted,
+keen eyes sweeping the other.</p>
+
+<p>A sparkle of animation lit Rose's exhaustion-drawn
+face to boyishness.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not hurt. I want to tell you that if I'd
+known who you were, yesterday, I'd never have
+asked you to ride with me," he answered, warmly
+impulsive.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd have let me walk?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have got into the mechanician's seat and
+let you <i>drive</i>. Do you suppose I'd have kept the
+wheel with you in the car? But what you said
+about my driving made it so no one could rattle
+me, Mr. Gerard; I am not going out of the race
+because of that, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Going out of the race? Why, you're running
+in third place!"</p>
+
+<p>Rose shook his head, his mouth set, holding out
+two blistered hands and linen-wound arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I've given out," he acknowledged bitterly.
+"There'll be no finish for my car. I can't hold
+my wheel without an hour to rest and get these
+into shape. Kid amateur, all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your alternate driver?"</p>
+
+<p>"He slipped on a greasy bit of grass, ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+minutes ago, and sprained his ankle. We're out of
+it, with third place ours and a perfect car to run."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard looked down the row of illuminated
+tents to where the pink car stood, palpitating in
+an aura of its own light, and brought his eyes
+back to the other man.</p>
+
+<p>"My machine went out of the race, two hours
+ago, with a broken crankshaft. If you like, I'll
+be your alternate," he offered.</p>
+
+<p>Incredulous, breathless, Rose stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you mean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will drive your car until you are ready
+to take it again for the finish. I've nothing else
+to do, to-night."</p>
+
+<p>It was a time and a scene where over-tense
+nerves not infrequently snapped. But if Gerard
+was not surprised to see it, Rose certainly was
+both amazed and humiliated to feel his own eyes
+suddenly stinging like a girl's.</p>
+
+<p>"If ever I can do anything for you," he stammered
+fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you the chance," promised Gerard,
+tactfully gay. "Now hurry up your men with
+the car while I find my mechanician."</p>
+
+<p>The comrade aid had been given to Rose, without
+the least relation to Rose's sister. But nevertheless
+Gerard directed a curious look toward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+teeming grand-stand, as he turned to make ready.
+Was she there, he wondered, the flower-like girl
+with the name of a flower, who had rested in his
+arms just so long as a blossom might flutter
+against one in passing? Would her gaze follow
+the pink racer, still?</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>II</h2>
+<h3>CORRIE AND HIS OTHER FELLOW</h3>
+
+<p>The touring car rolled slowly through the
+October leaves rustling and swirling down the
+road in jovial wind-eddies, came up to a knoll
+beside the field, and stopped. The driver turned
+in his seat to face the two occupants of the
+tonneau, pushing his goggles up above the line
+of his fair hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," he urged eagerly. "Look at the
+pitcher of our home team. There, just crossing
+the diamond&mdash;it's a new inning."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the first baseball game you've brought
+us out to see, Corrie," observed Mr. Thomas
+Rose, setting his own goggles on his cap above
+the line of his reddish-gray hair. "Is it, my
+girl?"</p>
+
+<p>His daughter laughed, shaking her small head
+in its crimson hood and glancing roguishly at her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor the twenty-first, papa," she amplified.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but I haven't brought you to see the
+game, but the pitcher," the boy protested. "He's
+a new one; you never saw him before. Look."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I want you to."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia Rose obediently turned her gaze toward
+the players, and upon the indicated man it halted,
+arrested.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, and
+sat still.</p>
+
+<p>The men were in their places, alert in poised
+expectation, the attention of the whole field concentrating
+upon the central figure of the pitcher
+at whom the young girl also looked. A slim,
+straight statue he stood during a full moment,
+then slowly raised his arms above his head in a
+gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon
+sun struck across his wind-ruffled brown hair and
+smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the catcher
+and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement
+and turn of his whole body. The white ball shot
+across, swerving almost at the plate, and crashed
+into the catcher's mitt.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got speed!" Mr. Rose approved loudly,
+standing up in the car. "That's pitching! Who's
+your friend, Corwin B.?"</p>
+
+<p>His son did not answer. The ball was back in
+the pitcher's hands; again he was lifting his arms
+in the pose his physical beauty made classic.
+There was repeated the quick nod, the abruptly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+swift movement, and the ball sped across, dropping
+oddly.</p>
+
+<p>"Strike two!" was called.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the applause and shouts of encouragement,
+Flavia laid her small, urgent hand on her
+brother's sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, who is he? Tell us, please."</p>
+
+<p>He moved to see her more directly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the Beach twenty-four-hour
+race, last summer, where I finished third? Do you
+remember how I told you about the big driver,
+Allan Gerard, who drove my machine for two
+hours until I could hold the wheel again myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Strike three&mdash;you're out!" rang the umpire's
+announcement; again the joyous shouts interrupted
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, that's who."</p>
+
+<p>"That's Gerard, playing ball?" interrogated
+Mr. Rose, incredulous. "What for? Lost his
+racing job?"</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, Corrie shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! Gerard is a member of the Mercury
+automobile company and has their western factory
+and all that end of the business in his hands. He
+races the Mercury car because he loves the work
+and because no one else can do it so well. No;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+practice for the Cup race opens to-morrow, and
+he's here on Long Island for that. But the pitcher
+of our home team put his arm out of business
+yesterday, and Gerard offered to pitch for this
+game. He knows everybody here&mdash;he always
+knows everybody everywhere, he's that kind. And
+I want to ask him to dinner," he concluded
+irrelevantly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose scanned the field for a flying ball, as
+a sharp crack announced the first hit.</p>
+
+<p>"Staying out here, or going in to the city each
+day?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"He's staying in Jamaica, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'd best ask him to stop at your house
+until the race comes off, or he'll wreck his machine
+from weakness brought on by starvation," pronounced
+Mr. Rose, dryly. "One dinner won't
+carry him through weeks. I know those hotels,
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie gasped, his face swept by delighted awe.</p>
+
+<p>"Really? Oh, I'd give anything to have
+Gerard, <i>Gerard</i>, like that! Do you think he'll
+come?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he had dinner at his hotel last night, and
+breakfast and lunch to-day, he'll come," his father
+assured. "Now be quiet and let me watch the
+game; it must be near ending."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Almost, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the <i>but</i>, Corwin B. Keep cool."</p>
+
+<p>But Corrie could not keep cool. When his
+father's attention was engaged he slipped down
+from his seat and went around to Flavia's side
+of the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he would come?" he asked, for
+her ears alone. "Don't you want him, too? Why
+are you so serious&mdash;what <i>do</i> you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Their clear violet-blue eyes met in the intimate
+household love and understanding of all their lives.
+Flavia dropped a caressing arm around her
+brother's shoulders, gently drawing him to face
+the field.</p>
+
+<p>"Really look," she bade.</p>
+
+<p>Puzzled, he obeyed. Gerard was still occupying
+the centre of the diamond, holding the ball aloft
+while his meditative gaze apparently dwelt on the
+batsman. There was scarcely a perceptible turn
+of his brown head, yet as the two in the car
+watched, the impromptu pitcher's glance flashed
+from behind his uplifted arm and he whirled in a
+half-circle to hurl the unexpected ball straight
+across the diamond to where a careless enemy had
+ventured from second base. Too late the startled
+runner saw; the sudden attack won.</p>
+
+<p>"You're out!" pealed the quick decision. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+game was closed. With the gay uproar of local
+triumph Mr. Rose mingled his approving applause,
+still standing upright in the car to view the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of what are you thinking?" Corrie repeated.
+"He's splendid, I know that."</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking of Isabel," Flavia answered
+quietly, "and of you. If you take Mr. Gerard
+home, she will see a great deal of him."</p>
+
+<p>Astonished, he regarded her. After a moment
+he again looked toward the man opposite, his expression
+sober.</p>
+
+<p>"It's like you to think of me," he acknowledged,
+with slow gratitude. "But that's all right. If
+any one else can get her, I'd better know it now.
+Of course he'll want her, she's just the kind of
+girl he'd like, such a sport herself about cars and
+things. If she likes him better than me, why I'll
+have to stand it, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, I shall be very glad to have Mr. Gerard
+stay with us, dear; don't you and I always like
+the same things?"</p>
+
+<p>"We sure do, Other Fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>The childhood "play name" brought their
+cordial glances together, as Mr. Rose dropped
+into his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Game's over, Corwin B.; better run get your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+friend," he notified, cheerily imperious. "Hurry
+along."</p>
+
+<p>Half-smiling, half-anxious, Corrie lingered on
+the verge of compliance.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I feel a chill at the idea," he avowed. "I
+believe, after all, I'm shy of Gerard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now what's the matter?" Mr. Rose ejaculated,
+staring after his son. "Shy; and I've been trying
+ever since he was born&mdash;without succeeding&mdash;to
+teach him that there were one or two people
+on earth bigger than he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it so, then?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with him, mutinously unanswering.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever diffidence Corrie had felt promptly
+vanished when Gerard turned from the group of
+players and met him. Flushed with vigorous
+exercise and recent conquest, his smiling eyes
+warming to recognition as they fell upon the
+breathless young motorist, there certainly was
+nothing intimidating in the late pitcher's aspect.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Corrie Rose&mdash;you haven't forgotten?
+Come meet my father and sister, won't you?" was
+Corrie's eager greeting.</p>
+
+<p>It was not at all the dignified self-introduction
+and invitation he had planned as he ran across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+the field, but Gerard had the gift of drawing sincerity
+to meet his own, like to like.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't forgotten me," countered the
+other, giving his hand. "And I should be delighted
+to meet your father and Miss Rose, if I
+were fit. Perhaps you'll give me another chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Fit? Why, we've been watching you play
+ball! A fellow don't play ball in a frock coat.
+We want you to come home to dinner, now, and
+stay with us over the race. You know I'm practising
+for it, too. Don't say no," as Gerard
+moved. "We <i>want</i> you."</p>
+
+<p>The impulsive, italicized speech was very compelling.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you; I'll come over to your car, anyway,"
+Gerard accepted. "But&mdash;&mdash;What is
+it, Rupert?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you'd call it a raincoat," was the
+drawled reply. "I'd feel bad to find you'd brought
+out your pajamas, for there ain't anything to do
+except wear it, now."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not cold."</p>
+
+<p>The mechanician nodded a brief return to Corrie's
+laughing salute, and directed his sardonic
+black eyes to Gerard's right arm, which the rolled-back
+sleeve left bare to the elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't specially timid," he submitted. "If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+rheumatism is part of the racing equipment you
+like to have with you, I'll just hurry home and
+make my will before we start."</p>
+
+<p>With an impatient shrug Gerard slipped into
+the garment.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks; you're worse than a wife. Rose,
+you know Jack Rupert, who's sheer nerve when
+we're racing and sheer nerves when we're not."</p>
+
+<p>"I surely do," Corrie warmly confirmed. "You
+rode with Mr. Gerard at the Beach when he drove
+my car for me. I'm not likely to forget <i>that</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The small, malignly intelligent mechanician
+contemplated him, unsmiling, although far from
+unfriendly.</p>
+
+<p>"I ride with Gerard," he acquiesced.</p>
+
+<p>And only Gerard himself knew the history of
+service in the face of death comprehended in the
+simple statement.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Rose, repeatedly millionaire and genially
+absolute dictator in his circle of affairs, was
+not easy to gainsay. And he chose to assume
+prompt possession of Gerard, almost before the
+introduction was over.</p>
+
+<p>"Get right in," he commanded. "Never mind
+anything, get in; and we'll talk about keeping
+you after we've had dinner. We'll stop at your
+hotel for your things, if you want them."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're very good," Gerard began, and
+stopped, encountering Flavia's eyes. Neither had
+spoken of their former meeting, indeed they had
+been given no opportunity for speech, yet the acute
+recollection was a bond between them.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not wish to be insistent, Mr. Gerard,"
+she said now, in her fresh, soft tones. "But we
+should be very glad to have you."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard continued to look at her, gravely attentive
+as she herself. She was as exquisitely dressed
+as when he had caught her in his arms on the
+stairs of the Beach grand-stand, the fragile hand
+she laid on the car door carried the vivid flash of
+jewels. Somehow he divined that her father exacted
+this, that in his pride of self-made millionaire
+he would insist upon extravagance as other
+men might upon economy. And she would yield.
+He remembered her playful speech at their first
+meeting: "I am the only passive member of a
+strong-willed family." His impression was of her
+most feminine softness that was not in the least weak.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he answered. "I should have
+liked above all things to be your guest. But it
+happens that I have brought my mechanician with
+me and that I cannot desert him at the hotel. It
+does not matter at all about relative social position;
+we are down here together. Moreover, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+have a ninety Mercury racing machine to look
+after, and I should be a most unrestful visitor, up
+at dawn and out until dark."</p>
+
+<p>"If that's all," decided Mr. Rose, "this is a
+seven-passenger car and an architect said my
+house had ninety-five rooms. There's standing
+room in the garage, I guess, for a car or two.
+Corrie, turn loose your horn."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie promptly put his finger on the button
+of the electric signal, and a raucous wail shattered
+the sunset hush.</p>
+
+<p>"That's your man, looking this way? I like
+your sticking to him, Gerard. Here he comes.
+We're all fixed, then; get in."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard got in, beside Flavia, who laughingly
+drew her velvet skirts to give him place.</p>
+
+<p>"I think this bears a perilous resemblance to
+a kidnapping," she doubted. "Is it quite safe, I
+wonder? Shall you summon rescue when we reach
+a populated place?"</p>
+
+<p>"If kidnapping means being taken against one's
+will, I haven't any case," he returned as seriously.
+"I don't believe I could be dislodged from here,
+now, if you tried."</p>
+
+<p>"I had not contemplated the attempt&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Please do not! I look like a tramp, I know,
+but I will be exceedingly good."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not immoderately good; we are a frivolous
+family," she deprecated.</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other, and their eyes
+laughed together.</p>
+
+<p>Radiant, Corrie was already behind the steering-wheel,
+an impatient hand poised to release the
+brake.</p>
+
+<p>"Beside me, Rupert," he blithely invited, when
+the mechanician came up.</p>
+
+<p>Rupert looked at Gerard, received his gesture
+of corroboration, and lifting his cap to Flavia,
+took the designated seat without comment.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you care where you're going?" presently
+demanded Corrie, moving up a speed. He
+respected Allan Gerard's little mechanician almost
+as much as he did Allan Gerard, knowing his reputation
+in racing circles; the glance he gave to
+accompany the query was an invitation to friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Rupert braced one small tan shoe against the
+floor, as the car wrenched itself out of a tenacious
+sand rut.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't worrying," he kindly assured. "Any
+place that ain't New York is off the map, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you belonged out west with Mr.
+Gerard."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I guess I belong to the Mercury racer. But
+I'm officially chief tester at the eastern factory,
+up the Hudson, except when there's a race on.
+Since Darling French got married, I've raced with
+Gerard. Were you aiming to collect that horseshoe
+with a nail in it, ahead there on the course,
+or will it be an accident?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's going to be an escape," smiled the driver,
+swerving deftly. "Tell me about the first part
+of the ball game, won't you? I missed it, going
+after my father and sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Who, me? I ain't qualified. The curves I'm
+used to judging belong to a different game. I
+guess, if you listen to what's being said behind us,
+you'll get the better record. I'm enjoying the
+novelty of the automobile ride, myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be," Corrie agreed ironically.
+"You get so little of it. They are not talking
+<i>real</i> ball."</p>
+
+<p>But he settled back to listen. In fact, it was
+the recent game that was being discussed in the
+tonneau, with Mr. Rose as chief speaker and Flavia
+as auditor. The party was of enchanting congeniality.</p>
+
+<p>They drove first to the hotel where Gerard had
+been stopping.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite six o'clock when the touring car<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+rolled through Mr. Rose's lawns and landscape-garden
+scenery, to come to a stop before the large,
+pink stone house of many columns. Mr. Rose had
+a passion for columns. Across the rug-strewn
+veranda a girl advanced to meet the arriving
+motorists; an auburn-haired, high-colored girl
+who wore a tweed ulster over her light evening
+gown.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were never coming," she reproached,
+imperiously aggrieved. "I hate waiting.
+And I want uncle to send Lenoir after my
+runabout&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The sentence broke as she saw the man beside
+Flavia, her gray eyes widened in astonished interest.</p>
+
+<p>"My niece Isabel Rose, Mr. Gerard," presented
+Mr. Rose. "And now you have met all of us.
+Come on, Corwin B."</p>
+
+<p>Isabel Rose gave her hand to the guest. She
+had the slightly hard beauty of nineteen years
+and exuberant health; contrasted with Flavia,
+there was almost a boyishness in her air of assurance
+and athletic vigor. But in the studied coquetry
+of her glance at Gerard, the instant desire
+to allure in response to the allure of this man's
+good looks, she showed femininity of a type that
+her cousin never would understand.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I should not have minded waiting," she declared,
+in her high-pitched, clear-cut speech, "if
+I had known something pleasant was going to
+happen."</p>
+
+<p>"If that means me, Miss Rose&mdash;&mdash;" Gerard
+laughingly doubted.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anyone else who happens; the rest
+of them are just always here," she confirmed,
+shrugging her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her with the gay indulgence one
+shows an agreeable child. "Then, all thanks for
+the welcome. I shall try to live up to it, if you
+will not expect too much."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I shall!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then perhaps I had better retreat at once?"</p>
+
+<p>"You might try, first. Don't you think so,
+Flavia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think we might go in," Flavia smilingly
+suggested from the threshold. "We could assume
+Mr. Gerard's safety so far."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Corwin B.," his father summoned
+again.</p>
+
+<p>But Corrie sat still in his place, leaning on his
+steering-wheel and gazing curiously at his cousin
+and Gerard. Nor did he follow the group into
+the house; instead, he took the car and Jack
+Rupert around to the garage.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A little later, when Flavia Rose went upstairs
+to make ready for dinner, Isabel followed her,
+frankly inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this Mr. Gerard the real Gerard, the Gerard
+who races cars?" the examination commenced, as
+soon as the cousins were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"He is Allan Gerard," Flavia stated. "Did
+you have a nice game, this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>The distraction was put aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pretty fair. I walked home across the
+links and left the runabout at the club. Did you
+ever meet Mr. Gerard before? You seem to know
+each other pretty well."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia's delicate color flushed over her face; for
+an instant she again felt Gerard's firm arm around
+her and encountered his concerned eyes bent upon
+her own, as they stood on the stairs of the grand-stand.
+Truthfulness was the atmosphere of the
+household, the truthfulness born of fearless affection
+and cordial sympathy of feeling, but now
+she used an evasion, almost for the first time in
+her life.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Corrie who knows Mr. Gerard, Isabel,"
+she explained, a trifle slowly. "You remember
+that race when he helped Corrie, last summer?
+To-day Corrie saw him playing ball, and brought
+him to meet us."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Yes, I remember the race, of course;
+I was there. But I did not know Allan Gerard
+was&mdash;well, <i>looked</i> like that. How long will he
+be here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Papa and Corrie asked him to stay until the
+Cup race is over."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Isabel walked over to one
+of the long mirrors and studied her own vigorously
+handsome image, then turned her head and
+regarded Flavia with the perfect complacency and
+mischievous malice of a young kitten.</p>
+
+<p>"Good sport," she anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia carefully laid her brush upon the
+dressing table and proceeded to gather into a coil
+the shimmering mass of her fair hair. Suddenly
+she was afraid, quiveringly afraid of herself, of
+Gerard and the next two weeks, but most afraid
+of showing any change in expression to Isabel's
+sharp scrutiny.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>III</h2>
+<h3>THE HOUSEHOLD OF ROSES</h3>
+
+<p>"If there is one thing meaner than another,
+it's <i>rain</i>," Corrie announced generally. "I'm
+going out. Won't you come, Gerard?"</p>
+
+<p>"If rain is the meanest thing there is, it shows
+real sense to go out in it," Isabel commented,
+from the window-seat opposite. "That is just
+like you, Corrie Rose. When I ask you to take me
+out on a perfectly fair day, you won't do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I?" stunned. "I ever refused&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Yesterday, when I asked you to take
+me just once around the race course, while the
+cars were out practising. You know you would
+not. If it is safe for you, it is safe for me. But
+never mind; your old pink car won't win, anyhow.
+He hasn't a chance with the professional drivers,
+has he, Mr. Gerard?"</p>
+
+<p>"A chance?" Gerard gravely echoed. "Why,
+several of our best drivers are thinking of withdrawing,
+since he is entered, because they feel it's
+no use trying to win if he is racing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're making fun! But I mean it; <i>I</i>
+could race that car he is so vain of, with my own
+little runabout machine."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Corrie dragged a mandolin from beneath his
+chair and tinkled the opening chords of a popular
+melody.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">    "Get on your little girl's racer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">    And I'll lead you for a chaser,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">    Down the good old Long Island course.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">    And before you're half through it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">    Your poor car will rue it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">    And you'll trade in the pieces for a horse."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The provoking improvisation ended abruptly, as
+Isabel's well-aimed sofa-pillow struck the singer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call that a ladylike retort?" Corrie
+queried, freeing himself from the silken missile.
+"Tell her it isn't, Flavia."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," Flavia excused herself. "There
+are more cushions on that window-seat."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a soft answer, at least," Gerard
+laughed. "And a good shot."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I taught her to pitch, myself. Now I'm
+sorry," deplored her cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late," Isabel returned complacently. "I
+called that a cushion carom, Corrie. And my car
+would not fall to pieces. Flavia, he is feeding
+candy to Firdousi."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia looked over with the warm brightening
+of expression Allan Gerard had learned to watch
+for when she regarded her brother, and which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+never failed to stir in him the half-wistful envy
+of the first day when he had seen her so gazing
+at the driver of the pink racing car.</p>
+
+<p>"If Corrie can teach a Persian kitten to eat
+candy, he probably can teach it to digest candy,"
+she offered serene reply. "Besides, he loves
+Firdousi, as much as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"I only gave him some fruit-paste to see his
+jaws work," the culprit defended. "He needs exercise.
+And so do I."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that kind, yours work all the time. It
+is only an hour since breakfast and you have
+talked ever since," corrected his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie ran his fingers through his heavy fair
+hair, carefully set the purring kitten on the floor,
+and stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, if you say so," he submitted gracefully.
+"What you say, I stand for."</p>
+
+<p>The argument was pure sport, of course. But
+with that last playful sentence, Corrie suddenly
+turned his dark-blue eyes upon Isabel with an
+expression not playful, as if himself struck by
+some deeper force in the words.</p>
+
+<p>"What you say, I stand for," he repeated, and
+paused.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flavia and Gerard both looked at him. All the
+fresh ardor of first love, all the impulsive faith
+of eighteen and its entire devotion invested Corrie
+Rose and illumined the shining regard in which
+he enveloped his cousin. There was in him a
+quality that lifted the moment above mere sentimentality,
+a young strength and straightforward
+earnestness at once dignified and pathetic with the
+pathos of all transient things that must go down
+before the battery of the years.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been difficult to encounter a more
+enchanting family life than that into which Allan
+Gerard had been drawn. The Rose household was
+as redolent of simple fragrance as a household of
+roses, in spite of its costly luxury, its retinue of
+servants and lavish expenditure. Thomas Rose's
+wealth had been made so long since, before the
+birth of the younger generation, that to one and
+all it was merely the natural condition of affairs,
+not in the least affecting them personally. Money
+was very nearly non-existent to them, since they
+never were obliged to consider its lack or abundance.
+They spent as they desired, precisely as
+they ate when hungry or drank according to thirst,
+without either stint or excess. It was Arcadian,
+it was improbable, but it was so. And the guard-wall
+that encircled their gilded Arcadia was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+strong mutual affection not to be overthrown from
+without. Only by internal treason could that domain
+fall.</p>
+
+<p>It was not in one day that Gerard had come to
+understand this in its fullness; he had learned
+bit by bit. For there was nothing at all angelic
+about the gay family. But now he first realized,
+as he watched Corrie, that Isabel Rose was placed
+here by circumstance and not by fittedness. She
+was too earthen a vessel, however handsome and
+wholesome, to contain that fine sun-shot essence
+distilled from the fountain of youth which her
+cousin poured out for her taking. Gerard knew
+it, as he saw her matter-of-fact acceptance of the
+gaze that should have moved even a woman who
+did not love Corrie.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, they would probably marry one another,
+he reflected. There was nothing to interfere, if
+she consented. He felt an elder brother's outrush
+of impatient protection for the boy; involuntarily
+he turned to Flavia with a movement of
+regretful irritation at the folly of it all, a folly
+he divined that she also recognized.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia met his glance, and read its impatience
+and regret. How she applied it was a reflection
+less of her own mind than of Isabel's; she fancied
+Gerard jealous of this open wooing of the other
+girl, and mutely asking her own intervention.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That intervention was not easy to give. In
+spite of herself, the days with Allan Gerard had
+affected her so far. Stooping, she lifted Firdousi
+to her lap, gaining a moment before breaking the
+silence that had fallen upon the group.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going to take Mr. Gerard,
+Corrie?" she inquired. "Are not the possibilities
+storm-limited?"</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't going to take him anywhere," Isabel
+calmly interpolated. "They are going to stay in
+and amuse us. At least, that is what I say, if he
+is going to stand for it. He said he would, but
+it's some large order."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie threw back his head, all seriousness
+vanishing before his laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Just you let father catch you slinging Boweryese
+like that, Miss Rose," he begged, moving
+aside to stuff a handful of candy into either coat-pocket.
+"He loves to hear girls talk slang. But
+it <i>is</i> some classy order, all right, if you come to
+think of it; I guess I won't commence to-day. I'm
+going over to show the <i>Dear Me</i> to Jack Rupert,
+Flavia; he thinks he can tell me why her engine
+misses."</p>
+
+<p>"In the rain, dear?" his sister wondered.</p>
+
+<p>"'Snips and snails and gasoline tales, are
+what little boys are made of,'" Isabel quoted derisive
+<i>Mother Goose</i>. "He won't melt; let him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+go. Mr. Gerard, you do not want to go out in a
+sloppy motor boat, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you will forgive my bad taste, I believe I
+shall go with Corrie," Gerard deprecated, rising.
+He looked again at Flavia, but she offered no suggestion
+that he stay.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the idea," approved the gentleman in
+question. "I'll ring for our raincoats."</p>
+
+<p>There was a period of silence in the many-windowed,
+octagonal library, after the two young
+girls were left alone. Flavia continued to play
+with the drowsy kitten. Isabel, chin in hand, gazed
+across the rain-drenched window-panes, her full
+lips bent discontentedly. The first diversion was
+effected by the smart slap of a maple-leaf flattened
+against the glass by a gust of wind, directly across
+the watcher's line of vision.</p>
+
+<p>"P.P.C.," interpreted Flavia, surveying the
+large pale-golden leaf, as it adhered to the wet
+pane opposite her cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what may that mean?" Isabel demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pour prendre cong&eacute;</i>, of course. Those are
+the farewell cards of departing summer. See her
+coat-of-arms on it: a gold-and-crimson sunset?"</p>
+
+<p>Isabel eyed her companion with scornful superiority.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better talk sense," she counselled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+"That is a good stiff north wind blowing, and
+Corrie is just as reckless with his motor boat as
+he is with his car. He and Mr. Gerard are likely
+to be half-drowned&mdash;and I am glad of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Isa!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad. It serves them right for leaving
+me at home and going off with that mechanic. I
+know why Corrie did it, too; he didn't want us to
+be together all day. He is jealous of Mr. Gerard
+because he likes me."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie does?"</p>
+
+<p>Isabel launched a glance of malicious comprehension
+over her shoulder, smilingly meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Corrie! Of course! But I meant Mr.
+Gerard. Anyone can see how Corrie hates to have
+him with me."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia adjusted the blue-satin bow upon
+Firdousi's neck, saying nothing for a moment.
+She did not intend to put the question hovering
+at her lips, yet suddenly the indiscreet words
+escaped her:</p>
+
+<p>"Then, you think Mr. Gerard is&mdash;interested
+in you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever know a man to come here without
+being interested in me, Flavia Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>The superb arrogance was a trifle too much to
+escape retort, even from the considerate Flavia.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, there was Mr. Stone," she recalled, with
+intention.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel colored richly, her handsome light-gray
+eyes hardened. The recent episode of Mr. Ethan
+Stone had not been one of her triumphs in flirtation.</p>
+
+<p>"He was almost as old as uncle," she exclaimed
+sharply. "He would have died of fright at the
+things Mr. Gerard and Corrie and I like to do,
+anyway, if he had stayed here. He was all nerves.
+So are you, for that matter. You are worried
+over Corrie now, you know you are."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia never quarrelled; she had an abhorrence
+of scenes. But that did not imply a lack of
+capacity for anger. She rose, a straight, slim
+figure in her blue morning-frock, the kitten in her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were with him, I should not be worried,"
+she stated with dignity. "I am never afraid when
+I am there to share what happens. I think I will
+go upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>And she went, leaving the other girl to devise
+her own amusements.</p>
+
+<p>In her own room, Flavia pushed aside the window-curtains
+to look out. In all the dripping
+landscape she saw no trace of her brother or their
+guest; the guest, half of whose visit was now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+past. The next day would be Sunday; one of the
+two weeks she had unreasoningly dreaded was
+gone, already. Was she glad, or sorry? She
+did not know. But she continued to look from
+the window; there was indeed a strong north wind
+blowing, and Corrie, if not reckless, certainly used
+the least margin of safety.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to be more safe from drowning
+than Corrie was at that time. He was in fact
+on land as dry as the weather permitted, engaged
+in operating a small ciderpress for the benefit of
+himself and Gerard, at a certain old-fashioned
+farm where he was&mdash;as he himself explained&mdash;persona
+very grata indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"They are used to me," he supplemented.
+"Wonderful what people can get used to, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It surely is," Gerard agreed, from his seat
+on an overturned barrel. He contemplated interestedly
+the picture Corrie presented with his
+sleeves rolled to the elbow, his coat off and his
+bright hair flecked with ruby-hued drops of the
+flying liquid. "See here, Corrie, what are you
+planning to do with yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do? Meet Rupert and try out the <i>Dear Me</i>,
+of course. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that way. College? Business?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Would you pitch over that tin-cup,
+please? Why, I am all through college."</p>
+
+<p>"Through it! Before you are nineteen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jes' so. Like to see the pretty blue-ribboned
+papers that prove it?" He sat down on the
+press, drying his face with his handkerchief. "You
+see, my father had tutors to lavish all their wisdom
+and attention on little Corwin B. Rose, and I
+never had to wait while the rest of a class ploughed
+along, so I got through the usual junk and was
+ready for college at fifteen plus. So I entered
+at New York, where I could drive back and forth
+from home each day, and finished up the college
+business. It was a nuisance and I wanted to get
+it over, so I hustled a bit. The classical course,
+you know, not the professional. I graduated last
+Spring, just before I met you at the twenty-four-hour
+race. You look surprised."</p>
+
+<p>"I should not have thought it of you."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't suppose I could work?" The
+mischievous blue eyes laughed at him. "I can,
+when I have to. And studying doesn't hit me
+very hard, although I'd rather be out-doors."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that, exactly. You do not look it,"
+Gerard said slowly. He could not explain the
+effects he had seen left by college life with unlimited
+money at command, or how he was moved
+by their utter absence here.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Corrie gave way to open mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"What a compliment! My word! Fancy!
+Well, I can't help my face. Anyway, you think
+I look as if I could drive a car, so I'm satisfied.
+Do you know," his expression sobered as he leaned
+forward, fixing earnest eyes on his companion's,
+"I would rather be you, do what you are doing,
+than be or do anything else in the world. Of
+course, I shan't get the chance&mdash;probably I
+couldn't do the work if I did&mdash;but I should <i>love</i>
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard actually colored before that ardent admiration,
+taken unaware.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie Rose, you are given to the folly of
+hero-worship; and heroes are few," he accused
+sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that, Mr. Gerard."</p>
+
+<p>"I do. But, Corrie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Present."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard stood up, reaching for his raincoat.</p>
+
+<p>"Beware of heroine-worship, it is <i>the</i> folly.
+When you find the real woman, get on your knees,
+where you belong, before a grace of God, but don't
+build shrines to an imitation."</p>
+
+<p>Astonished, Corrie paused, upright beside the
+ciderpress, then smiled with a blending of pride
+and serious exaltation.</p>
+
+<p>"No danger of that! I&mdash;that can never hap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>pen
+to me," he assured quietly. "I am safe-guarded
+from imitations, win or lose. I believe,
+if I am given to hero-worship, that I'm pretty
+good at picking the right subjects for it. Had
+enough cider?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too much, probably. If I am ill to-morrow,
+I shall tell Rupert that you poisoned me. Are
+you going around to pay the lord proprietors of
+the place for what we have consumed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who, me? If I did, Mrs. Goodwin might
+box my ears for the impertinence; she has boxed
+them before. I grew up around here, remember.
+The first acquaintance I made with this house was
+when I shied an apple at the family tabby as it
+sat sunning itself on the well-curb, and bowled it
+in. Naturally, I hadn't meant to hit it; the
+beast stepped forward just as I fired. I nearly
+fell in, myself, trying to get it out, but the well
+was deep and I couldn't raise a meow or a whisker.
+It was a fine November Sunday, I remember, and
+while I was busy the family drove into the yard,
+home from church. I bolted. No one saw me go,
+but by and by I began to remember all the yarns
+I ever had heard about people getting typhoid
+fever from polluted well-water, and to imagine
+that entire household dying on my hands. Remorse
+with a capital R! I felt like Cesare Borgia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+and Madame de Brinvilliers and the Veiled
+Mokanna all rolled into one. When I couldn't
+stand it any longer, I sneaked into Flavia's room
+at two o'clock in the morning, for counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"She gave it?"</p>
+
+<p>"She gave it. You can always count on Flavia.
+I can see her now, sitting up in bed with her
+hair braided in two big yellow plaits and her
+troubled kiddie countenance turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'You will have to tell either papa or those
+people,' she decided, wise as a toy owl. 'And
+if you tell them, <i>they</i> will surely tell papa, so perhaps
+you would rather tell him yourself. But I
+am sorry, dear darling.'</p>
+
+<p>"So I 'fessed up, after breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" Gerard questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"We drove over to the farm together, and
+father went in for a private interview with old
+man Goodwin. After which he, father, escorted
+me around to the well and informed me that I was
+to drink a cup of that water. Phew, I would
+rather have drunk hemlock! I wasn't much given
+to begging off when I got into trouble, but I tried
+that time, all right.</p>
+
+<p>"'It's what you've left these folks to drink,'
+said he, standing with his hands in his pockets,
+looking at me. 'It would have been a lot more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+pleasant for you to swallow if you had owned up
+two days ago; just keep that as a reminder never
+to put off a thing you ought to do. Take your
+medicine, Corwin B.'</p>
+
+<p>"I took it. But it almost killed me." He shook
+his blond head disgustedly. "I told him I would
+probably die of typhoid, or something worse. He
+said we would chance it."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, it was a chance, Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie calmly fastened the last button of his
+raincoat.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I guess not. You see, old Goodwin had
+told father that they pulled pussy out of the well
+ten minutes after I ran away, the first day. She
+was clinging to the bucket, pretty wet, but healthy
+and merry. Father told me the truth, before dinner-time;
+I didn't seem to care for luncheon, that
+day. Have you got a pencil? I've lost my fountain-pen
+again; that's the third I've bought this
+month."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard produced the pencil.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a rough joke on you, though," he commented.
+"Didn't you resent it?"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie lifted his bright clear glance from his
+task of tearing a blank leaf from his notebook.</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't I earned it?" he asked. "Keep the
+lines straight, Gerard; my father never punished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+me in anger, nor unless I could first admit I deserved
+it and we could shake hands on it afterward.
+Of course, that sort of thing ended five
+years ago&mdash;there never was much of it&mdash;but there
+couldn't be closer friends than we have been, right
+through. We have kept each other's respect, we
+couldn't get along without it; and we expect a
+good deal of each other, too. I just don't want
+you to misunderstand."</p>
+
+<p>He scribbled his signature across the bit of
+paper, and secured the legend to the ciderpress.</p>
+
+<p>"There; now the Goodwins will know who has
+been here. Ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ready," Gerard assented.</p>
+
+<p>The rain had ceased; the vigorous broom of the
+north wind was sweeping the broken storm-clouds
+across a gray sky. The drive to the yacht club
+was accomplished pleasantly and quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I told Rupert to meet us here at noon," Corrie
+observed, when they stopped at the pier. "And
+I had lunch for three sent over, this morning.
+What a deserted old hole the club is in October!
+Hello, what&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>From beneath the tarpaulin cover of a long,
+polished motor boat moored in the wall-locked
+artificial harbor, a frowsy head had projected, to
+be instantly withdrawn into shelter at sight of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+two young men. The genus of that head was
+unmistakable, the action significant. Both arrivals
+halted involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"Club steward?" inquired Gerard, with irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Tramp!" flared his companion, recovering
+breath after the first shock of amazement at the
+audacity of the intruder. "A dirty, lazy hobo
+in my boat! Lying on my cushions, mauling my
+things, running my engine for all I know. Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on," Gerard advised. "Better investigate."</p>
+
+<p>But Corrie was already at the edge of the pier.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out of there!" he shouted imperiously.
+"Come out, I say, or I'll come aboard and throw
+you out. What do you mean by it? Come out, I
+tell you."</p>
+
+<p>The head slowly emerged, a red head in need of
+combing; its owner rested his arms on the gleaming
+mahogany deck and turned a sullen, unshaven
+face on his challenger.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand me a quarter, an' I'll beat it," he invited
+raucously.</p>
+
+<p>"A quarter! You'll beat it without a cent and
+do it quick, or go to jail. That is my boat, do
+you hear? Come out. What are you doing there?
+Stealing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sleepin', if you want to know."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've got a right to know. Are you going to
+take your filthy self off my cushions, or am I
+going to throw you off?"</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>me</i>. Who do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>The man measured his young antagonist with
+unhurried scrutiny, yawned, and ostentatiously
+settled himself in a position of greater comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't do it," he sneered. "Send a man."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Dear Me</i> was not anchored, but moored to
+the pier by a pulley and tackle. Before the
+diverted Gerard guessed his purpose, Corrie had
+hauled in the boat's bow by the running line
+attached and swung himself raging into the craft
+below. There was a choked oath, a sound of rending
+canvas, then the clatter and thud of combat
+in close quarters.</p>
+
+<p>It was over before Gerard could do more than
+haul the reeling, water-drenched boat again within
+reach. A great splash, a cry changing to a
+smothered gurgle, announced a threat fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want any help," panted Corrie, standing
+erect and dishevelled, fiery blue eyes on his
+floundering enemy. "He's had enough, I fancy.
+Here, the water is only five feet deep, you chump!
+Not that way! Throw me an oar, Gerard&mdash;he'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+drown himself in a saucer. Here, catch hold, you.
+What's the matter with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You pitched him into pretty cold water,"
+Gerard reproached, between amusement and pity.
+"Got him? Look out! You'll capsize!"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie had him, by the collar, and brought him
+to the pier, a streaming, shivering wreck.</p>
+
+<p>"Man's size, am I?" demanded the victor.
+"Here, what are you shaking like that for?
+You'll kill yourself, man."</p>
+
+<p>The captive looked at him, speechless, shuddering
+miserably in the boisterous rush of wind that
+wrapped his wet garments about him like a sheath
+of ice.</p>
+
+<p>"You silly idiot," Corrie snapped impatiently.
+"Why didn't you do as I told you? Open the
+basement door, won't you, Gerard, while I bring
+him? We'll be sure to find a fire there. Are you
+going to come quietly, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>The victim followed tamely to the lower part
+of the building, where Corrie threw open a furnace-door
+and installed him in the red glow of heat.</p>
+
+<p>"Take off your clothes," he commanded. "Trying
+to get pneumonia, are you, so I will feel like a
+brute? Oh, I'll give you something to wear; I've
+got a lot of old duds in my locker here. What are
+you laughing at, Allan Gerard?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The responsible man's burden. Never mind
+me, go on with your rescue."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to throw something at you."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you got enough on your hands?"</p>
+
+<p>The raillery struck some note in the man's pride.
+He looked from Gerard to Corrie, who was bringing
+an armful of assorted clothing, with a reawakening
+defiance not so much evil as primitive.</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't have put it over me so easy,"
+he announced sombrely, "if I'd had the feed I
+bet you got this morning."</p>
+
+<p>The garments escaped Corrie's grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Feed? You're hungry?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you think I was sleepin' in your dinky
+boat for, if I had the price of anythin'? It had
+a blanket in it an' was better than the open, that's
+why."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you say so," Corrie stormed at
+him hotly. "Get into those clothes and come
+upstairs. Or, no; I'll bring it down, stay there."</p>
+
+<p>It was an elaborate lunch-hamper that presently
+was brought in and set down.</p>
+
+<p>"Eat it," was the concise direction. "That
+vacuum-bottle is full of hot coffee; drink it. For
+Heaven's sake stop shivering&mdash;<i>why</i> couldn't you
+speak? Rupert is coming, Gerard. I heard the
+motor-horn down the road."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gerard discreetly had turned his back to the
+scene, reading a last-season bulletin of yacht racing
+that was fixed to the wall at the end of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to start?" he interpreted, as Corrie
+joined him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I hope you won't mind, but I don't see
+how we can. I have got to stay here until that
+chattering, shaking&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'Brimstone pig,'" supplied Gerard, with a
+recollection of the unforgettable <i>Mrs. Smallweed</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. Until he finishes and can leave, for
+the steward will put him out if he finds him here
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"That cannot be long."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but," he hesitated, engagingly confused.
+"But we are miles from a restaurant, you know,
+and I had to feed him somehow, and there wasn't
+anything except our luncheon that I had sent
+over for the trip. So I suppose we had better
+drive home and get some eats there. It is a shabby
+way to treat you, all right, after bringing you
+out."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard dropped his hand on the other's shoulder,
+his laughing eyes very kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie Rose, how many times a year do you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+throw your offenders overboard, and give them
+your own lunch to make up for it?" he challenged.</p>
+
+<p>There was no lack of perception in Corrie; he
+recognized both the innuendo and its truth.</p>
+
+<p>"About every day," he confessed. "My temper
+slips. Everyone expects it of me, so it's all right.
+At least, it has been all right; I guess I've got to
+stop."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, you did not believe me in earnest?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't that." He shook his head as if
+to shake off a vexing thought. "I&mdash;it makes me
+feel like a brute to think I've been knocking out
+a half-starved man and throwing him into that
+water because he crawled under an old blanket
+in my boat for shelter. Why didn't I question
+him decently? I must put on the brake, or I'll
+spoil something without intending it."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard opened his lips to deny the danger and
+recall the provocation received, but for some reason
+he did not analyze, closed them without speaking.
+The two stood together in silence for many moments,
+looking out at the gray-green expanse of
+tumbling water.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be goin'," the hoarse voice of the involuntary
+guest said, behind them. "Obliged for your
+feed."</p>
+
+<p>There was a tentative quality in the statement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+an attempt to carry off easily a situation capable
+of unpleasant developments, a studied ignoring
+of his captor's possible right to detain him. But
+Corrie swung around with a face of open sunniness
+that shamed suspicion, his hands in the pockets
+of his long overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>"Good enough! Did you find what you liked,
+or rather, like what you found?" he responded.</p>
+
+<p>The hard face relaxed into a reluctant humor,
+the man looked again to assure himself of the
+inquirer's seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>"The best ever," he essayed social graciousness.
+"I ain't left much. Your little caramels
+were fine."</p>
+
+<p>"Caramels? Who on earth put in caramels?
+Armand must have lost his mind! What kind
+of caramels?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wrapped in tin paper, they were, in a little
+tin box."</p>
+
+<p>"Wrapped&mdash;&mdash;Holy cats, Gerard, he has
+eaten the concentrated bouillon squares! They
+were not to eat, man; they were to be dissolved
+in a cup of boiling water, to drink."</p>
+
+<p>"They tasted all right. I guess they'll go. I'll
+be movin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Go? Well, I hope so; you must have enough
+concentrated beef in you to nourish an army. You
+are going, you say. Where to?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The big town."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do when you get
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>The man's dissipation-dulled eyes searched the
+candid face of the questioner scarcely ten years
+his junior, then he looked to Gerard with a confused
+and reluctant unease, as he might have
+looked had Corrie been a young girl whose innocence
+he feared to offend.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, lots of things," he evaded, with a short,
+embarrassed laugh. "You don't want to hear me
+talk, mister. I'll get there, now I'm fed up."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want me to find work for you around
+here? I can."</p>
+
+<p>"My jobs are a different kind, mister. I
+couldn't stay in yours."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie brought his hand from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, as you like. Take this for good
+luck and we'll call ourselves even. Square, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The man took the bill awkwardly, his
+embarrassment deepened.</p>
+
+<p>"You're square, sure," he signified.</p>
+
+<p>As his slouching, bulky figure went out the
+door opposite, it crossed the small erect form of
+Jack Rupert, who entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Us for home," Corrie greeted the arrival. "It
+is too bad to have brought you over for nothing,
+Rupert, but&mdash;what's the matter?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The mechanician's countenance was a study in
+disgust, as he contemplated one of his polished
+tan boots, a high-heeled, ornate affair of the latest
+design labelled "smart." Off the race course and
+outside of hours, Rupert had one passion: clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't registering any complaints if the rest
+are satisfied," he acidly returned. "But stepping
+in a puddle of wringing rags that the town board
+of health ought to condemn for making a noisy
+demonstration ain't what I look forward to all day
+as a treat. As for going home, I'm ready, myself.
+The trip we're missing will keep awhile this
+weather. The water is mussed bad and the only
+time I ever was car-sick was on the boat to
+Savannah."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he spoil his pretty shoes?" Corrie teased,
+speculatively eyeing the heap of wet, unsavory
+clothing. "Never mind, Briggs shall make them
+good as new with his Transcendant Tan for Tasteful
+Tootsies; you haven't seen that darky of mine
+shine boots. I don't know what to do with those
+clothes, Gerard, so I think I won't do anything.
+Let's go home before we starve. Rupert, don't
+you approve of charity?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't fitted to say; nobody ever showed me
+any. I always got exactly what I worked for,
+measure evened off and loose-packed. If I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+sneaked into somebody's boat-garage without an
+invitation, I wouldn't get a bath and breakfast
+and a greenback; I'd get ten dollars or ten days
+from the first judge in the stand. And so would
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie paused, struck.</p>
+
+<p>"I? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"You. Why? What's the answer? I don't
+know, but I know the type. You keep your score-card
+and watch it happen; you'll find you get
+just what you enter for. Nothing more <i>and</i> nothing
+less."</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing more <i>and</i> nothing less,'" Corrie repeated,
+unconsciously exact. "Well," his dancing
+smile flashed out, "we don't want any more than
+that, do we? I'll be content with the life I earn."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good thing, for that's all we'll get,"
+was the terse reply. "When some folks start to
+kick a brick wall, luck drops a feather pillow between.
+Other people stub their toes. I ain't crying
+bad luck, because I never had any; I'm just
+saying we'll stub our toes, if we kick the wall. We
+don't have to kick it."</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert is a philosopher," Gerard observed,
+not mockingly or in ridicule, but as one stating
+a fact.</p>
+
+<p>His mechanician nodded coolly.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Calling names don't count. I've raced long
+enough to know a type of car when I see it, and
+I've lived long enough to tell a type of man. The
+way their heads set does it, maybe. Did you know
+the ladies were upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"The ladies?" echoed Gerard, surprised.
+"They came with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely, I guess I came with them. Miss
+Rose saw me starting and said she was coming
+over with her own little machine to see the launch
+off, if she could get her cousin to come, and they'd
+bring me. So she drove me over. I ain't used
+to that."</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies' driving. My life's insured, so it was
+all right, though."</p>
+
+<p>"Bully for Isabel!" Corrie approved, pensiveness
+cast aside. "Come up to them, Gerard. I
+hear her tooting for us with the horn."</p>
+
+<p>From the little scarlet runabout&mdash;the largest
+motor vehicle Mr. Rose would allow his vigorous
+niece&mdash;Isabel and Flavia had descended.</p>
+
+<p>"We came to see what you were doing," Isabel
+welcomed the group who issued from the club-house.
+"I don't suppose Flavia would have come
+if she hadn't been wondering whether Corrie was
+drowning himself. Go ahead and start; don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+wait on our account. But you had better eat your
+lunch first, if you haven't already, for you will
+have no time to eat in the boat on that sea."</p>
+
+<p>"We haven't any lunch," Corrie cheerfully declared.
+"I gave it to a tramp after I threw him
+overboard. You're just in time to take us home
+for luncheon and save our lives."</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if you had been fighting," Isabel
+criticized, with a scornful survey of his attire.
+"You are all splashed with dirty water, your
+cravat is pulled crooked and your coat is torn.
+We saw your tramp; he passed us a few moments
+ago and we recognized your blue flannel suit with
+the <i>Dear Me's</i> insignia on the lapel. Mr. Rupert
+guessed what you had been doing, when he saw the
+boat all in disorder and the pier all wet. The
+man's hairy, dirty face looked horrid above your
+clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"A contrast to my beauty, not so? Fix my
+cravat, please, ma'am; I can't see the thing.
+But his face wasn't dirty, for I washed it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I fix your wet cravat? Hold my
+gloves, then. Where is your scarf-pin? Stolen
+by your tramp, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard had joined Flavia, but neither yet had
+spoken, watching the cousins. They had not the
+fluent familiarity of intercourse possessed by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+two who looked and acted very like a pair of
+handsome boys. Moreover, Gerard distrusted himself,
+fearing to say too much, too soon. He was
+approaching Flavia carefully and delicately as a
+man striving to close his hand on some frail,
+elusive creature whose capture he scarcely dares
+hope possible. And she gave him no help. Her
+frank gentleness and impersonal cordiality gave
+neither encouragement nor discouragement, no
+foothold smooth or rough.</p>
+
+<p>The actual position he had never even conceived;
+the fact that she was completely unconscious of
+his desire to woo her. He had no way of knowing
+that it was his attitude toward Isabel she considered
+in all his words and acts, remembering
+her cousin's confident appropriation of the guest.
+It was of Isabel that she spoke now, while Gerard
+hesitated for the right word to offer the girl
+beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"The roads were very wet and slippery," she
+remarked. "If Isabel were not a good driver, I
+think we would have found ourselves in a ditch.
+Indeed," her soft mouth dimpled into a smile,
+"once I thought we were in one. One wheel <i>was</i>.
+But we wiggled out again. Mr. Rupert wanted
+to put the chains on the wheels, but she said we
+did not need them."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The thought of Isabel over-ruling the judgment
+of his racing mechanician unsteadied Gerard's
+gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"A coarse masculine hand is needed on the
+wheel, to-day," he confirmed, with ulterior intention.
+"I believe we had better divide our party
+differently, on the way back. Let me drive one
+car and Corrie or Rupert the other. I'll promise
+not to take any ditches, if you consent."</p>
+
+<p>"Great scheme," Corrie called, overhearing.
+"I'll take the red near-car home, Isabel."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," Isabel vetoed decidedly. "Mr.
+Gerard is going to take me home and I shall learn
+a lot from watching him drive. You can take
+Flavia in your roadster; Mr. Rupert will ride in
+the rumble seat."</p>
+
+<p>Being a gentleman, Gerard compelled his expression
+to evidence pleasant acquiescence. But
+he was not soothed by the unclouded smile Flavia
+sent her designated escort.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie doesn't mind taking me, do you, dear?"
+she covered her brother's chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"I surely don't, Other Fellow," he heartily
+corroborated, coming across to his sister, although
+the change in his transparent face betrayed his
+discomfiture at the slight. "You and I have had
+many a good spin. In you go! Come up behind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+Rupert; there is more room here than on the other
+machine."</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mr. Rupert would rather ride with
+us, anyhow," Flavia declared, her laughing eyes
+questioning the mechanician. "I fancied, once
+or twice on the way over, that he would have
+preferred to have you or Mr. Gerard driving."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't making any scornful denials," admitted
+Rupert, as he stepped in front to crank the motor
+for Corrie. "I've always looked forward to being
+killed in a larger machine, myself."</p>
+
+<p>Isabel did not at once enter her own car.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't fasten this glove without taking off
+the other, and then I can't fasten the other without
+taking off this," she complained. "I really
+believe&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>So, the last the three in the departing roadster
+saw of the two on the pier, Allan Gerard was
+engaged in buttoning Isabel's glove, while her
+wind-blown veils fluttered across his shoulders and
+her flushed, provocative face bent over the task
+beside his.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>IV</h2>
+<h3>ISABEL</h3>
+
+<p>Isabel, in the clinging knitted coat that displayed
+every attractive line of her athletic figure,
+her cheeks reddened by triumph and the salt wind,
+her gray eyes lifted in challenging coquetry, was
+a sufficiently pleasant sight to dispel mere vexation.
+And Gerard had no right to feel more than
+annoyance at a disappointment of which she supposedly
+knew nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I ran away with you because I didn't want
+to ride home with Corrie," she confided, when the
+last button-hole was achieved. "You don't mind&mdash;much?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am overwhelmed by the honor," Gerard assured.
+He was neither surly enough to refuse the
+light play to which she invited him, nor anchorite
+enough to be insensible to the flattery of being
+sought. "But how did Prince Corrie offend his
+sovereign lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that would be telling! You know, we
+are <i>not</i> engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. And the last time we were out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+alone together, he&mdash;he asked me to see if the oil
+was running through that little cup on the dash."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>They were in the car now, Gerard behind the
+steering-wheel. Isabel leaned down to touch her
+fingers to the dash, turning her vivid-hued, consciously
+alluring face across her shoulder to the
+companion so close beside her, the auburn curls
+tumbled about her forehead and her mouth tempting
+as a small scarlet fruit.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, we were like this when&mdash;guess what
+Corrie did?"</p>
+
+<p>It was not in the least difficult to guess what
+the enamoured Corrie had done. But Gerard shook
+his head, schooling his mirthful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not, possibly, Miss Rose. I am very
+dull."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what would <i>you</i> have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? I should have shut both eyes and recalled
+St. Francis' rules of deportment."</p>
+
+<p>Isabel straightened herself, leaning back and
+folding her hands in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what Corrie did not do," she stated.
+"So I will not ride with him. It was bad taste."</p>
+
+<p>"I imagine Corrie found the taste most pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have I guessed wrong?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You said that you were dull, Mr. Gerard."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the guess is wrong. Poor Corrie!"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"You think a great deal about Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We are friends," Gerard quietly answered.</p>
+
+<p>She was clever enough to recognize the bar he
+set to flirtation with the woman loved by the man
+he gave that name, and she regarded the obstacle
+as a challenge. She was not sufficiently old or
+fine to realize that such bars are not crossed by
+such men. If Gerard had loved her or believed
+she might love him, he must have left his friend's
+house; as Corrie would have left Gerard's in like
+case. As a matter of fact, Gerard was perfectly
+aware of the immunity of both parties and that
+Isabel was merely seeking temporary diversion&mdash;experimenting
+with the possibilities of her own
+heady youth.</p>
+
+<p>A forking of the road supplied a new subject
+for discussion.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn to the left," Isabel directed, sitting
+erect.</p>
+
+<p>Surprised, Gerard checked the machine.</p>
+
+<p>"We did not come that way, Miss Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not; you came by the long route,
+past the Goodwin farm. This is a better road."</p>
+
+<p>"Better?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She followed his gaze down the vista of slippery,
+rut-grooved mud, and colored.</p>
+
+<p>"A shorter road, then," she amended petulantly.
+"I am sure I don't care&mdash;go the long way if you
+wish. The storm is blowing back again, but I
+can stand the rain."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard hastily turned into the wretched travesty
+of a road.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon; I only wondered if you
+were quite certain of the route," he apologized.</p>
+
+<p>There ensued a period of silence. The little
+car slipped and wallowed through sliding mud
+and yellow puddles.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you do not drive here, yourself," Gerard
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I should be afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you might have serious trouble. There
+is a deep ditch on either side, while the road is
+both narrow and slippery."</p>
+
+<p>"I can drive anywhere. Ask Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>"I suspect he is a biassed judge. But I should
+not have believed he would let you drive here."</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;&mdash;I never did except in dry weather.
+I knew <i>you</i> would not mind any road and could
+drive in anything, so it did not matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Please consider the compliment more than
+appreciated, mademoiselle," Gerard smiled.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+"There is going to be a splash when we strike
+that puddle ahead; had you not better draw in
+your frock?"</p>
+
+<p>She caught her white serge skirts around her
+and shrank nearer to her companion with a gurgle
+of dismayed laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me get in the middle. Uh, what a muddy
+swamp! Oh&mdash;my face!"</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the water had splashed as the car struck
+the pool where a rain-swollen brook had overflowed
+the road. As Gerard turned to the girl,
+she lifted a face sprinkled with drops which she
+strove to remove with her handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it off?" she questioned. "Please look
+carefully. <i>All</i> off?"</p>
+
+<p>He was obliged to scrutinize the handsome countenance
+offered for inspection at close range.</p>
+
+<p>"A trifle of mud, still," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Where? Here?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;more to the left. Beneath the eye&mdash;the
+other eye."</p>
+
+<p>"This place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite."</p>
+
+<p>It was incredible, the length of time that small
+spot evaded Isabel's questing handkerchief, and
+the futility of Gerard's directions. He was
+obliged to halt the car, at last.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A little higher&mdash;not so much. There! No,
+not so low."</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture of mock despair, she gave him
+the fragrant square of linen.</p>
+
+<p>"Wipe it off," she requested resignedly. "I
+can't motor all over Long Island with a dirty face.
+There is no one in sight for miles; wipe it off
+and never tell."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very clumsy," he demurred.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it can't be helped."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard might have echoed the exclamation. But
+he accepted the handkerchief and deftly, if with
+inward embarrassment, removed the stain from
+the ruddy cheek presented.</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be off, Mr. Gerard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, it is gone."</p>
+
+<p>"You hardly touched it," doubtingly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you could see&mdash;&mdash;" he began in defense
+of his work.</p>
+
+<p>"Look once more."</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed, impersonally and coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, indeed," he asserted.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced up at him through her long lashes,
+and flung herself back in her seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. Shall we go on?"</p>
+
+<div class="figtag">
+  <a id="image_003"></a>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i003.jpg" alt="Gerard and Isabel go Driving" title="&quot;WIPE IT OFF,&quot; SHE REQUESTED RESIGNEDLY, &quot;WIPE IT OFF
+AND NEVER TELL&quot;" />
+<p class="caption">&quot;WIPE IT OFF,&quot; SHE REQUESTED RESIGNEDLY, &quot;WIPE IT OFF
+AND NEVER TELL&quot;</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The operation and the drive that preceded it
+had occupied considerable time. It was an hour
+since the party had separated at the yacht club's
+pier. The brief interval of comparative clearness
+had given place to dark skies across which the
+capricious wind herded masses of gray cloud. And
+presently several drops of rain fell and trickled
+down the wind-shield of the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry," Isabel urged, sitting up with renewed
+animation. "It is going to pour."</p>
+
+<p>"The little machine isn't capable of much
+hurrying on this road," Gerard regretted. "She
+hasn't any speed, of course. How far have we
+left to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"A long way, seven or eight miles. We haven't
+passed the country club, yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But Corrie drove over in an hour!"</p>
+
+<p>"With his big car, yes," she retorted. "Perhaps
+this was not the best way, after all. But it
+would take longer to go back, now, than to keep
+on."</p>
+
+<p>This was obvious. There was nothing to do
+except force the skidding, panting automobile to
+maintain its best gait.</p>
+
+<p>They were destined to lose that race. As they
+came opposite a low brick building set amidst rolling
+green slopes and stretches of flag-dotted turf,
+the storm overtook them.</p>
+
+<p>"Up the driveway," Isabel cried. "We can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+just make it. This is the country club&mdash;we'll
+'phone home where we are staying."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard sent the car up the wide gravelled path.
+An attendant was waiting to receive them, another
+assumed charge of the automobile, and Isabel's
+escort found himself standing beside her on the
+veranda with rather confused ideas of how the
+affair had been accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>"Koma says there is no one else here," she
+informed him. "We have all the place to ourselves.
+How it rains!"</p>
+
+<p>It certainly was raining, raining violently and
+steadily, a gray downpour from a gray sky. She
+paused to look before continuing.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll 'phone to Flavia, first of all. I can see
+we are going to have a long wait. Koma will get
+us the best luncheon he knows how. Aren't you
+hungry? I am. Come in."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard uttered some reply. He was profoundly
+vexed at his situation, without being able to blame
+himself for it or to fix any actual fault upon Isabel.
+She had already turned away to enter the hall, and
+presently he heard the tinkle of the telephone bell,
+followed by her high-pitched voice.</p>
+
+<p>"One one seven? Martin, I want Miss Rose.
+Yes, it is I. Oh!&mdash;&mdash;We're at the country club,
+Corrie. No, we didn't get lost; we just chose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+that road.... Not a bit, it was good sport.
+We're having luncheon together, here, and then I
+suppose we will play billiards until the rain stops.
+Tell Flavia not to worry; we'll get home by dinner-time,
+and we're enjoying ourselves.... Not
+wet, just splashed. Mr. Gerard spoiled a handkerchief
+drying me, that's all the damage. Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>She reappeared on the threshold, complacently
+satisfied. She had removed her hood and veils,
+shaken her ruddy hair into becoming disorder, and
+knew herself at her best.</p>
+
+<p>"You are enjoying yourself, aren't you?" she
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," Gerard responded, without enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not come in, then? Which do you like
+most to commence a luncheon&mdash;&mdash;Blue Points or
+little clams? Corrie and I quarrel over that
+every time we are out together. He is as obstinate
+as, as&mdash;Corrie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Clams," said he, at a venture. He had a
+vague recollection of seeing Corrie dismiss oysters
+with scorn, and he felt viciously contrary.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, so do I," agreed Isabel winningly. "Let
+us order some."</p>
+
+<p>One cannot be disagreeable to a young girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+under one's care, who also is in a sense one's
+hostess. The luncheon was sufficiently gay. The
+rain fell incessantly, beating against the diamond-paned
+windows, gurgling down eaves and gutter-ways.</p>
+
+<p>"We should have sailed home in the <i>Dear Me</i>,"
+Isabel declared. "I am sure there is enough water
+on the roads. Why did we not think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>She detached a chrysanthemum petal from the
+vase of blossoms central on the table, and dropped
+it into her finger-bowl, watching the agitation of a
+diminutive scarlet-and-black beetle perched upon
+the sinking leaf.</p>
+
+<p>"An execution?" Gerard inquired.</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes, pouting prettily, and
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate those bugs," she explained. "Ugly
+animals! We put them in and wager a box of
+bon-bons on how long they last. If it is still alive
+at the end of five minutes, I lose. If it is drowned,
+I win."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Corrie play that game with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"N'no. Corrie doesn't like it. He will step
+off of a sidewalk into the mud to avoid treading on
+a cricket. Do you suppose I never play with
+any one except my cousin? Will you try this
+wager? <i>You're</i> not silly?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I will, if I may. If that lady-bug is alive five
+minutes from now, I win? No other conditions?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," gleefully. "Take your watch. You'll
+lose, he's weakening now."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard leaned across, lifted the struggling beetle
+upon his finger-tip, and restored it to the safe
+refuge of the chrysanthemum bouquet.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he will live some time," he soberly
+predicted.</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared, frowned, and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No fair! No fair! That's not the game,
+Mr. Gerard."</p>
+
+<p>"No? Then I will send the bon-bons."</p>
+
+<p>"Chocolates."</p>
+
+<p>"They shall be chocolates."</p>
+
+<p>"And I may put back the nasty beetle?"</p>
+
+<p>"On no account; I have ransomed him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well," she shrugged, rising. "I'll
+take refuge in billiards for the next game. Corrie
+taught me to play, but I can beat him, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he doesn't watch his game when his
+opponent is his cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what else should he watch?" she wondered,
+arching her brows a trifle too innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot imagine, if you do not know," Gerard
+dryly responded, and held open the door for her
+to pass out.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the billiard room, Isabel rolled her sleeves
+above her elbows as a preliminary measure.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't had that off for a year," she confided,
+indicating a flexible platinum and turquoise
+bracelet encircling her firm, sun-browned arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You are fond of it?" her companion inferred.
+"It is a beautiful bit of work, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I like it well enough. That isn't the reason,
+though. You see, it locks, and after Corrie put
+it on my arm he kept the key. He says he will
+give it to me on my wedding day. But it isn't
+worth that."</p>
+
+<p>"Worth&mdash;&mdash;?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Getting married. Will you play me even?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray fix any odds you choose, Miss Rose.
+How many points does Corrie usually give you?"</p>
+
+<p>This time Isabel's stare of surprise was genuine.</p>
+
+<p>"I meant, how many points should I allow
+<i>you</i>," she corrected arrogantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pardon me!" he submitted. "Suppose,
+in that case, we play for an even score."</p>
+
+<p>The storm did not abate. The wind drove the
+rain before it in glistening gray sheets, the steady
+drumming of the downpour accompanied the click
+of meeting ivory balls and the occasional speech
+of the players. After a time, a deep-belled Mission
+clock in the hall struck four.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A sharp, incredulous cry from the girl rang
+out, after an interval of silence in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why, you've won!"</p>
+
+<p>"So I have," acknowledged her antagonist.
+"Shall I apologize?"</p>
+
+<p>Isabel started to speak, and checked herself.
+She had been chiefly intent upon her own accomplishment,
+and Gerard's playing was of a deceptive
+leisureliness and tranquillity.</p>
+
+<p>"How many did you make in that last run?"
+she asked, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Only seventeen."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't do it again."</p>
+
+<p>"One never can tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Play," she defied.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard glanced hopelessly at the streaming
+windows.</p>
+
+<p>"It is growing late," he demurred.</p>
+
+<p>"Not late, yet. Besides, we can't go out in
+that weather with an open automobile. They know
+at home where we are."</p>
+
+<p>They did; that was precisely the core of
+Gerard's exasperation and unrest. What impressions
+would this t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te afternoon convey to
+Corrie? And what would Flavia think of her
+guest's guardianship of her cousin? He picked
+up his cue with enforced resignation.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The clock had struck the half-hour, when a
+long blast from an electric horn pierced through
+the clamor of the storm.</p>
+
+<p>"Another motor-party caught out," Isabel
+hazarded, her tone decidedly cross. She was losing
+again, and she did not like the experience.
+"Your play. You seem to find it more amusing
+to look out the window."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard was spared reply. The billiard-room
+door was pushed open by the Japanese steward
+and a figure in gleaming rain-proof attire appeared
+on the threshold&mdash;the figure of a chauffeur, cap
+in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Lenoir!" Isabel exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur saluted.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rose sent the limousine to convey mademoiselle
+and Mr. Gerard," he informed them, in
+his precise, Parisian-flavored English.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle is home?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had just driven Mr. Rose home from the
+city, mademoiselle, before he telephoned to the
+garage that I should come here."</p>
+
+<p>She tossed her cue upon the table, recklessly
+scattering the balls, and turned toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring our wraps, Koma," she bade. "We had
+better go."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard contemplated Lenoir with marked kindness.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's a bad day to be out," he commented, in
+following Isabel from the room, and passed into
+the chauffeur's hand a gratuity out of all proportion
+to the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Lenoir, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>The drive home was short and uninteresting.
+On the veranda of the Rose villa Corrie was waiting
+to meet the returning two, upon the limousine's
+arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all the slow traveling I ever saw,
+this is the limit," he greeted them derisively;
+"From noon until five o'clock! Fancy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind our driving; we have had a fine
+time," Isabel retorted, with pettish tartness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am, no doubt. I wouldn't have interrupted,
+myself. It was father who did it, when
+he came in. He said you'd want some dinner
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at Gerard as cordially as ever, but
+there was a wistfulness underlying his expression
+that inspired the older man with a hearty desire
+to shake Isabel Rose. She could watch her young
+lover's emotions with the same diverted interest
+with which she had watched the struggles of the
+tiny black-and-scarlet beetle drowning in her
+finger-bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had been with us, Corrie," was all
+Gerard found to say.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Through the parted curtains, the library presented
+such a graceful interior study as certain
+French artists have delighted in drawing. In the
+octagonal, book-lined room of rich hues and soft
+lights, Flavia and her father were seated together;
+busied in pleasant comradeship at the table whose
+polished surface was littered with letters, books
+of household accounts, and all those dainty metal
+and crystal trinkets the jeweller conceives necessary
+to the writer. Evidently they had found
+refreshment desirable, for a diminutive tea-table
+still stood near Flavia, while a pushed-back chair
+beneath which a young Great Dane hound lay
+asleep indicated that Corrie had been one of the
+group.</p>
+
+<p>"Back, are you?" Mr. Rose called cheerily, to
+the two in the hall, leaning back in his chair to
+view them more easily. "When I heard where you
+were marooned, I guessed it was about time for
+a rescue. You children oughtn't to try roundabout
+country roads with a storm blowing up."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gerard wanted to go that way," Isabel
+alleged, with perfect assurance. "I told him to
+do as he chose."</p>
+
+<p>That distortion of facts was too much to be
+endured, with Corrie listening and Flavia a witness.
+Gerard's chivalry momentarily lapsed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+he struck back with all the effectiveness of superior
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly," he confirmed, carefully distinct.
+"I naturally wanted to get Miss Rose
+safely at home as soon as possible, and since she
+said that road was the shortest route, I took it,
+of course."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>shortest</i>?" Corrie echoed, astounded.
+"The&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke the speech in time, hastily discreet.
+Isabel crimsoned hotly; the glance she darted at
+her late escort was not dovelike. It was Flavia
+who brought relief to the situation, as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"These Long Island roads are outrageously
+misleading," she offered light suggestion, rising
+with a smiling gesture of excuse to her father.
+"Isa and I often lose our way when we drive out
+together. Don't you want to change your damp
+things, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," assented her cousin, sullenly. "It's
+time to make ready for dinner, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie held aside the curtain for the girls to
+pass out. His blue eyes were dancing in pure mischief
+and relief. All the household understood
+Isabel's propensity for flirtation&mdash;and its utter
+lack of significance. If she had detained Gerard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+not Gerard her, her lover-cousin had no ground
+for especial apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"Punk weather," he commented, coming back.</p>
+
+<p>"Dullest I ever experienced," supplemented his
+guest decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose set a paper-weight on the letter open
+before him, and lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"We were discussing the buying of another
+automobile, Gerard, when you came in," he imparted.
+"Come sit down for half an hour before
+we dress&mdash;we not needing so long as the ladies
+for it&mdash;and give us your advice on the choice."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll give you one of my monogram cigarettes,"
+volunteered Corrie, slipping a hand affectionately
+through Gerard's arm. "Oh, no&mdash;I
+don't smoke them, but I like to carry them. And
+when you want something extra fine, you ask
+Corwin B. Rose for one of his smokes. Let's sit
+here, together."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>V</h2>
+<h3>THE VASE OF AL-MANSOR</h3>
+
+<p>On the threshold of his father's model garage
+Corrie stopped, surveying the scene presented in
+the centre of the huge, lofty stone room, bare
+except for the five automobiles ranged around and
+their countless appurtenances disposed upon walls
+and shelves.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, but when did you two last wash?"
+he jeered.</p>
+
+<p>The two men beside the Mercury racing car
+looked up at the figure in the sunny doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care to try to prove that I ever did,"
+returned Gerard. "The evidence is against me.
+But Rupert had his beauty bath this morning,
+all right. You're looking rather disarranged,
+yourself; perhaps the course was a trifle dusty."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed silently across at one another.
+The trim garments of all three men were gray
+with dust and oil, their faces were streaked and
+spotted with the caked road-soil. There was little
+difference in color between Gerard's brown ripples
+of hair, Corrie's blonde locks and the black head
+of the mechanician who bent over the motor.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If this is practice work, <i>what</i> is the race
+going to be like?" speculated Corrie, dragging off
+his gauntlets. The recent speed-exhilaration was
+still heavily upon him; as with his sister, the
+darker shading of brows and lashes always gave
+his fair-tinted face a warm vividness of expression.
+"The course is in fierce shape, already. I say&mdash;why
+did you especially warn me that the road
+wouldn't be fit for fast going until to-morrow,
+then get out in your own machine and break all
+practice records for the fastest lap? Trying to
+keep me out of your way, or to break your neck
+and Rupert's?"</p>
+
+<p>"The first, certainly," Gerard asserted.
+"Really, I didn't mean to do any speeding to-day,
+Corrie, but when I saw the white road ahead, I&mdash;think
+something slipped."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a cheerful hypocrite, all right. Here,
+catch, baseballist!"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard retreated a step and deftly caught the
+dripping missile as it hurtled across the garage.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to wring out your league sponges,"
+he reproved. "Thanks; I was wondering how I
+could take this face into the house, unless I got
+Rupert to turn the hose on me. You see, I might
+meet some one."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd meet Flavia," Corrie declared, busying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+himself with his own ablutions. "She's out there
+in the flowing arbor, sewing some gimcrack thing
+and pretending she hasn't been worrying because
+I was out on the course. She comes downstairs
+every morning to see me start&mdash;you know that&mdash;and
+then sits around all day watching until I
+come in again. None of that for Isabel; she's a
+sport."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard shook the water from his thick hair and
+finished the perfunctory toilet without replying.
+But as he passed Rupert, he dropped a light hand
+on the mechanician's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"When you marry, Jack Rupert, will the girl
+be a sport?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"My wedding cards ain't paining me bad just
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but suppose the case."</p>
+
+<p>The black eyes lifted for a moment from the
+task in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'd be sport enough for one house,"
+Rupert impassively pronounced. "I hate a
+crowd."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard nodded to the boy across the garage,
+his face gleaming into mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"Coals to Newcastle," he signified. "Everyone
+doesn't like to live shop."</p>
+
+<p>There was the splashing thud of an overturned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+bucket. As Gerard passed out the door, Corrie
+overtook him.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard," he panted, "Gerard, you said that
+purposely! You meant to tell me that&mdash;that Isabel&mdash;that
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard regarded him quietly, a little smile
+curving his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"You meant to tell me that I needn't worry
+about you and Isabel; that you've seen I want
+her, and you won't cut in? You meant that?"</p>
+
+<p>The smile crept to Gerard's eyes, but he remained
+mute. With a quick breath Corrie grasped
+his companion's hand and squeezed it ardently.</p>
+
+<p>"You're <i>big</i>, Allan Gerard. And kind. For
+I've been watching, these ten days, and you could
+get her if you tried."</p>
+
+<p>He turned back into the building before contradiction
+was possible. After a moment, Gerard
+went on down the path between the althea bushes.</p>
+
+<p>The "flowing arbor" of Corrie's description
+was a decorative masterpiece of Mr. Rose's own
+design; a large, pink marble fountain, surrounded
+by a pink-columned arcade strewn with rugs and
+cushions. Whatever its architectural faults, it was
+a fairy-tale place of gurgling water and soft
+shadows, shot through with the tints of silver
+spray, rosy stone and deep green turf. Flavia was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+seated here, in the summer-warm sunshine of early
+October that had succeeded the storms of the
+previous week, a long strip of varicolored embroidery
+lying across her lap and the overfed
+Persian kitten nestling against her light gown.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie is home," Gerard announced, pausing
+in one of the arched openings. "But I suppose
+you saw him come in, from here."</p>
+
+<p>The young girl lifted to him the frank welcome
+of her glance and smile, with their pathetic shade
+of hostess dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you both come in," she confirmed. "One
+sees a great deal from this watch-tower. But it
+is good of you to tell me; you know how glad I
+am when he is back. Will you not rest before
+you go into the house? Corrie always comes here
+first; to gather strength, he says, to climb the
+terrace steps."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not fit," he deprecated. "I would soil
+your purple with my dust and poison, your Venetian
+atmosphere with gasoline fumes."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie does it."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie is privileged. The first time I ever
+saw you, you were watching Corrie. You made
+me feel that I lived in a barn."</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A blank, impersonal, vacant set of rooms. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+house where, if I were brought in on a shutter,
+there would be no one except the undertaker to
+pull down the shades."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia winced, shocked out of her calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Please do not! I&mdash;please do not say those
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"There, you see. I do not even know how to
+talk to you properly. It doesn't worry me to
+think about just dying and I forgot that other
+people dislike the subject. Now, it was living
+that made me envy Corrie and feel melancholy."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia drew the silk thread with slow accuracy.
+Her pulses were commencing to beat heavy strokes,
+she dared not raise her troubled eyes to the dominant,
+self-possessed man opposite. There was
+a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"In novels," Gerard mused, "when a man sees
+the woman who locks the wheels of his fancy, he
+drops everything else and follows her until he
+gets&mdash;his answer. But in real life we're pretty
+stupid; we let circumstances interfere, or we don't
+quite realize what has happened to us, we don't
+do the right thing, anyway. Sometimes we're lucky
+enough to get another chance. If we do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The gush and ripple of the fountain, the rustle
+of the broad-leaved lilies as the changing breeze
+sent the spray pattering across them; filled pleas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>antly
+the lapses of his leisurely speech. Flavia
+was acutely conscious of his steady gaze upon her
+bent head, and the unhurried certainty with which
+he was moving toward his chosen goal. Only, what
+was that goal? She remembered Isabel's sureness
+of her own attraction, Isabel's deliberate monopoly
+of Gerard's attention whenever possible during the
+last ten days, and Corrie's assertion that his cousin
+was "just the kind of girl Gerard would like."
+Yet, he was saying this to her, Flavia. And suddenly
+she was almost sure of what she never had
+dared imagine.</p>
+
+<p>She had no thought that Gerard might be hesitating
+in uncertain humility before the delicate
+maidenhood that invested her like a fine atmosphere
+forbidding approach. She was not even dimly
+aware that her averted face controlled to soft
+impassivity, the intent gaze on her work which
+veiled her eyes beneath their heavy lashes, the regular
+movement of her slender fingers as she sewed,
+conveyed an impression of unmoved serenity that
+might have quelled a vainer man than Allan
+Gerard. Yet it was so, and he temporized; not
+knowing that for her there were three people in
+the arcade, the third Isabel, and not daring to
+continue his broken sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been wondering if you ever translated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+your name," he remarked, when silence verged on
+embarrassment. "I have wondered many times if
+it were just chance that called you so."</p>
+
+<p>"My Mother was Flavia Corwin; I am named for
+her. What does it mean?" she answered, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>Just for an instant she looked at him, and in
+the one encounter of glances innocently undid all
+her reserve had built up. Gerard's color ran up
+under his clear skin like a girl's, brilliant-eyed, he
+took a step into the arcade.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too late in the season to tell you out here,"
+he demurred. "I'll send you the translation this
+evening, if I may. There's something else I'd like
+to tell you, but I've got to find some civilized clothing,
+first. Essex lost his head for approaching
+the Queen in his riding-dress, and I'm risking
+more. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up, you two!" hailed Corrie's injured
+voice, the ring of his step sounded in the stone
+arcade. "It's six o'clock now. Come on in."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come," Gerard answered the summons,
+again his warm, sparkling gaze caught and held
+Flavia's as, startled, she raised her head. "I was
+telling Miss Rose that I must get rid of this road
+dust. But I wasn't thinking of eating, then."</p>
+
+<p>Scarlet rushed over Flavia's face and neck. As
+Corrie took gay possession of Gerard and bore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+him off, she sank back in her chair, winding her
+fingers hard into the embroidery. Not the omnivorous
+Isabel's, this! There was nothing to fear,
+ever again. She had the perfect certainty that
+Gerard would complete that purpose of his the
+next time they met. And they would meet in an
+hour. Suddenly she caught up the drowsy kitten
+and hid her face against the soft living toy.</p>
+
+<p>They did meet in an hour, but it was on the
+way to dinner, and the exuberant Corrie held the
+reins of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I've discharged Dean," was his first announcement.
+"Take those oysters away from in front
+of me, Perkins; I want my soup right now and a
+lot of it&mdash;about a gallon. Never mind anyone
+else; I haven't had anything but sandwiches since
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Discharged your mechanician one day before
+the race?" marvelled Gerard. "What will
+you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm going out to the garage after dinner
+to hire him over again. He's used to it. Now,
+I suppose that if you fired Jack Rupert, you'd
+never see him again."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly would not."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's the difference. I'm afraid of
+Rupert, myself. Dean hasn't any dignity."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Neither have you," observed Isabel bitingly.
+"You're worse than Dean. I saw you kick Frederick
+the Great all across the veranda yesterday,
+then lead him around the kitchen and feed him
+porterhouse steak."</p>
+
+<p>"That was remorse," Mr. Rose suggested,
+coolly amused. He looked across at Gerard, as
+at the only other grown person present. "You'd
+best take a porterhouse steak to Dean when you
+go, Corwin B. It's a fine temper you've got."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir, if you say it. I guess Dean
+would eat a porterhouse, if he isn't a Great Dane
+puppy. But I saw a man to-day in a temper
+that makes anything I ever did read like a chapter
+from Patient Griselda."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been a lunatic," Isabel kindly
+inferred.</p>
+
+<p>Her cousin put his elbows on the table and contemplated
+her with mock reproach; looking rather
+nearer his sixteenth year than his nineteenth in
+this mood of effervescent gayety. Ever since his
+interview with Gerard, in the garage that afternoon,
+his high spirits had been unquenchable.</p>
+
+<p>"You're cross, Isabel," he stated frankly.
+"Where did you get the grouch? That's a stunning
+purple frock you've got on."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't, it's mauve," corrected Isabel, but she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+smiled and smoothed a chiffon ruffle. "Who was
+your man, then, Corrie?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the French driver of the Bluette car,
+and he came into the judges' stand to make a complaint
+against another fellow who wouldn't give
+him the road. Kept getting in front, you know,
+whenever the Bluette wanted to pass, and cutting
+it off so it had to fall behind. He was in a French
+calm, all right, and I don't wonder. But I don't
+believe anyone could really carry it through, could
+they, Gerard?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard roused himself from his study of Flavia,
+as she sat in her ivory-tinted lace gown at the foot
+of the table, her small head bent under its weight
+of gleaming fair hair. The massively handsome
+room, with its rich hues of gilded leather, mellow
+Eastern rugs and hangings, carved wood and
+glinting metal, enchanted him as a background for
+her dainty youth as if he had never seen it there
+before or might again. It was difficult for him
+to look away.</p>
+
+<p>"Carry it through?" he repeated. "Of
+course, easily."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with some drivers! Not with me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I wouldn't stand it. Because I'd
+drive through the car ahead if it tried to keep me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+back. Oh, I'd have them out of my way&mdash;you're
+<i>laughing</i> at me, Allan Gerard!"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard was certainly laughing, and the others
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were Dean, I wouldn't wait to be fired,
+Corrie; I'd resign," he rallied. "Some day I'll
+challenge you to a game of auto tag, and show
+you that trick."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't; I'd get by," Corrie retorted, his
+violet-blue eyes afire with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Instead of you two fighting about that nonsense,
+you might take me around the course in
+one of your cars," Isabel remarked gloomily.
+"I've asked you often enough."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll not do that," Mr. Rose pronounced with
+decision. "It's not fit and I won't have it. And
+I'm tired of hearing you sulk at Corrie and Gerard
+because they've got the sense to say no. You'll
+keep out of the racing cars and off the race track,
+my girl. Flavia, if you don't make your brother
+stop eating nuts, he'll be ashamed to meet a
+squirrel in the woods."</p>
+
+<p>There was open mutiny in the glance Isabel
+darted at her uncle, but she said nothing. Mr.
+Rose was not contradicted in his own house by
+anyone.</p>
+
+<p>"Nuts agree with me, sir," Corrie protested,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+aggrieved. "Besides, I feel as if I had to celebrate
+somehow; I have had such a bully day."
+He leaned back in his chair, turning to Gerard
+his gaze of shining acknowledgment and measureless
+content. "I don't think I ever spent such an
+all-round good old day, just all right all through.
+I shall have to tie a gold medal on the calendar,
+or mark it with a white stone, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or drop a pearl in the vase of Al-Mansor,"
+Gerard suggested. His own feelings were not
+very far removed from Corrie's, that night.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" Isabel questioned. "I never
+heard that story. What is the vase of Al-Mansor?"</p>
+
+<p>"A legend of the days of the caliphs. If you
+care about it, some day I will find a copy to
+send."</p>
+
+<p>"Some day! I want to hear it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us, with all the trimmings," Corrie urged,
+"No sliding around the flowery parts and cutting
+scenes, but the full performance. Flavia loves
+that sort of thing, too; she and I grew up on the
+Arabian Nights and Byron and Irving. We
+dramatized 'The Fall of Granada,' for the toy
+theatre, but Bulwer was dead, so it didn't matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Perkins, up in my den you'll find a five-pound
+box of Turkish Delight, sent to-night from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+candy shop; bring it here to help the Oriental
+atmosphere."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia looked up, and Gerard caught her eyes,
+no longer quite untroubled before his own.</p>
+
+<p>"What a set of comparisons to face," he deprecated.
+"Shall I dare it, Miss Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you leave us to suffer all the pangs
+of unsatisfied curiosity?" she wondered. "To
+dream all night of elusive pearls that disappear in
+their vase as Cleopatra's in her goblet of vinegar?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose took a cigar and a match, nodding
+humorously at his guest.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in for it," he signified. "Better get
+it over."</p>
+
+<p>"And no cutting," exacted Corrie, <i>sotto voce</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then; pray imagine yourselves in
+the bazaar, and remember this isn't my fault,"
+Gerard submitted. He paused, assembling his
+recollections. "On ascending the throne at Bagdad,
+in the full noon of the glory of the caliphs;
+it is told that Al-Mamoun, the son of Haroun-al-Raschid,
+the great-grandson of Al-Mansor, received
+from the former vizier a small golden vase.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lord of the East, newly-risen Sun of the
+true believers,' said the vizier, 'your great-grandfather
+of venerated memory caused to be made
+this vase, proposing to place therein a pearl for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+every day of perfect happiness he should pass.
+And when he received the vase from the goldsmith,
+he complained that the vase was too small.
+But, alas, the mighty Al-Mansor died without ever
+putting in a single pearl, for the day when the
+vase came home he learned that his loved sultana
+plotted against his life.</p>
+
+<p>"'After many years, in his turn came to rule
+your illustrious father, Haroun the Wise, and
+took the vase. He, the great king, who never
+travelled without a hundred scholars in his train,
+who built a school for poor children beside every
+mosque, he the magnificent in war and peace, in
+all his long reign enriched the vase by two pearls;
+the day of his coronation and the day of his death;
+the day before he saw Marida the Beautiful and
+the day he forgot her forever. Now, Commander
+of the Faithful, according to my charge I deliver
+the vase to you, with hope that your joys may
+exhaust the sea of pearls.'</p>
+
+<p>"Hearing, Al-Mamoun fell into profound musing.</p>
+
+<p>"'Vizier,' he said, 'I cannot mark the day I
+began to reign, who loved my father and take his
+place with tears, and the day of my death no man
+knows. But, by the favor of Allah, I will add
+one pearl to the vase while I live.'</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The next morning many workmen came to the
+palace. Around the fairest part of the garden
+they reared a lofty wall, within its circle they
+placed everything which the king might desire.
+On the day appointed, in that spot assembled his
+favorite musicians, the scholars in whose conversation
+he most delighted, the captains whose
+faces reminded him of victories and the poets
+whose words fell like drops from the spring that
+bubbles before Allah's throne in Paradise. Only,
+because women had troubled the days of Al-Mansor
+and Haroun, no woman was admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"With pomp, music and rejoicing, Al-Mamoun
+moved at sunrise to the garden of delights that
+was to shelter him from the world for one day.
+But, as his foot touched the threshold, a great
+cry of lamentation went through the palace.</p>
+
+<p>"'What now?' demanded the king, halting.</p>
+
+<p>"A guard of the serail answered, his brow in
+the dust:</p>
+
+<p>"'Lord, the sultana has drowned herself in the
+Court of Fountains, because of grief that your
+day of perfect happiness could be passed without
+her.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then Al-Mamoun drew back his foot and returned
+to the palace, knowing that from him the
+golden vase would claim no pearls."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is all?" Isabel asked expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>"What more could there be, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"There might be a moral," Corrie suggested,
+leaning his folded arms on the table, his interested
+eyes fixed upon the story-teller.</p>
+
+<p>"When I read the Arabian Nights, I found out
+that Oriental tales have no morals," dryly observed
+Mr. Rose. "A man who had been brought up
+with the Blarney Stone for a teething-ring once
+sold me an unexpurgated edition de luxe, with
+illustrations, so I ought to know."</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw it, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Corwin B., you did not. You can if you
+want to, by coming down to my office, where it is
+still lying in the packing-box it came in. I don't
+think you want to. Gerard's story isn't there."</p>
+
+<p>"Its moral seems to be that women are a
+nuisance," Isabel commented, her manner injured.</p>
+
+<p>"That would not be a moral, it would be a
+falsehood," Gerard demurred. "No, I fancy the
+moral might be, do not challenge Fate to a duel.
+Are you considering our nonsense, Miss Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of the story," Flavia amended.
+"I was wondering if the kings would not soon
+have filled the vase had they been content to mark
+each happy hour, and whether a wise treasurer of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+happiness would not find a vase filled with seed-pearls
+where they found a vase empty."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly! You have found the secret, no
+doubt. Moral: do not ask too much."</p>
+
+<p>"A day too much?" marvelled Corrie. "Why,
+I expect a lifetime!" He flung back his head,
+looking around the smiling circle. "Well, why
+not? What's a lifetime, anyhow? Not half
+enough to get all the fun there is in living, as long
+as you do no harm by it. And who wants to do
+any harm when there is so much else to do? Not
+anyone in his right mind. Anyway, I've got to-day's
+pearl canned, and <i>it</i> can't get away. And
+I can think of lots of others I've had, if I could
+go back for them."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I guess the name of Al-Mansor's vase?"
+Flavia asked, as she rose. She was smiling, but
+her cheeks were flushed and her serious eyes
+caressed her brother. "It was Memory, I think.
+And, no, Corrie, the pearls put there cannot be
+lost."</p>
+
+<p>The extreme warmth of the day had continued
+into the evening. As Isabel followed Flavia across
+the hall, Corrie overtook his cousin, wound a
+scarf around her bare shoulders and lured her
+out on the veranda. She yielded not unwillingly,
+contrary to her recent custom of neglecting him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+and they disappeared together. Any such latent
+project of Gerard's was prevented by Mr. Rose's
+mood for chat, a mood not usual for him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not looking much like the driver I
+met on the way home, to-day," he informed his
+guest, surveying Gerard quizzically, when they
+were established in the drawing-room. "But I
+didn't recognize my own son, for that matter. He
+don't seem like mine, when he's out in those goblin
+clothes driving like Satan in a hurry. It's sensible
+enough for you, being in the automobile trade, but
+for him it's just fool play."</p>
+
+<p>"He does it a little too well to call it that,"
+Gerard returned seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? Well, I've got money enough to pay
+for it&mdash;although it's the most expensive game he's
+found yet&mdash;or for anything else he fancies. I've
+told him to amuse himself for a while. He is too
+young to settle down to work, when there is no
+need for it. I never had any playing time, and I
+want to see him have his. And he has earned it,
+too; I suppose he told you he was through college?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and amazed me."</p>
+
+<p>"He knew it had to be done, so he did it quickly
+and without any nonsense. It's an old theory that
+given liberty and money, a boy will go to ruin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+I never believed it; I don't yet. And I never
+saw why I should make my son a different set of
+living rules from those I make for myself. Of
+course, I don't mean there was no law in the house;
+I don't think I spoiled Corrie. But I've left him
+pretty free, only bidding him keep straight. That
+I must have, and he knows it. He has got to keep
+straight."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden grate like metal on metal roughened
+the deliberate speech with a suggestion of grim
+inflexibility. Flavia lifted vaguely startled eyes
+to her father.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you need to worry about that,"
+reassured Gerard smiling. The echo of Corrie's
+fresh young tones was in their ears, as he disputed
+with his cousin, outside the windows at the end of
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not. He's too much like his mother."
+Mr. Rose dropped his hand on Flavia's, as she
+sat in her low chair beside him. "And she was
+what they call an aristocrat, nowadays, but I called
+a lady when I married her. Old family, gentle
+breeding, the society end, and good looks like
+my little girl's that seem too fine to touch; she
+had all and everything except money. And I gave
+her that."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia leaned nearer to her father with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+caressing confidence in mutual affection which
+marked all the household intercourse and pervaded
+the gorgeous pink villa like an actual fragrance
+of atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>"I gave her that. She liked to spend it. Not,"
+his keen eyes suddenly sprang challengingly to the
+other man's, "Not that she married me for
+money. Don't think it. My wife loved me. I
+guess I struck her family like a cyclone; I was
+self-made and used to my own way, at thirty, and
+not uglier than my neighbors. Mrs. Tom Rose
+was a happy woman, until she died, when Corrie
+was two years old and Flavia four." He rose
+bruskly and crossed the room. "You don't smoke,
+Gerard? I always spoil a cigar when I talk."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't unless there's something wrong,"
+Gerard answered, tactfully casual. "A cigarette
+helps, then. But everything is very right, now.
+You know, these races are my holidays, although
+they are an important business feature, too. My
+factory affairs keep me hard at work most of the
+year. Then in the intervals I am designing and
+having constructed a genuine racing machine of
+my own, much more powerful than the ninety
+Mercury I'm driving now. I'm not an idle citizen,
+really."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia's head drooped lower. He was telling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+her father these things as part of that steady
+purpose whose object she felt herself; she knew
+it, clairvoyantly acute.</p>
+
+<p>"You get a lot out of living," commented Mr.
+Rose, coming back to his seat. "You enjoy it,
+I'm thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," Gerard replied candidly. "Why
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're right. Now, I want to tell you about
+a deal I put through in the Street, to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia moved to the piano and began to touch
+the keys. She knew there would be only men's
+talk for a while, and from this place she could
+watch Gerard unseen. In all the previous days
+she had avoided this, refusing to take cognizance
+of the physical beauty upon which Isabel dilated,
+half-unconsciously defending herself from an undefined
+danger. She commenced to play pastel-toned
+bits of Nevin and Chaminade, her clear eyes
+delighting in free vision.</p>
+
+<p>Out on the veranda, Corrie was sustaining a
+defense of his own. Upright against a column,
+scarlet with determination, Isabel pursued the wilful
+desire she had voiced at the dinner-table.</p>
+
+<p>"That Frenchwoman was around the course
+with her husband, yesterday," she urged. "Other
+women have done it before. Why won't you take
+me?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You might get hurt. Father never would let
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"He needn't know, stupid. You don't want to,
+that's all. I'll ask Mr. Gerard; he'll like to take
+me."</p>
+
+<p>The poison had been drawn from that sting,
+but Corrie winced, nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>want</i> you, Isabel. I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a boy; I'm a year older than you."</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven months!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, I'm a woman. I do what I choose,
+while you're afraid to move for fear uncle will
+catch you. What would he do, ferule your little
+palms?"</p>
+
+<p>Furious, Corrie sprang across and dropped his
+hands on her shoulders with the freedom of their
+life-long intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to ferule yours," he gritted between
+his set teeth. "I'm as much a man as you are a
+woman. You haven't any <i>sense</i>. And there's no
+use of your dangling after Allan Gerard, for he
+don't want you&mdash;he said as much. I'm going in,
+and I won't take you around the course."</p>
+
+<p>Gasping, Isabel let him reach the French
+windows of the drawing-room before recovering
+herself. Then she rushed in pursuit, tripping impatiently
+over her long chiffon skirts.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie&mdash;wait! Corrie!"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He turned sullenly, secretly aghast at his own
+temerity. But Isabel laid her hand on his sleeve
+without anger.</p>
+
+<p>"You're more man than I thought," she
+breathed. "I always liked you better than anyone
+else, anyhow. Corrie, if you'd take me around
+the course, early in the morning when no one here
+knew, I believe you'd be almost grown up enough
+to&mdash;to&mdash;be engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"Isabel!" he cried, fire kindling in his face.
+"You would? You would?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I get my ride&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He seized her, boy-clumsily, and boy-like lavished
+his impetuous kisses.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get anything," he promised, half-choked
+by excitement. "And everything. Oh, Isabel!"</p>
+
+<p>Flavia's delicate music flowed on and on. Before
+Mr. Rose had finished his discussion, Corrie
+and Isabel entered the room, and the evening ended
+without any possibility of Gerard's resuming the
+theme commenced in the fountain arcade.</p>
+
+<p>When the group separated for the night, Corrie
+detained his sister at the foot of the wide,
+gleaming stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't rise early in the morning to give me
+my coffee, Other Fellow," he said. "I shan't be
+starting for the course at the usual time. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+been working pretty steadily and I need to rest
+for the race itself, day after to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned across the bannister to him; the
+two young faces framed in young ripples of bright
+hair resembled each other very strongly in their
+twin moods of exaltation and radiant, half-incredulous
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not feel unwell, dear? You have not
+driven too much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. But I'm sleepy," he caught a
+frond of a tall Madeiran fern that was placed
+in its jardiniere on the step opposite him, winding
+the satin-green strip over his finger, "honestly, all
+in with sleepiness, and I'm going to sleep to-night
+as if it was the last quiet night's sleep I'd ever
+get. See you to-morrow, kid sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, dearest."</p>
+
+<p>So, since she was not to give Corrie his morning
+coffee, she would not give Gerard's to him
+or see him until his return from the race course.
+As a matter of course, it was not to be contemplated
+that she should rise at dawn for a t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te
+breakfast with the guest, at this period when
+all the fine elements that composed their relation
+hesitated at the point of crystallization. But she
+scarcely regretted the postponed interview. It
+would be better to meet each other differently, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+more leisure. He would come again to the fountain
+arcade, where she watched for Corrie's return.</p>
+
+<p>When Flavia reached her own room, there stood
+on her dressing-table a long silver-paper and filigree
+box. Wondering, she raised the lid, to be
+met with a gust of exquisite perfume and confronted
+with a mass of frail yellow roses, lovely
+with the quaint, virginal beauty of suggestion that
+separates them from all their other-colored kin.
+Across the glistening petals lay a cover cut from
+a pocket dictionary, bearing written upon it one
+sentence: "Definition of the meaning of Flavia
+Rose."</p>
+
+<p>She laid her head beside the flowers, gold upon
+gold. She, also, the fancy came to her, had placed
+this day in the vase of Al-Mansor. But the day
+to come outshone it, as a rosy pearl one merely
+white.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," she whispered to herself. "To-morrow."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>VI</h2>
+<h3>WRECK</h3>
+
+<p>Gray, sluggish, slow in coming and sullen of
+aspect, a reluctant dawn succeeded the night. A
+wet mist clung everywhere in the windless atmosphere,
+muffling sound as well as light. There
+was not even a servant stirring in the Rose house,
+when Gerard descended the dark stairs and went
+out into the chill, damp park.</p>
+
+<p>In the garage one bright point shone out; under
+a swinging electric lamp Rupert was preparing
+his machine to go out, a solitary figure in the
+expanse of wavering shadows and dim bulks.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are Rose and his man?" Gerard questioned,
+as he came across the floor.</p>
+
+<p>His voice rolled startlingly loud in the lofty,
+echoing room. Moving to reply, the mechanician
+let fall a tool and the crash repeated itself sharply
+from every stone arch and angle.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose won't be out at the course till late; I
+guess our peaceful life ain't what he's used to,
+exactly. He 'phoned over last night to Dean,
+who's sleeping yet."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard nodded, eyeing the Mercury racer with
+affectionate attention.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"All right, is she?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Rupert straightened himself and proceeded to
+close the hood.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't supposing we'll need to be towed," he
+conceded sarcastically. "But I'll put in a rope,
+if you're worried bad, and take my copy of <i>Motor
+Repairing at a Glance</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Do," Gerard urged. "I'd like to have it
+found on you, Rupert. Start her up, then, if
+you're ready."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed, with the last word, to the shelf
+where lay his racing mask and gauntlets. The
+melancholy drip from moist eaves and trees, the
+dreary half-light and heavy air had absolutely no
+depressing power upon his flawless nerves and
+vigor of life. By the open door he paused to
+look out, unconsciously clasping his hands behind
+his head with the leisurely grace and relaxation of
+one who found pleasure in mere movement.</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be a wet course," Rupert's muffled
+tones came from the opposite end of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Gerard queried lazily. "What of
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. Instead sounded the
+click of moving throttle and spark, and the place
+burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted
+from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+vibrating car as it moved forward to its master's
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like this morning, and I don't like
+this course," stated Rupert, sombrely definite,
+through the roar and rattle of irregular reports
+from the cut-down motor. "But I guess I've got
+to stand for them. Anyhow, I couldn't have a
+classier Friday-the-thirteenth emotion equipment
+if I had been to a voodoo fortune teller who had a
+grudge against me. What are we waiting for?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard lingered in taking his seat, his amazed
+eyes travelling over the small, discontented dark
+face of his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Something's wrong, Rupert?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't saying so&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>The driver's own expression shadowed slightly;
+he looked again and more searchingly at the other.
+In common with most men who had lived in the
+tense atmosphere of the most dangerous form of
+racing yet evolved, he had witnessed more than
+one case where a presentiment did not fail of fulfilment.
+Irrespective of whether catalogued as
+coincidence, occult foresight or absurdity, the
+facts did exist, occasionally to be read in the
+prosaic columns of a newspaper, more often lost
+except in camp annals. He knew, and Rupert
+knew, of a mechanician who suddenly refused ab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>solutely
+to go out with the driver by whose side
+he had ridden countless miles, having no better
+reason than a disinclination for the trip. And
+they both had seen the substitute who took his
+place brought in dead, an hour later, after his
+car's wreck. A widely-known victor of many
+races, one of Gerard's close friends, had come to
+shake hands with him in a state of causeless
+nervousness that would have shamed a novice, just
+before starting on the ride from which he never
+returned. The price of debate is too high to argue
+with some things; Gerard temporized.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to take you out feeling like that.
+Give yourself a day off," he suggested. "I'll
+find one of the factory men to go out with me
+for the morning's practice."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician
+acidly, and flung himself back in his narrow seat.</p>
+
+<p>The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding
+drives, plunged into the sandy Long Island
+road, and sped lurching toward the course.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing dull or depressing about the
+starting point, at the Motor Parkway. Before
+the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted
+some of the cars, surrounded by their force of
+workers; in other camps the men stood, watch in
+hand, timing the machines already out. Reporters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring
+group, two world-famous French and Italian
+drivers were pitching pennies for the last cigarettes
+from a box of special brand. Only the tiers
+of empty seats in the grand-stand and the absence
+of spectators in fields and parking-spaces distinguished
+this practice morning from the actual
+race.</p>
+
+<p>There was a general movement of greeting as
+the Mercury rolled in and Gerard sprang out at
+his own camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your pink pet, Allan?" called a
+driver, from the starting line. "What's up&mdash;mornin'
+air too crude for millionaire kids?"</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>isn't</i> up," was the blithe reply. "Never
+mind Rose, he's coming; tell me where you got
+your five-cylinder machine, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"A late Rose, eh? Oh, I've got six cylinders
+here, all right, but I daren't run on all of them
+now for fear my speed would make the rest of
+you quit, discouraged. I'm goin' to make your
+yesterday's record look like a last year's timetable,
+this mornin'."</p>
+
+<p>"You look out that you don't break your neck.
+Rupert says it's a hoodoo day. We don't want
+you in the hospital twice this season."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Rupert sad?" questioned the big blonde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+pilot of the neighboring camp, leaning over the
+railing.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't been so near it since I put my foot
+in a hole and sprained my ankle ten minutes before
+the start, when I was racing with Darling French
+at Philadelphia," admitted the mechanician. "It
+hurt me fierce."</p>
+
+<p>"Your ankle?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, seeing him start without me."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Gerard, there's your pink Rambler," a
+distant voice signified.</p>
+
+<p>About to send his car forward, Gerard paused
+to glance over his shoulder, and caught the pink
+flash behind a row of mist-draped trees edging the
+cross-road. Sudden mischief curved his lips, his
+amber eyes laughed behind their goggles.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Corrie Rose I'll give him that game of
+auto tag, if he happens along while I'm on a
+straight stretch," he called across to one of Corrie's
+men, by way of farewell.</p>
+
+<p>A little breeze stirred the mist, as the Mercury
+shot down the course; the gray light was brightening
+by slow gradations.</p>
+
+<p>There was small probability that Gerard's car
+and the rose-colored machine would soon find themselves
+together on the twelve-mile circuit, allowing
+for their difference in starting time. But as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+Mercury turned into the straight stretch of back
+road, on the second time around, there sounded a
+sharp report, the car staggered perilously, and a
+tire tore itself loose from a rear wheel to hurtle,
+a vicious projectile of rubber and steel, far across
+the stubble fields. Reeling, but held to its course
+by the driver's trained hand, the Mercury slackened
+its flight and was brought to a stop. Rupert
+was already leaning over the back, dragging free
+a spare tire; Gerard slipped out of his seat.</p>
+
+<p>For experts the task was not long. A white
+car thundered past the workers, leaving a swirl
+of dust and flying pebbles, its mechanician turning
+to survey the halted Mercury. As Rupert swept
+the last tool into its place with precise swiftness,
+the throbbing of a second motor drifted to them,
+a pink streak darted around a distant curve.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Corrie," identified Gerard. "Get in,
+Rupert. If he wasn't forced by his money into
+the amateur ranks, that boy would make some
+of us work to keep our laurels, all right."</p>
+
+<p>The panther-agile figure swung into place beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't a market gardener," Rupert drawled,
+fitting one small foot in a strap support, as the
+car leaped forward. "But I guess those plants
+ain't apt to flourish in too rich soil."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Mercury did not gather speed too rapidly,
+rather it lingered until the pink car bore close
+down upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"How near?" suddenly demanded Gerard,
+above the noise of the motor.</p>
+
+<p>The mechanician reconnoitred.</p>
+
+<p>"Hundred feet," he made report.</p>
+
+<p>"Wave to him."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert raised his hand obediently. The Mercury
+sprang ahead under Gerard's touch, and with
+an answering roar the rose-colored machine sped
+in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt that Corrie understood
+the play; nor that his car was easily capable of
+passing the sixty-mile an hour gait now held by
+the Mercury. But he was not allowed to pass.
+Each time he essayed it, the other racer swerved
+in front and cut off the road.</p>
+
+<p>It was as dangerous a game as could well be
+designed, had either driver been less skilled, but
+it was safe enough now. Gerard was laughing as
+he drove, when the first tiny missile rattled against
+his car.</p>
+
+<p>"He's pitching spare bolts," shouted Rupert,
+at his companion's ear, himself grimly amused.
+"Peevish, ain't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard nodded, and crossed the narrow road<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+with an unexpected turn that drew a baffled explosion
+from the checked car behind. A brass
+nut smacked the Mercury's gasoline tank. It was
+not difficult to imagine Corrie's excited tempest of
+defeat, to those who knew him.</p>
+
+<p>"The turn's ahead&mdash;we'll call it off there,"
+Gerard answered mirthfully. "Give her some oil."</p>
+
+<p>The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile
+of straight road. Rupert was stooping to
+reach the oil pump when the pink car made its
+final attempt to pass and was again forced back,
+but across his outstretched arm he glanced up to
+Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying missile as it
+came.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Duck!</i>" he shouted harshly, "Look out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was no time for action. As Gerard turned
+his head, the heavy steel wrench struck him below
+the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was
+too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel
+before the mechanician could snatch it
+from the inert grasp. With a lurch the speeding
+Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the
+road and, leaping a yard-high embankment,
+crashed through a row of trees to roll over and
+over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage
+over the farmhouse enclosure beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The light breeze of half an hour earlier had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+freshened and gained strength, the pale-gray sky
+was changing to delicate blue. When the horrified
+knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the
+nearby Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard
+to join the pale-faced farmer already there, the
+sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds,
+glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the
+still figure that lay beneath it, illumining the
+dishevelled, gasping mechanician who struggled
+dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to
+safety, fifty feet from the wreck.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult for any group of men, however
+willing, to work without a leader. While the
+inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the
+verge of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing
+costume sprang up the bank, his blue eyes burning
+in his white face, his lips stained with blood
+where his teeth had bitten through.</p>
+
+<p>"Get those logs, over there," he commanded
+savagely. "The car's got to be jacked up. Hurry
+up&mdash;do you want him to die under there? <i>Jump!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>His fiery energy ran through the men with a
+vivifying shock. Torpor transformed to animation,
+the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's
+brief orders they scattered in search of the logs,
+a telephone, and such aid as the place afforded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+The farmer's wife assumed charge of the semi-conscious
+Rupert, for whom no one else had time.</p>
+
+<p>Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried
+Gerard, fifteen minutes later, and laid him
+on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed lithograph
+of <i>The Trial of John Knox</i>. A plush
+photograph album was jostled on its marble table
+by the driver's shattered mask and a glove upon
+whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature
+watch, the flowered carpet was trampled under the
+heedless feet and streaked with dull red here and
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"They stopped here yesterday for some water,"
+sobbed the mistress of the house hysterically.
+"Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard
+at the little dark one, he was, and both of them
+making fun."</p>
+
+<p>The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded
+from without; the first of the emergency surgeons
+to arrive ran up the steps and into the room,
+stripping off his coat while appraising with keen
+eyes the unconscious patient.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely.
+"Here, I want a helper&mdash;you, Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up
+and dragged himself erect. Gerard's face was no
+more drawn and colorless than his, but he an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>swered
+to the call, as half an hour before he had
+answered the demand of the situation for a guide.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I
+deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest
+of the men were retreating to leave the room, when
+those nearest the door were suddenly thrust back.
+Staggering, furious passion blazing in his
+scratched and pain-twisted face, Rupert burst
+across the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive?
+What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve,
+Rose&mdash;gently! Clear out, you; the ambulance
+men will take care of you when they get here."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the
+scene, and encountered Corrie.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;&mdash;" he snarled, choking, and whirled to
+face the witnesses, extending one slim shaking
+hand toward the workers beside the couch. "Here,
+I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing
+headlines for paper rags&mdash;print down that Allan
+Gerard was killed by that man. I'm saying it;
+Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he
+pitched a wrench that knocked him out. Go down
+to the course and you'll get the wrench to Mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>souri
+you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard
+and our car ran wild."</p>
+
+<p>The concentrated vehemence and force of the
+arraignment stupefied even the reportorial instinct.
+Dazed, the hearers stared from the
+mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale
+young driver who offered neither surprise nor defense,
+but went steadily on with his unsteadying task.</p>
+
+<p>"He wrecked us&mdash;&mdash;" Rupert made a limping
+step forward. "Well? Did you guess I was
+reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you
+taking him out of here? Put <i>his</i> mechanician
+through the third degree and get his story&mdash;who
+nailed you fast here? Why don't you <i>move</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from
+Corrie's grasp. Livid with wrath, the surgeon
+stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you,"
+he stormed. "Not a word; I don't care if Rose
+has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now.
+Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."</p>
+
+<p>He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert
+into the retiring group, and the door closed.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the reporters became themselves.
+While ambulances dashed up, motor cycles, official
+cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was
+hurried apart and his story coaxed from him in
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>The last automobile to come up, an hour after
+the accident, was a gilt-monogramed foreign
+limousine. From it descended a gentleman who,
+after a comprehensive glance over the disordered,
+crowded orchard, crossed straight to where Rupert
+sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite the shattered
+car.</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's
+shoulder. "Rupert, what's been happening
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face,
+its grimness not lessened by flecks and bars of
+court-plaster; across the apathy of physical
+exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard
+resolve.</p>
+
+<p>"Your son's finished Gerard, Mr. Rose," he
+stated, monotonously explicit. "He slipped his
+temper and fired a wrench at Gerard for not
+giving him the road. It hit him, and we ran
+wild without a driver till we struck here. Ask
+him&mdash;he's in there with what's left of Gerard&mdash;why
+he's sent Dean where he ain't to be found,
+if I'm lying."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose released Rupert's shoulder, both men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+equally oblivious of the pain his grasp had inflicted
+on bruised flesh and muscle, and turned his
+gray face to the surrounding group in dumb quest
+of confirmation. Then, moving stiffly, he walked
+toward the house.</p>
+
+<p>There was an authority in his bearing that
+gained him unopposed entrance. In the hall,
+nauseating with the ominous odor of antiseptics,
+he was met by one of the doctors.</p>
+
+<p>"You can turn my house into a hospital," Mr.
+Rose said briefly. "I want Gerard taken there
+instead of to your places. You can have all the
+money you like."</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at the card presented, his professional
+impassivity flickering, but shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"He would better not be moved at all, sir;
+at least, not to-day. He can be asked, if you
+wish."</p>
+
+<p>"He is conscious, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just about," he shrugged, reaching for the
+door. "Here, if you care to go in."</p>
+
+<p>The room was glaring with light, the lace curtains
+were dragged wide apart from the windows
+and the shades rolled high. Idle now in the
+presence of more skilled attendants, but recognized
+as one who had earned the right to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+there, Corrie stood near the foot of the improvised
+bed, leaning against the wall with his fair head
+slightly bent. At the sound of the door he turned
+that way, as Mr. Rose stopped on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The snapping latch, or some more subtle influence,
+aroused someone else. Slowly Gerard's heavy
+lashes lifted, and he saw father and son looking
+at each other across the parlor strewn with the
+tragic litter of the last hour's work. There was
+nothing to interrupt the triple regard; it endured
+long, with steadfast intensity.</p>
+
+<p>In a corner two surgeons were holding a subdued
+consultation, a third was busied at the marble
+table, the attention of all fully engaged.</p>
+
+<p>"Put a pillow under my head, someone," suddenly
+bade the shadow of Allan Gerard's voice,
+across the hush. "And give me a cigarette."</p>
+
+<p>There was a startled flurry in the room. Familiar
+enough with the last request from his masculine
+patients, the man at the table took a case
+from his own pocket and, lighting one of the
+cigarettes, stooped over the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your grip on yourself," he approved
+brusquely. "But don't move."</p>
+
+<p>It was in his left hand that Gerard took the
+tiny narcotic, his right arm and shoulder were a
+mere bulk of splints and linen bandages.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," his difficult voice spoke again.
+"Now open that door and let everyone in&mdash;I want
+to talk to them."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gerard!"</p>
+
+<p>His clear eyes, dark with suffering but absolutely
+collected, met the surgeon's.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to talk to them, doctor, and I may
+be out of my head or in a box, to-morrow. Let
+them in&mdash;the reporters, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>The listeners gazed at each other, a shock ran
+through the group. Every man there knew
+Rupert's story of the accident, every man guessed
+that it was Gerard's own version that was to be
+given now. Someone offered Mr. Rose one of the
+horse-hair chairs, during the moment of rearrangement
+before the youngest of the doctors
+left the room. Only Corrie remained unmoved, not
+changing his position or looking at Gerard. There
+was a certain dignity of utter quiescence in his
+pose that comprehended neither defiance nor submission,
+but a strange, aloof patience.</p>
+
+<p>The representative reporters from the city
+journals filed in, avidly expectant. With them
+came two officials of the racing association, and
+a metallic-eyed man whose plain clothes were contradicted
+by the badge visible under his coat.
+There was silent orderliness; the grim significance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+of the room, the presence of the watchful surgeons,
+the central figure of the driver so well known to
+all of those who entered, were subduing to the
+least sensitive. Nor was the effect less hushing
+because of that other driver who attended in the
+background, the strong sunlight shining on his
+glistening pink garb and still face.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard let fall the hand holding the cigarette,
+when the company was complete, and slowly turned
+his brown head on the pillow to face them.</p>
+
+<p>"You newspaper men have been first-class to
+me for a good while; it's my chance to reciprocate
+now," he asserted. "Well, I'll give what copy I
+can. I know you want it, boys&mdash;you've often been
+after me for less."</p>
+
+<p>The familiar gayety rippled above his aching
+effort of speech, his will locked to composure each
+rebellious line of expression. No one stirred in
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it were a better yarn. But when two
+tires blow out at the same time, while a car's
+turning&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This time, there was a general sigh of quick-drawn
+breath. Mr. Rose stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"When two tires let go, at ninety miles an
+hour, there's apt to be a wreck. I&mdash;&mdash;" his lashes
+fell wearily. "I couldn't hold the machine to the
+road. The shock broke my control&mdash;there's no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+one to blame but me&mdash;&mdash;" The cigarette crumpled
+in his clenching fingers, his straight brows knotted.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard," burst forth the racing official, excitedly
+urgent in his suspense. "Your tires
+wrecked you? That's your last word? Gerard,
+if you can speak, do!"</p>
+
+<p>The amber eyes re-opened in answer, to meet
+the fixed gaze of the eager men who waited opposite.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," gasped Gerard, casually definite.
+"What else? Corrie, leave me your smokes,
+they're a better brand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>If there had been any doubt left the witnesses,
+that comrade request beat it down. The surgeon
+flung out his hand in a sweeping gesture of dismissal,
+as he sprang toward his fainting patient.
+Gerard had finished.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose went out with the other men. Some
+of his florid color had come back, he walked
+more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness.
+On the narrow porch the referee from the
+racing association held out his hand with frank
+congratulation.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before
+they got any further, Mr. Rose. It sounded
+nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his
+head in the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run
+half a mile across country, crazy as a loon, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank.
+They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and
+keep him quiet; he'll wake up to-morrow sane as
+ever. Nice way your son took it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Corwin B. is straight," declared Mr. Rose,
+proudly self-contained in his relief. "I guess
+there wasn't much need to worry about that part.
+I'll wait here and take him home with me, now;
+he's had about all of that room he ought to stand,
+fond of Gerard as he is."</p>
+
+<p>"He looked done up, yes. Well&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A long shout sounded down the course, a clamor
+of excited speech. A troup of men appeared,
+running toward the house in the wake of a chauffeur
+who held up some object that glittered in
+the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got it!" the leader called ahead. "I've
+got it where he said, beside the road!"</p>
+
+<p>The thing in his hand was a small, heavy nickel
+wrench. The men on the porch and the men in
+the yard stared at each other, mute. After a
+moment Mr. Rose drew out his handkerchief,
+passed it across his forehead and lips, then went
+down to his limousine, got in and sank back against
+the cushions.</p>
+
+<p>"Home," he issued his order.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Corwin is not coming, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>VII</h2>
+<h3>"THE GREATEST OF THESE"</h3>
+
+<p>It was nearly two hours after the Mercury
+car had crashed into ruin under the aromatic
+apple-trees, before knowledge of the disaster came
+to Flavia. Breakfast was over, at least the breakfast
+of Mr. Rose and his daughter; no other
+member of the family had appeared. A maid
+reported that Isabel had ordered her horse and
+had departed on an early ride to the neighboring
+golf club, where she was engaged to play with an
+equally athletic college girl, that morning. There
+was nothing to disturb the customary pleasant
+routine or to suggest uneasiness. At the usual
+hour Mr. Rose left for the city; he was on his
+way to New York when he first caught the rumor
+that sent him instead to the farmhouse at Westbury.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia, roseate, softly irradiated, moving in an
+atmosphere of undefined expectation as difficult
+to breathe calmly as the rarefied air of a mountain-top,
+had held herself to the accomplishment
+of her daily charges. She was seated at her little
+white-and-gold desk in her white-and-gold study,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+setting the household affairs in order for the
+day with the dainty precision of all her methods,
+when Isabel came into the room and stopped upright
+and rigid, near the door.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better hear it now," the younger
+girl dully announced. "There has been an
+accident on the course."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia's hands flew over her heart, the room
+blackened.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie&mdash;&mdash;" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"No; Mr. Gerard. He is alive, that's all I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>The scent of the yellow roses Flavia had put
+in her hair dilated to a stifling heaviness that
+hindered breath; she covered her eyes with her
+small cold fingers, seeking the dark, mute under
+torture. He was alive&mdash;that niggard concession
+was made to Allan Gerard, whose rich fullness
+of vigor and dominant presence last night had
+seemed the one firm reality in a world of pleasant
+vagueness. Weak, conscious of nothing but what
+her inward vision showed, she lay in her chair;
+questioning no more, making no sign.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Isabel, the self-assured, evenly poised
+Isabel, was on the floor at her cousin's knees, burying
+her face in Flavia's pale-yellow dress and
+sobbing in frantic hysteria.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Flavia, Flavia, I can't bear it! I am afraid,
+I am afraid&mdash;if he should die&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Shocked back into strength, Flavia bent over
+her, soothing and caressing with soft touches and
+inarticulate phrases of affection.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, dear, hush! Put your head here. Let
+me call Martha; you frighten me, Isabel!"</p>
+
+<p>The tempest did not last long. As abruptly as
+she had lost self-command, Isabel regained it.
+Rising to her feet, she swept back the disordered
+auburn curls from her flushed face and stood silent
+beside the desk, in a state approaching exhaustion.
+She was wearing a dark riding-habit soiled with
+dust and stained in several places with oil or
+grease, her high-laced boots were scratched and
+sand-covered. But Flavia was beyond notice of
+costume and saw only her cousin's sullen misery
+of expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, you loved him," escaped her, in her
+double compassion for the woman whom Gerard
+had not chosen.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel's gray eyes were crossed by a spark.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I <i>hate</i> him!" she flared viciously.
+"What did he do it for? He had no right. He,
+he&mdash;&mdash;" She pressed her drenched handkerchief
+hard against her lips. "Corrie, poor Corrie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Flavia shrank, commencing to tremble before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+a looming premonition of something still worse
+to be endured.</p>
+
+<p>"What of Corrie? Isabel, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will hear soon enough," she assured bitterly.
+"I've said all I can. No&mdash;don't ask me,
+don't follow me. They will tell you downstairs.
+I'm going."</p>
+
+<p>Downstairs, meant the servants. Flavia Rose
+was, above all things, maiden-proud; as Gerard's
+fianc&eacute;e, as Gerard's wife, no cost of pain or
+humiliation would have kept her from him. But
+she was neither. She had only her own interpretation
+of his mirthful glances and graceful
+speech, only a few yellow roses to hint that he
+did not regard her as the most casual of friends.
+Suppose she had been mistaken, suppose he had
+meant only courtesy to a hostess whose youth
+exacted gallantry?</p>
+
+<p>Isabel had gone. Flavia turned her face to
+a diminutive mirror lying among the trifles on
+her desk. Could she go down to the curious
+servants so&mdash;pale, quivering and emotion-spent?
+Even as she looked into her own reflected eyes,
+the tears at last overflowed.</p>
+
+<p>It was half an hour later before Flavia, quiet,
+dignified and only betrayed by her absolute pallor,
+trusted herself to descend the stairs.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Rose house was too near the race course,
+too intimately concerned in the drama, for the
+information she sought not to be already rife
+gossip there. When Mr. Rose came home, near
+noon, he had little left to tell his daughter except
+Gerard's condition and his defense of Corrie.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Corrie did not hurt him," she grasped
+the exquisite relief.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose shook his head, reluctantly discouraged
+and discouraging. He had not gone to the
+city during those intervening hours; he never,
+then or afterward, spoke of where he had been or
+what he had felt.</p>
+
+<p>"There was the wrench," he heavily reminded
+her. "And where has he sent Dean, who must
+have seen all that happened and could have given
+Gerard's mechanician the lie? I've not seen Corrie
+except across the room," the recollection of
+that ghastly room broke the speech. "We have
+got to wait until he comes home to answer."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia slipped her hand into his, nestling to
+him, and he put his arm about her. Both were
+remembering Corrie's brief, simoon-hot tempers,
+his hasty tongue and ready hand&mdash;and swift repentances.
+Had an occasion come when the repentance
+was too late, too vain! And what repentance!
+To the sister who knew with life-long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+knowledge the ardent, passionate Corrie, his young
+rigidity in honor and high pride, his tenacious
+affections, this menaced downfall was almost as
+appalling as his death. She thrust the possibility
+from her with revolted condemnation of herself
+for crediting this libel, this slander of her brother.
+What had he ever done to justify such a belief?</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, he could not!" she defended. "Corrie
+could not. Not, not <i>Corrie</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, my girl."</p>
+
+<p>Something in his tone, some quality she did
+not recognize, brought her gaze to his face with
+a fresh dread. What would it mean to Thomas
+Rose, if this were true of his son? And what
+would the change in Thomas Rose mean to Corrie?</p>
+
+<p>The early autumn dusk had fallen and the lamps
+were lit, when Corrie came home. The routine
+of the household had gone on through the long
+day; under the eye of convention, Flavia and
+Mr. Rose had dressed for dinner and now sat together
+in the drawing-room, each holding an unread
+book. But at the closing of the outer door
+both started erect, pretense forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie!" his father summoned. Not Corwin
+B.; by a trick of usage the nickname had become
+formal, the formal name a playfulness not to be
+spoken now.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Corrie came quietly between the velvet curtains.
+He still wore the pink racing costume,
+its hue in marked contrast to his worn young
+face. That one day had drawn white lines about
+his boyish mouth and set black circles under his
+blue eyes. As if feeling himself on trial, he stopped
+just within the room and stood with the quiescent
+endurance that he had shown in the farmhouse
+parlor and which sat so strangely upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"First&mdash;Gerard?" required Mr. Rose hardly.
+"You've been there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. They say he will live."</p>
+
+<p>"Live! What&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They say he will never drive again."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia cried out faintly, grasping the arms of
+her chair, and there was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard Rupert's story, and I've heard
+Gerard's," slowly pronounced Mr. Rose. "I
+haven't heard yours, yet. Nor I haven't learned
+that anyone has. What wrecked Gerard's car?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. Corrie's breathing quickened
+slightly, but he neither moved nor spoke,
+nor lifted his eyes to the two who watched him.
+After moments, Mr. Rose put out his hand and
+pushed away a tinted electric lamp from which
+the light fell too strongly on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert isn't lying," he asserted. "He might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+be crazy. If he is, say so. I saw your nickel
+wrench picked up, myself, and a dozen people
+along the line saw you and Gerard racing just
+before the smash. Where is your mechanician,
+Dean? What has he got to say? It looks bad,
+your hiding him."</p>
+
+<p>"He was not with me," Corrie replied, his voice
+oddly smothered.</p>
+
+<p>"Not with you? Rupert talks of seeing him
+beside you in the car."</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert is mistaken. Dean was not yet out
+at the course and I started alone. Ask the men
+at my camp and the race officials; they will tell
+you that I took out my machine without a mechanician."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Rupert is crazy? Gerard told the
+truth? Speak out! Are you afraid or sulky?"</p>
+
+<p>This time the lash took effect. Corrie moved
+sharply and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to talk," he declared definitely.
+"Nor ought you to ask it of me, sir. If you
+don't know how I loved Allan Gerard, if you can't
+feel that I would rather have killed myself than
+hurt him and would have turned my car against
+a stone wall sooner than see to-day, there is no
+use of my saying it. I don't care what anyone
+thinks or says. I stood the worst that can come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+to me when I helped his surgeons to-day and heard
+him clear me&mdash;&mdash;I'm going to my room; you
+needn't fear I'll run away."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose was across the room before his son
+could leave it, gripping the satin-clad shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll keep what Gerard lied to give you,"
+he promised with inexorable menace. "And that's
+what is left of your reputation. You'll neither
+run nor skulk in your room; you'll go dress
+for dinner and come down here and eat it. We'll
+have no scenes. The medicine you have got to
+take is nothing to the black dose Gerard has to
+swallow."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa!" Flavia appealed, unheard.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," Corrie answered simply.</p>
+
+<p>On the wide landing of the staircase Flavia
+overtook her brother. There was just one thing
+she could say to him, must and would always
+have to say whatever his faults or the rest of
+the world's condemnation.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you," she panted, clasping her little
+hands around his arm. "Corrie, it is hurting you
+so! I love you, let me come."</p>
+
+<p>Under the soft hall-lights he turned to her,
+blue eyes meeting blue eyes; then for the first
+time in their lives he took her in his arms with
+a man's touch and kissed her.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You stick close, Other Fellow," he said unsteadily.
+"I'm pretty lonesome; you're a help.
+But don't come now."</p>
+
+<p>Pretty lonesome. Yes, that expressed the
+atmosphere of aloofness, the air of being suddenly
+walled around and set apart, that now marked the
+impulsive and social Corrie. It was with him
+when he came down to the dreary dinner, an
+hour later.</p>
+
+<p>The one who failed to play out the wretched
+farce of customary life was Isabel. She kept
+her room, alleging illness, and did not appear
+to lend aid to the evening which the three spent
+in silent endurance of one another and their own
+thoughts. The very surroundings insisted on the
+image of Gerard; a book he had been reading
+lay open on the table, the music he preferred was
+waiting on the piano rack. At nine o'clock, unable
+to bear more, Flavia rose, hurriedly pleading fatigue.
+Corrie also rose with her to retire,
+or to escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," his father bade, at his movement, laying
+down a newspaper. "You will not be out
+with your automobile, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie looked at him without rebellion or surprise,
+unflinching from the decision.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I shall never drive a racing car again, sir,"
+was his quiet statement.</p>
+
+<p>And only Gerard could have gauged what that
+renunciation cost his fellow-driver.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard, at that hour, was not conscious of many
+things. The night that was long at the rose-colored
+villa, was longer yet in the little farmhouse.
+But when the first pale light of dawn
+made the parlor windows grow into glimmering
+squares of gray, the patient suddenly spoke out
+of what was rather stupor than sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"'And the greatest of these is charity?'" he
+said strongly and clearly.</p>
+
+<p>The nurse hurried to his side, but it was many
+moments before he again aroused and asked for
+Rupert.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, and alone," he insisted, when she demurred,
+urging rest.</p>
+
+<p>Even in his helplessness he was compelling. The
+nurse went in search of Rupert, who had kept
+vigil in the kitchen, scoffing at the suggestion of
+bed while that battle was being waged in the other
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard turned his fever-burnished eyes upon
+his small mechanician's sullen face, when that
+visitor entered. Both men understood perfectly
+well the contest of wills about to ensue. Both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+were coolly determined and prepared with the fine
+weapon of mutual knowledge of one another.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a silver case on the table; get me a
+cigarette and light it, will you?" requested Gerard,
+in his low, unsure voice.</p>
+
+<p>Rupert complied. He had not altogether escaped,
+himself, with mere scratches; he limped as
+he came across to place the cigarette in the languid
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess there ain't any special need to ask
+if it's hurting bad, when you're wanting these
+dopes," he drew grim inference. "Here."</p>
+
+<p>"It is, all the time. Thanks. I didn't bring
+you here to talk about that, when you should be
+asleep, though. Rupert, no more is to be said
+about Corrie Rose. There has been too much
+of that already, I can see."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert's black eyes hardened and narrowed to
+lines of glinting jet.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got the truth stripped down to running
+facts, carrying no trimmings, and I'm demonstrating
+it to everybody I meet," he imparted dryly.
+"And I mean to keep on. I know what you want,
+all right, and I ain't intending to do it. Let him
+stand for what is coming to him."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard lifted his cigarette, seeking the narcotic
+smoke. His superb vitality and undrained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+youth had turned upon him like traitorous servants
+upon a fallen master, denying him surcease in
+unconsciousness and holding him as a sensitive
+instrument for pain to run its gamut upon.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I want to see him get his. You
+don't? I do. I guess my say goes, this time.
+I ain't enjoying being sore wherever I ain't worse,
+but I'd go out and take another smash like we had
+to-day to see him wearing zebra clothes in a jail.
+Missing that, I'll make that pink millionaire palace
+red-hot and get him ruled off every race course
+in the country."</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The mechanician's gesture cut off protest.</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't any use! I mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"You liked Corrie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't noticing it, now. When you were behind
+the steering-wheel, your say so was what
+happened&mdash;if you'd said to light the gasoline tank,
+I'd have struck a match. That's business. This
+ain't. Rose stands for what he did, for I'm free
+to put it through."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true; I am helpless," Gerard acquiesced,
+his white lips compressed, and averted his head on
+the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>Checked, Rupert stared at the other with many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+shifting expressions twitching his own angry dark
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what the doctors say?" he
+demanded, at last. "Are you knowing, when
+you ask me to let Rose off, what he's done to
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was the laconic answer.</p>
+
+<p>There was no retort to that all-sufficient brevity.
+None was attempted.</p>
+
+<p>The windows had gradually paled from gray to
+white, streaks of gold caught and reflected in the
+glass panes as the sun drew up above the horizon.
+All night the air had been filled with a steady
+murmur and dull flow of sound, unobserved because
+of its very continuity. Now, across the
+hush of the sick room unexpectedly crashed a
+roar of rapid explosions, growing thunderous as
+it approached nearer; cheers of joyous excitement
+pealed from many throats. Gerard started,
+his eyes blazing wide.</p>
+
+<p>"The race," flung the mechanician bitterly.
+"It's on."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard slowly raised his left arm and dropped
+it across his face as those who yesterday were
+his mates rushed past the house. With the movement
+a spot of crimson sprang into view against
+the linen swathing his shoulder, enlarging omi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>nously,
+but even the alarmed Rupert knew this was
+no time to summon doctor or nurse, whatever the
+physical cost.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think?" Gerard presently asked,
+quite gently and naturally, "that I've got enough
+to stand, Rupert?"</p>
+
+<p>The sound that broke from the vanquished
+mechanician was less cry than curse.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll shut up!" he cast his submission before
+the victor. "I ain't going to lie&mdash;I'd choke&mdash;but
+I'll hold my tongue. Don't ask more or I'll take
+back that. You've got me down; I'll shut up."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+<h3>AFTERMATH</h3>
+
+<p>The newspapers were mercifully brief upon the
+subject of the unsupported accusation brought
+against Corrie Rose, although diffuse enough in
+accounts of the much-known Gerard's disaster.
+The driver's own explanation of his accident was
+accepted; his attitude towards the young amateur
+fixed the attitude of the public. Moreover, Jack
+Rupert was stricken suddenly dumb; no reportorial
+blandishments could obtain from him, on the
+second day, so much as an admission of the
+charges made by him on the day previous. Rupert
+surrendered like a gentleman: he laid down all his
+weapons. Dean's appearance at his usual duties
+and explanation of his absence from the pink car
+quashed the last rumor, for the finding of a wrench
+beside a motor course meant nothing, considered
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>The first things for which Mr. Rose looked each
+morning were the daily papers. After which, he
+invariably shot a glance of blended relief and
+smarting humiliation into the wide, earnest eyes
+of Flavia, as she sat opposite him behind the gold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+coffee-service, and addressed himself to his breakfast.
+He never looked towards his son at that
+moment, nor did Corrie ever break the ensuing
+silence. The change that had fallen upon Allan
+Gerard's life was scarcely more absolute and
+strange than that which had come upon the Rose
+household of innocent ostentation and intimate
+gayety.</p>
+
+<p>But the greatest outward alteration was in
+Isabel. Flavia and Mr. Rose maintained the usual
+calm routine of events at home and abroad, Corrie
+rigidly obeyed his father's command to live so as
+to provoke no comment. But Isabel's boasted,
+perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control.
+She moped all day in her own room, rejecting
+Flavia's companionship, and fled from Corrie with
+unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as
+the days passed, but rather grew worse in condition.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the sixth week after the accident
+whose echoes threatened to linger so long, that
+Isabel entered her cousin's study, one afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Flavia, I am going away," she abruptly announced.
+"Mrs. Alexander has asked me to go
+South with Caroline and her, you know. Uncle
+says I may do as I like, and I am going. I
+can't bear it here," her full lip quivered.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flavia turned from the window by which she
+had been standing, catching and crushing a fold
+of the drapery in her small fingers as she faced
+the other girl.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you cannot bear Corrie," she
+retorted, in swift reproach. "You treat him&mdash;<i>how</i>
+you treat him! You hardly speak to him, you
+hardly look at him. Oh, you are cruel, you will
+not see how he suffers for one moment's fault."</p>
+
+<p>Isabel grasped a chair-back, commencing to
+tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't bear to stay," she repeated hysterically.
+"Don't talk to me about Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>"I never will again," Flavia assured, pale with
+extreme anger. "Yet you might remember that
+he loves you; a little kindness from you would
+help him so much. Do you know where he spent
+yesterday? He was out in his motor boat; out
+in November with a north gale blowing, alone in
+that speed-boat that is half under water all the
+time. You do not care, you have no pity."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Flavia imposed silence with a gesture, herself
+quite unconscious of how overwhelming was this
+contrast to her usual gentleness.</p>
+
+<p>"He has done wrong&mdash;you have nothing to
+give him but more punishment. Yes, go away,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+that is best. But he would have been kinder to
+you, Isabel."</p>
+
+<p>Isabel let go of the chair, her gray eyes dilating
+unnaturally. Her gaze dwelling on Flavia, she
+slowly retreated a few steps towards the door,
+then suddenly turned and fled, leaving no answer.</p>
+
+<p>With her going, Flavia's passion died, something
+like fear taking its place. That was what Corrie
+had felt, reflected Corrie's sister; a sweep of
+flame-like anger that blinded judgment, a slipping
+of self-mastery that loosed hand or tongue. Only,
+she had not wanted to hurt Isabel, that was a
+point she could not conceive reaching, herself.</p>
+
+<p>When she had somewhat recovered, Flavia went
+to find her furs and outdoor apparel. She knew
+where Corrie had gone; she would meet him and
+herself break the tidings of his cousin's coming
+departure. He would be walking; he had not
+touched an automobile since he left the seat of
+his pink racer to rescue Gerard from beneath the
+crushed Mercury, and he had no patience with
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a bleak, sandy stretch of Long Island
+road that she met Corrie, a solitary figure against
+the flat landscape as he came towards her. At
+sight of her little carriage and the cream-colored
+ponies he himself long before had taught her to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+drive, he stopped, his boyish face brightening
+warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Other Fellow," was all he said, when she
+leaned towards him with her unaltering love of
+glance and smile.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need to ask where he had been.</p>
+
+<p>"How is Mr. Gerard, dear?" she ventured,
+after he was seated beside her and they had commenced
+the return.</p>
+
+<p>"Better."</p>
+
+<p>"You go there every day to ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every day."</p>
+
+<p>"And, he&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He has seen me every day, even the worst.
+He talks about politics, the aviation meet, the
+motor magazines,&mdash;about everything except himself
+or me. It is his right arm, now, the other
+hurts are almost well. To-day I met the doctor,
+going out as I was coming in. I asked about
+him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Flavia raised her eyes to meet his, shrinking
+from the verdict that speech must establish beyond
+the refuge of doubt. Very gently he laid
+his hand over hers upon the reins and brought
+the ponies to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember this place, Flavia? Well,
+all that is over for him."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Beside them sloped away a brown, frost-seared
+field; in its centre still showed the outline of a
+baseball diamond, with the bags forgotten at the
+bases. Flavia's heart contracted sharply, the
+reins escaped her grasp. For the moment memory
+and vision fused; she saw the straight, slender
+pitcher poised with arms raised above his brown
+head, saw his laughing glance go questing down
+the field, and the swift, graceful movement that
+launched the ball with unerring unexpectedness.
+And because she could not speak without inadvertently
+lashing Corrie, she sat mute.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know how long it was before he
+spoke, with the new steady seriousness so strange
+to meet in him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are we getting to, Other Fellow? Because
+we have got to get somewheres, you know;
+we don't stand still. Gerard will go away to his
+own home, soon. You and father and Isabel and
+I can't just sit here looking at each other, like
+we've been doing."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard would go away, soon. That was the
+sentence that gripped Flavia. Go, without seeing
+her, without pursuing the purpose he had shown
+her in the fountain arbor? It seemed so impossible
+that the thrill that shook her was not of
+fear, but of startled expectancy. Yet she answered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+Corrie with scarcely a pause, and with all tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, Isabel will not be here, for a little
+while," she told him, hesitatingly. "She is going
+South with Mrs. Alexander and Caroline. She,
+she needs the change."</p>
+
+<p>"That's good," he approved. "She will be
+better off, away from here, and you will be better
+for her going. She worries us all with her fidgets."</p>
+
+<p>Amazed, Flavia turned in her seat to regard
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie!"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I would mind?" He smiled
+whimsically. "Flavia, I've had a lot of nonsense
+knocked out of me. It took a bad shock to cure
+me of Isabel, but I'm well. There's nothing left
+of that. In fact, I feel all full of holes where
+ideas have been jolted out of me&mdash;I feel rather
+empty."</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful foreign motor car had
+stolen along the road so silently that neither
+brother nor sister perceived its approach until
+the grind of applied brakes sounded beside the
+stopped carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have supposed that there'd be views
+in the countryside more pleasant to this family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+than that field," caustically observed Mr. Rose.
+"You can take the machine on home, Lenoir; I'll
+drive with Miss Rose."</p>
+
+<p>He descended, the chauffeur stooping to open
+the door, while Corrie and Flavia looked on, too
+much surprised to find reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your seat," he curtly ordered, as his
+son rose to yield the place beside Flavia. "I'll
+get up here. Drive ahead, my girl."</p>
+
+<p>He took the rear seat of the little carriage,
+resting his arm on the cushioned back so that
+his strong, square-set head was between the two
+who sat in front. The automobile obediently sped
+on, and only the beat of the ponies' hoofs interrupted
+the chill afternoon hush for the first half-mile.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long time since I found out that you
+had some points that I didn't just understand,
+Corrie," Mr. Rose stated, his matter-of-fact accents
+carrying a deliberate finality. "I didn't wonder,
+nor I didn't try to force you to fit my pattern;
+we were solid friends and I was willing to take
+on faith your ways of being different. Once in a
+while I'd bring you on the carpet when you got
+across the line, not often. You were given about
+everything you wanted and only told that you
+must keep straight. You haven't done it."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An odd shiver ran through Corrie, but he said
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"This isn't a theatre; there won't be any talk
+of cutting you off with a shilling or any other
+kind of child's talk. What we have got to do
+is to make the best of a bad thing. You will
+have to go away for a year or two, keep apart
+from automobile racing and automobile people, and
+live gossip down. Poor Gerard did his best for
+you&mdash;God knows why&mdash;but there are rumors
+whispered around yet. It would have looked like
+running away to go before; now, Gerard is out
+of danger. Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking that I should like to go
+away for a time, sir," Corrie answered, gravely
+self-contained.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. To speak out, it will be better
+for our future living together if you're not in
+my sight for a while now. If we stay housemates,
+there is likely to be another kind of a
+crash, and two crashes don't mend a break. You'll
+have all the money you want and I don't care
+where you go or how much you spend. Just put
+in a year as well as you can, until we all settle
+down and go on again. We have got a lifetime
+before us to get through."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment Corrie quietly took the reins<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+from Flavia; blinded by tears, she was letting
+the ponies stray at will.</p>
+
+<p>The brief November day was ending; it was
+dusk when they reached the house, and perhaps
+none of the three were ungrateful for the shadows
+which veiled them from one another. On the
+veranda, Corrie detained his sister, allowing Mr.
+Rose to enter alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not coming in just yet, Other Fellow,"
+he said. "Ask father to excuse me from dinner;
+I have an errand that cannot wait. I don't want
+you to worry about me or to be unhappy. I did
+a lot of thinking yesterday, out in the speed-boat
+by myself; I know what I am going to do and
+that I will put up the best fight I can. Go help
+father; don't fret over me."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her soft mouth with the man's firmness
+so different from his former casual caresses,
+and went down the broad steps, walking across the
+lawns in the direction from which they had just
+come.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>IX</h2>
+<h3>THE HOUSE AT THE TURN</h3>
+
+<p>Dinner at the Rose house took place about
+two hours after the corresponding meal occurred
+at the farmhouse near the Westbury Turn. So
+while Corrie was walking through his five miles
+of desolate, dark road, the evening became well
+under way in the country parlor; sick-room no
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>There had been changes in the room since
+Gerard's occupancy of it. Bright rugs and coverings
+mitigated the severity of the horse-hair
+furniture, a couple of easy-chairs stood there like
+velvet-clad cavaliers in a Puritan meeting. If the
+hues ran to vivid scarlets and unexpected contrasts,
+why, Rupert had done the shopping and
+had consulted his own taste. In the midst of his
+artistic work, that one-time mechanician and self-installed
+nurse of Gerard's was now seated beside
+a red-shaded lamp, engaged in reading aloud to
+his companion from a classic found on the family
+book-shelf.</p>
+
+<p>"'Thaddeus, his eyes cast down, glided from
+the room in a gentle suffusion of tears,'" he con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>cluded
+a paragraph, and broke off, stunned.
+"Gee! And I was understanding that was a man!
+I ain't qualified for the judges' stand, but&mdash;did
+you ever strike this joy-promoting endurance run
+of language before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once. I didn't have you to read it to me,
+or I would have enjoyed it more," Gerard returned,
+stirring in his arm-chair opposite the ruddily
+glowing German stove. "Don't you want to
+give me a cigarette; I haven't had one since noon."</p>
+
+<p>He was thinner and still colorless, otherwise
+there was little to show what the last month and
+a half had meant to Allan Gerard. Except when
+he rose or moved, the inert uselessness of his right
+arm was not obvious. And however hard the
+battles and rebellion he inwardly had passed
+through, tone or expression carried no outward
+intelligence of past conflict as he smiled across at
+his entertainer. Gerard possessed in full measure
+that Anglo-Saxon reticence which abhors the useless
+display of emotions. Rupert balanced the
+volume upon his knee and proceeded to comply
+with the request, twisting his dark little face
+sardonically.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was racing with Darling French,"
+he reminisced, "we gave out of oil, once, on a
+practice run across country. There was a house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+by the busy curb representing itself as the only
+one combination garage and grocery store, so
+Darling contracted for a can of warranted cylinder
+oil in a speed dash that left the man all used up
+and rattling mad. Being in some haste, we didn't
+look up that can's inner life, but chucked the
+stuff where it would do the most good."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor quality?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't saying so. The complaint wasn't
+quality, it was kind. That can surrounded the
+finest brand of Koko Korn syrup, extra rich. They
+had to knock down our motor with a set of cooking
+utensils, and the man who did the job said it
+was a candied peach."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your smoke. Well, that type of literature
+makes my thinks-motor feel as if molasses
+was being poured into it for lubrication&mdash;it sticks.
+Will you take it hard if I raise my voice over the
+sporting page of the evening paper, instead?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard nodded consent, but checked the reply
+on his lips, listening. The outer door had opened
+and closed, someone could be heard speaking to
+the mistress of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie Rose!" he marvelled.</p>
+
+<p>Rupert carefully laid <i>Thaddeus</i> on the table
+and stood up, straightening his small, wiry figure.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+"I'll crank up and run out," he observed nonchalantly.
+"Signal when you want me back."</p>
+
+<p>There was no need of explanation; since the
+day of the Mercury's wreck, Rupert had never
+voluntarily remained in the same room with Corrie
+or had exchanged speech with him. The two
+passed at the doorway, now, with a curt nod on
+the part of the mechanician in response to the
+visitor's salute.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a heartening reception, nor could
+Gerard's cordial greeting lift the shadow of it
+from Corrie's expression. That long solitary walk
+had left his young face drawn with a white fatigue
+not physical. But his eyes did not avoid Gerard's,
+and for the first time he spoke of the subject
+always present in the minds of both.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to hate the sight of me worse
+than Rupert does," he abruptly opened. "But&mdash;you
+don't. I don't know why, but you don't."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I certainly do not," Gerard confirmed,
+his grave eyes on his guest.</p>
+
+<p>Corrie rested one hand upon the narrow mantel,
+looking down at the fire-bright squares of the
+stove. He still wore his gray overcoat and held
+his cap, as if prepared to accept dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand how easily things can go
+wrong," he said. "I never used to understand
+that, but I do now. You have seen drivers go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+wild in the race fever, more than once. We have
+both seen the nicest, sweetest fellows curse and
+strike their mechanicians because of a lost minute,
+seen men whose nerve never balked at a risk sit
+down and cry like girls when their car went out
+of a race. There is a mark on my car now
+where Ralph Stanton once scraped off the paint
+in passing because I was slow in getting out of
+his way. I suppose you judged mine such a case
+and forgave a moment's insanity. No one else ever
+will. You," his violet-blue eyes suddenly sought
+the other man's, "you won't think I am trying
+to excuse any such thing as was done to you or
+to justify my part."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Gerard answered, compassionately translating
+the last weeks' writing on the candid face.
+"I am not likely to think that, Corrie. But do
+not give me credit not due; I am not unusually
+forgiving or wise, it is, indeed, merely that I understand
+fairly well. And when one understands the
+other man, there seldom is anything to forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. It's because you always understand
+one that I've come here to-night. I, I guess
+I've about realized that I'm not quite nineteen
+years old yet and pretty much a fool. I don't suppose
+anyone ever meant better than I did, or ever
+did worse at it. Gerard, my father has sent me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+off. Oh, not like that!" as the other man moved,
+startled. "I mean, he has told me to go away
+for a year or two, anywhere I like, until people
+forget. He says he doesn't want to see me for
+a while. No one does, except my sister. There
+is no one on earth for whom I care who looks the
+same as before at me except her, and you. I'm
+sent off to live alone and I have never been alone
+in my life. I'm afraid of myself, sick, afraid to
+be alone&mdash;take me with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy's impetuous gesture interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say no! It ought to kill me to look
+at you, it almost does, but it's worse away. Let
+me go where you are going, let me work in your
+factory, if it's at shovelling coal. Don't send me
+off alone with more money than I can spend and
+nothing to do with myself. I can't stand it&mdash;I'd
+go under! You would better have let Rupert
+send me to prison for wrecking your car. I've
+tried to stand what seemed up to me, but I'm
+near my limit. Gerard, help me see it through."</p>
+
+<p>There was a quality of desperation in the appeal
+that was like a clutching grasp. Gerard
+felt his own nerves draw tense while his answer
+leaped to the present and future need.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the exact man I want at the factory,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+Corrie," he assured, with all steadying naturalness
+and calm. "Take off your overcoat and
+come sit down; you are not going right out again.
+I've got work for you that will keep you guessing,
+as Rupert says. Let me see, it's eight o'clock
+and you walked over; I'll wager you have had no
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want anything," Corrie refused, his
+face averted, his fingers gripping the mantel-shelf
+until his nails showed white from pressure.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; I do. I declined my coffee and
+some of Mrs. Carter's ambrosial apple pie, this
+evening, and I have been repenting ever since.
+You are a fine pretext for having them brought
+in to us now. Besides, I shall have to keep you
+in good shape if you are going to help me put
+through a scheme of mine. Of course, I am not
+altering my plan of living merely because I have
+got one arm to use in place of two. I have to
+have some things done for me instead of doing
+them myself, that's all. I need you," he paused,
+and lifted to his companion the cordial brilliancy
+of his smile, "and I am glad to have you, Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>When, an hour later, the guest rose to depart,
+Gerard detained him for a final word.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing before you go," he said, with a
+quiet force of command that belonged to the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+Allan Gerard whom Corrie had not yet encountered&mdash;the
+master of many men and affairs, instead
+of the racing driver and social playmate. "We
+will not speak again of the subject we have concluded
+to-night. I do not wish the accident to
+the Mercury recalled or discussed between us,
+ever. We are beyond that. Good night; I suppose
+you would rather start with me, day after
+to-morrow, than alone, later?"</p>
+
+<p>Long afterward Gerard came to remember that
+straight glance of utter helplessness and struggling
+confusion from Corrie's tired eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I, I can't <i>think</i>," confessed Corrie Rose. "I'm
+in too deep to find a way out. I&mdash;my head&mdash;&mdash;"
+he pushed back his heavy fair hair. "Yes, I'd
+rather start with you, if you will let me. Tell
+me whatever you want of me, Gerard; I'll always
+do it. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>The closing of the outer door was the signal
+for Rupert's return to the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>"Your time on the track is up," he reminded,
+"and you need your sleeps."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sleepy, Rupert. We will go home to
+the factory, day after to-morrow, and continue
+work on that special racing car of mine. Corrie
+Rose is going to drive it when it is done, since I
+cannot."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The mechanician slowly stiffened.</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely?" he refused credence.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; for practice and testing, at first,
+and racing later. Until it is built I shall put him
+in training on one of the ninety Mercuries. He
+doesn't yet know anything about it, himself, and
+he isn't going to be told until I am ready. You
+are going to ride with him and break him in. He
+has to be taught a good deal to change him from
+a clever amateur to a professional driver."</p>
+
+<p>"When I sit in a car beside Rose, it'll be because
+I'm taking him to be lynched," Rupert explicitly
+set forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dearest."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard rested his head against the cushioned
+chair-back and met the inflexible black eyes with
+the cool, mischievous resolution of his own regard,
+saying nothing at all.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>X</h2>
+<h3>SENTENCE OF ERROR</h3>
+
+<p>It was nearly twelve o'clock, that night, when
+Corrie arrived home. Flavia ran down the wide
+staircase to meet him, finger on lip; a childish
+figure in the creamy lace and silk of her negligee,
+with her heavy braids of shining hair falling over
+her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"You are so late," she grieved. "And so cold!
+Come near the hearth&mdash;papa is in the library,
+still."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie allowed her small urgent hands to draw
+him towards the fireplace that filled the square
+hall with ruddy reflections and dancing shadows.
+He was cold to the touch, ice clung to the rough
+cloth of his ulster, but there was color and even
+light in the face he turned to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> snowing," he recalled. "But I'm not
+cold. I am going to bed and to sleep. I want
+you to sleep, too, Other Fellow, because the worst
+of it all is over. I don't mean that things are
+right&mdash;they never can be that again, I suppose&mdash;but
+I see my way clear to live, now."</p>
+
+<p>She gazed up at him attentively, sensitively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+responsive to the vital change she divined in him.
+Before he could continue or she question, Mr.
+Rose came between the curtains of the arched
+library door, a massive, dominant presence as he
+stood surveying the two in the fire-light. He
+made no remark, yet Corrie at once moved to face
+him, gently putting Flavia aside.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to be so late, sir; I have been
+arranging for my going away," he gave simple
+account of himself. "I should like to leave the
+day after to-morrow, if you do not object. I am
+going to stay with a western friend. I know you
+would rather not hear much about me or from
+me for a while, but I will leave an address where
+I can always be reached."</p>
+
+<p>It is not infrequently disconcerting to be taken
+promptly and literally at one's word. Moreover,
+Corrie looked very young and pathetically tired,
+with his wind-ruffled fair hair pushed back and in
+his bearing of dignified self-dependence. A quiver
+passed over Mr. Rose's strong, square-cut countenance,
+his stern light-gray eyes softened to
+a contradiction of his set mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not in the habit of saying things twice,"
+he curtly replied. "I gave you leave to go when
+and where you pleased. To-morrow I'll fix your
+bank account so you can draw all the money you
+like."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," Corrie acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no call to thank me," his father corrected.
+"I guess that when I own millions you've
+got the right to all you can spend. It won't help
+anything for you to be pinched or uncomfortable.
+I've no wish to see it. I am going to take your
+sister to Europe for the winter, as I told her this
+evening, so we ourselves leave soon after you. Try
+to keep straighter, this time."</p>
+
+<p>There was no intentional cruelty in the concluding sentence,
+delivered as the speaker stepped
+back into the inner room, but Corrie turned so
+white that Flavia sprang to him with a low exclamation
+of pain.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," he reassured her. And after a
+moment: "Flavia, I am going with Allan Gerard,
+to work under him and help him in his factory."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been with him to-night. I don't want
+father to know this because he wouldn't understand;
+he might even forbid me to go. Unless he
+forces an answer, I shall not say where I am to be.
+But Gerard said I must tell you everything and
+write to you often&mdash;I would have done that, anyhow.
+You won't mind my going away, now, when
+you know I am with him?"</p>
+
+<p>She comprehended at last the change in him, the
+change from restless uncertainty to steady fixity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+of purpose, from an objectless wanderer to a traveller
+towards a known destination, comprehended
+with a passionate outrush of gratitude to the man
+who had wrought this in a generosity too broad to
+remember his own injury. The eyes she lifted to
+her brother's were splendidly luminous.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she confirmed, in the exhaustion of relief.
+"I can bear to let you go from me, if you are to
+be with Mr. Gerard."</p>
+
+<p>They nestled together&mdash;as each might have
+clung in such an hour to the mother they had left
+so far down the path of years&mdash;on the hearth from
+which one was self-exiled and the other about to
+be taken.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the story he told us?" Corrie
+asked, after a long pause. "About that Arabian
+fellow's vase and the pearls, you know? I&mdash;well,
+I meant what I said, about expecting to have
+lots of days like that, pearl-days. I couldn't see
+any farther than that! Yet that night&mdash;I don't
+expect now, what I did then; I've lost my chance
+for it. But I would like to do something for Allan
+Gerard before I die. I'd like to make all my
+pearls into one, and put it into his vase. Instead,
+he is doing things for me."</p>
+
+<p>Her clasping arms tightened about him. Heretofore
+she always had turned a steady face to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+brother, sparing him the reproach of grief, but
+now she helplessly felt her eyes fill and overflow.
+One comfort, one hope she had that he did not
+share. If he went with Allan Gerard, and if
+Gerard took home the wife he had seemed to woo,
+brother and sister would not be separated. Flavia
+Gerard would be in Allan Gerard's house, where
+Corrie was going.</p>
+
+<p>Had Gerard thought of that, also? Dared she
+tread on this nebulous fairy-ground? Dared she
+lead Corrie to set foot there, with her?</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," she essayed, her voice just audible,
+"dear, has Mr. Gerard ever spoken to you of
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>Surprised, Corrie looked down at the bent head
+resting against his rough overcoat. Himself a
+lover, he yet had not suspected this other romance
+flowering beside his own; he did not guess the
+obvious secret, now.</p>
+
+<p>"Of you? Oh, yes; he asks if you are well,
+each day. He never forgets such things. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>She had no answer to that natural question. In
+spite of her reason, Flavia was chilled by the flat
+conventionality of Gerard's apparent attitude, as
+represented by those formal inquiries. Almost she
+would have preferred that he had not spoken of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+her at all; silence could not have implied indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," she faltered. It clearly was impossible
+to speak as she had imagined. "Only,
+as his hostess, and your sister, I fancied that he
+might&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He wouldn't say that sort of thing to me,
+Other Fellow. No doubt he will come to pay a
+farewell call before he leaves. He isn't very fit,
+you know; he hasn't been out yet. He <i>must</i> be at
+his western factory this week, he said, or he
+wouldn't try to travel."</p>
+
+<p>Her color rushed back. Why had she not remembered
+that? Why should he speak of her to
+anyone, since to-morrow he would come to see her?
+To-morrow? The clocks had struck midnight, to-day
+they would see each other.</p>
+
+<p>"It is late," Corrie added, as if in answer to
+her thought. He sighed wearily. "You are tired,
+I suppose we both are. Come up."</p>
+
+<p>He passed his arm about her waist, and they
+went up the stairs together, leaning on one
+another. But Allan Gerard was a third presence
+with them, and in their sense of his guardianship
+brother and sister rested like children comforted.</p>
+
+<p>The following day was one filled with an atmosphere
+of disruption and imminent departure. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+very servants caught the contagion and hurried
+uncomfortably about their tasks. Corrie's preparations
+were unostentatious, but Isabel's agitated
+the entire household. Also, Mr. Rose issued his
+instructions that Flavia should be ready to start
+for France on the next steamer sailing. The
+house that had been rose-colored within and without
+was become a gray place to be avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia thought all day of Allan Gerard. She
+knew her father went in the afternoon to pay him
+a farewell visit, she knew Corrie was with him all
+the morning, and when each returned home she
+suspended breath in anticipation of hearing the
+step of a guest also&mdash;the step of Gerard coming
+towards the goal which he had half-showed her
+in the fountain arbor. But Corrie and Mr. Rose
+each entered alone.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, she chose to wear his color, that
+night; the pale, glistening tea-rose yellow above
+which her warm hair showed burnished gold. He
+must come that evening, if at all; she would be
+truly "Flavia Rose" to him.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing alone before her mirror, setting
+the last pearl comb in place, when her cousin
+came into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if you were happy enough," Isabel
+commented fretfully. "I don't believe you care<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+at all about Corrie's going away. Of course you
+don't care about me. What are you putting on
+that old-fashioned thing for?"</p>
+
+<p>Flavia gravely turned her large eyes upon the
+other girl; the unjust attack fell in harsh dissonance
+with her own mood of hushed anticipation.
+She could not have robed herself for her wedding
+with more serious care and earnest thoughtfulness
+than she had used in preparing to receive Gerard
+to-night. This was no time for coquetry; as he
+came for her, she would go to him, she knew, without
+evasion or pretense to harass his weakness.
+She shrank, wincing sensitively, from this rough
+criticism, but every member of the family had
+learned not to reply to the new Isabel's peevish
+tartness.</p>
+
+<p>"It was my mother's," she explained, to the
+last inquiry, tenderly lifting the long chain of
+pearl and amber beads ending in a lace-fine pearl
+cross. Never could she attempt to tell her cousin
+the blended motives from which she had chosen to
+wear this rosary. "And her mother's and again
+her's. It is very old Spanish work. Shall we go
+down?"</p>
+
+<p>"What for? It is not time for dinner. Oh,
+Martin told me there was a messenger waiting to
+deliver a letter, just now, as I came here."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The color flared up over Flavia's delicate face.</p>
+
+<p>"A messenger, Isabel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, who would not send up his message. I
+told Martin that we would ring."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia slowly wound the chain around her
+throat. There was no escape from Isabel's insistent
+companionship, she realized.</p>
+
+<p>"Ring, then, please," she requested, and passed
+into her little sitting-room, beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel followed curiously, ensconcing herself in
+one of the easy-chairs and idly twitching blossoms
+from the hyacinths in a bowl near her. All
+day she had been especially nervous and irritable,
+her least movements were characterized by an impatience
+almost feverish.</p>
+
+<p>The messenger who appeared on the threshold
+was Jack Rupert, not in the familiar guise of the
+Mercury's mechanician, but Rupert at leisure; a
+small, immaculate figure as New Yorkese as
+Broadway itself. The movement that brought
+Flavia across to him was impulsive as a confident
+child's and accompanied by a candid radiance of
+glance and smile flashed straight into the visitor's
+black eyes. She had no attention to spare to the
+fact that Isabel also had risen.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been so good as to bring a message
+to me, Mr. Rupert?" she questioned happily.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I ain't denying it was a pleasure to come," he
+made gracious reply, with his slight drawl of
+speech. "I've been given this to deliver to Miss
+Rose, from Mr. Gerard, under orders to bring the
+answer back unless it was preferred to send it by
+Mr. Rose, junior, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"This" was a letter. As Flavia held out her
+hand to receive it, Isabel reached her side and
+seized her wrist so fiercely as to bruise the soft
+flesh.</p>
+
+<p>"It is mine!" she panted. "Give it to me&mdash;it
+is mine!"</p>
+
+<p>Flavia stood still, looking at the other girl with
+slow-gathering, incredulous resentment and
+wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Yours? You expected this from Mr. Gerard,
+Isabel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;no&mdash;yes&mdash;Corrie warned me he would,"
+Isabel stammered. "You shall not read it, Flavia
+Rose, you shall not! It is for me, for me&mdash;no
+one must see it."</p>
+
+<p>She was trembling in a vehement excitement
+half-hysteric. Very quietly Flavia disengaged her
+arm from the grasp holding it; for the moment
+Isabel's touch was loathsome to her.</p>
+
+<p>"For whom is the letter, my cousin or me?"
+she asked the bearer.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I guess there ain't any answer; I don't know,"
+avowed Rupert, troubled and hesitant. "I was
+sent out to report to Miss Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"But you, yourself, for whom did you suppose
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't certain I did any supposing. Mr.
+Gerard began it after Mr. Rose had been with
+him, yesterday, and it took from then till to-night
+to finish."</p>
+
+<p>"It is <i>mine</i>," Isabel reiterated passionately.</p>
+
+<p>The scene was utterly impossible, not to be
+prolonged. It was the strong, cool determination
+inherited from Thomas Rose that held Flavia equal
+to the demands of her mother's bequeathment of
+reticent pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray give the letter to my cousin," she requested,
+her calm never more perfect. "I am
+sorry to have confused so simple a matter. She
+will of course recognize for which of us it is intended."</p>
+
+<p>But she meant to see the letter. Even as she
+watched Isabel snatch the surrendered missive,
+Flavia told herself that this sentence of error could
+not be accepted without sight of the letter. Moving
+with deliberate stateliness, she crossed to a
+chair near a small table and sat down, taking up
+a book. She was conscious that Rupert watched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+her, and she would make no sign that might constitute
+a self-betrayal when recounted to Gerard if
+she were indeed so pitifully wrong and he had from
+the first chosen her cousin. What she was not
+in the least aware of, was the inevitable impression
+made upon the mechanician by the dazzling little
+room and her central figure of gold upon gold and
+pearl-and-amber, and by her still, colorless face set
+in all this sheen and lustre. Had he been as dull
+as he really was acute, this scene could not have
+been made casual to him.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel's shaking fingers shredded the envelope
+in extracting the sheet of paper, her eyes scanned
+the page avidly. The result was unanticipated;
+there was a sharp cry, an instant of indecision,
+then as savagely as she had claimed the letter she
+sprang to thrust it into the startled Flavia's lap.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do it! Flavia, I can't see him&mdash;I
+can't bear it! Tell him no&mdash;to go away&mdash;it's all
+over, now."</p>
+
+<p>The desperate terror and dread of the cry
+charged the atmosphere of the room with vibrant
+intensity. Flavia caught the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to read this?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; read it, help me."</p>
+
+<p>Isabel had seen and still claimed as hers the
+message. Yes, and had expected it, so that there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+must have been other communication between her
+and the sender. The conviction of her own utter
+mistake struck Flavia down with a force that
+crushed reason under feeling. She was physically
+giddy as she unfolded the page.</p>
+
+<p>The writing was uncertain and angular; different
+indeed from the firm smooth script that had
+accompanied the box of yellow roses in giving the
+"definition of the meaning of <i>Flavia Rose</i>." The
+mute evidence of that difficult left-handed task
+pierced the girl who loved Allan Gerard, before
+she read the words.</p>
+
+<p>The letter commenced abruptly, without superscription.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"I think you will know how hard it is for me to
+speak to you calmly, even this way, across this distance,
+remembering how we last met. To you I can confess
+what I could to no one else, since there is now an end
+of concealment between us; that is, that Allan Gerard is
+so weak as to feel shame at being a cripple. So much so,
+that the idea is intolerable of first remeeting you amidst
+your household's pitying curiosity. I never used to know
+I had a personal vanity; I fancy it is not quite that, but
+rather the humiliation of the man who has always been
+well-dressed and who suddenly finds himself sent into
+public sight in a shabby, tattered garment. I had accepted
+my physical conventionality as part of my social equipment.
+I do not say this in reproach to anyone or to affect you;
+I am perfectly sure that you will not offer me the last
+insult of supposing so or of answering me from that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+viewpoint. I say it only to excuse my very great presumption
+in asking you to drive with Corrie to the little
+railway station, to-morrow morning, to take leave of him&mdash;and
+to tell me whether I am to come back. I want you
+to see me as I am now, before you determine. Perhaps,
+left to my own impulse of shielding you, I would have gone in
+silence, but justice is higher than sentiment; you have
+the right to hear what I must say and to answer it as you
+will.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to do my best for Corrie, whatever happens.
+Please trust me so far, and if I have offended or seemed
+to fail in this letter, remember my past months in excuse.</p>
+
+<p class="ralign">"Allan Gerard."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Flavia laid down the sheet of paper. In that
+moment she suffered less from the destruction of
+her own happiness than from the destruction of
+Gerard's. This cry out of his anguish to the one
+for whom alone he had broken the stoical muteness
+in which he had wrapped his endured pain of mind
+and body, this self-revelation that was the difficult
+baring of a heart not used to show itself and
+avowal of weakness at the core of so much strength,
+drew from her an outrush of maternal protectiveness
+that rolled its flood above personal grief. If she
+could have sent Isabel to him, then, an Isabel
+worthy of the high trust and pathetic dignity in
+humility of that letter, she could have accepted
+her own sorrow. But she knew Isabel Rose, knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+the vanity of that hope even as she tried to realize
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what Mr. Gerard wishes to say
+to you, to-morrow?" she asked composedly. If
+the composure was overdone, it was the error of
+a novice in acting.</p>
+
+<p>The other girl shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, why do you not answer him? Surely,
+if you expected him to write this, you must answer
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not!" Isabel cried loudly and rebelliously.
+"I will not go, I will not see him hurt
+like that and hear him, hear him&mdash;&mdash;" she broke
+off, fighting for breath. "Tell him to go away.
+I can't help it now, I can't see him. It's all over!"</p>
+
+<p>This was the woman Allan Gerard had chosen,
+Flavia thought in bitter wonder; this self-centred,
+hysterical girl whose love could not survive the
+marring of her lover's outward beauty. Isabel
+could not bear to go to him; the irony of it sank
+deep into the girl who could scarcely bear to stay
+away. But Flavia turned to the mute Rupert,
+holding her dignity steadily above her pitiful confusion
+of mind, striving, also, to ease this blow
+to Gerard, who was so little fit to receive it.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray inform Mr. Gerard that Miss Rose is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+unwell and hardly able to answer his letter now,"
+she directed. "I hope she will be able to accompany
+Mr. Corwin Rose, to-morrow morning, as he
+suggests."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" Isabel denied.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll report, Miss Rose," Rupert asserted with
+brevity.</p>
+
+<p>The keen black eyes and the deep-blue ones met,
+and read each other. Flavia took a step forward
+and held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not probable that we shall meet again,
+ever. Thank you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>It would not have been possible to bribe Rupert
+into silence, but Flavia had done better. She knew,
+and the mechanician knew, as he touched her soft
+fingers, that he would keep to himself the knowledge
+that she had elevated to a confidence&mdash;the
+knowledge that she loved Allan Gerard, and was
+not loved in return.</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that when Rupert returned to
+the Westbury farmhouse, he literally repeated
+Flavia's dictated message and contributed nothing
+of additional information or detail&mdash;except that
+he made one dry comment before retiring for the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"There's just one of the Rose family that ain't
+got any yellow streaks," he volunteered.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who?" was asked absently.</p>
+
+<p>The response to his letter had left Gerard paler
+than usual and very grave. He did not recognize
+in it the Flavia he knew; the girl who had watched
+her brother with such rich lavishness of affection,
+the girl whose most innocent eyes had held the
+possibilities of all Corrie's ardent young passion
+without his impulsive faults, and whose warmth
+of nature had drawn him as a fireside draws a
+wanderer. He would not doubt her for such slight
+cause, he would wait for morning and her further
+answer, but he felt a premonitory dread and discouragement.
+He had expected so much more
+than he would now admit to himself. He even
+had thought vaguely, unreasoningly eager as a
+wistful boy, that she might come to him with Corrie
+that evening, that he might see and touch her.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady you didn't write to," answered his
+mechanician. "Good night."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Corrie Rose went to the little
+railway station, alone.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>XI</h2>
+<h3>GERARD'S MAN</h3>
+
+<p>The hard, glittering macadam track that swept
+around the huge western factory of the Mercury
+Automobile Company and curved off behind a
+mass of autumn-gray woodland, was swarming
+with dingy, roaring, nakedly bare cars. The
+spluttering explosions from the unmuffled exhausts,
+the voices of the testers and their
+mechanics as they called back and forth, the
+monotonous tones of the man who distributed
+numbers for identification and heard reports from
+his force, all blended into the cheery eight-o'clock
+din of a commencing work-day. Three brawny,
+perspiration-streaked young fellows were engaged
+in loading bags of sand on the stripped cars about
+to start out, to supply the weight of the missing
+bodies, and whistling rag-time melodies to enliven
+their labors.</p>
+
+<p>In the shadow of one of the arched doorways
+Corrie Rose stood to watch the scene, drawing full,
+hungry breaths of the gasoline-scented, smoke-murked
+air. There was more than frost this
+December morning; ice glinted in the gutters and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+on the surface of buckets, the healthful lash of
+the wind flecked color into the men's faces as
+they pulled on heavy gloves and hooded caps. The
+spirit of the place was action; the lusty vigor of
+it tugged with kindred appeal at the inactive,
+wistful one who looked on.</p>
+
+<p>The heavy throb of the machinery-crowded
+building smothered the sound of steps; a touch
+was necessary to arouse the absorbed watcher.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been here for almost a week, Corrie.
+Don't you feel like getting to work?" queried
+Gerard's pleasant tones.</p>
+
+<p>The boy swung around eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he welcomed. "Give me something to
+do, anything."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard nodded, his amber eyes sweeping courtyard
+and track until, finding the man he sought,
+he lifted a summoning finger.</p>
+
+<p>"Have someone bring out my six-ninety,
+Rupert," he called across. "Right away." And
+to his companion, "Get into some warm things;
+you will find it cold, driving."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie stiffened, flushing painfully and catching
+his lip in his white teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard, you mean <i>me</i> to drive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never drive a car again."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You will drive the six-ninety Mercury for six
+hours a day, every day," Gerard corrected explicitly.
+"Until I get the big special racer built,
+and then you will drive it. You are going to
+work into the finest kind of training and drive
+until you can drive in your sleep. Too bad the
+winter is shutting in, but that will not stop you
+any more than it does the testers. In fact, driving
+in the snow is good practice."</p>
+
+<p>Helpless, Corrie looked at the other man, his
+violet-blue eyes almost black with repressed feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard, you must know how I want to; don't
+ask me! You know how I ache to get ahold of
+a wheel, but I've forfeited all that."</p>
+
+<p>"You have placed yourself in my factory, under
+my orders," Gerard stated, with curt finality.
+"While you are here you will do what I tell you
+to do, precisely as does every other worker; precisely
+as does Rupert, for example, who is really
+tester at the eastern plant and ordinarily works
+under its master, David French. I have decided
+to give you a branch of the work that I once
+planned to do myself and now cannot. Go into
+the office and put on your driving togs."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't expecting to shove this ninety through
+a letter-slot," remonstrated caustic accents from
+across the busy courtyard. "Move over, girls,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+you're crowding the aisles! Say, Norris, this
+ain't a joy-ride down Riverside Drive, it's a testing
+run; reverse over there and take about six
+more sachet-bags of mud-pie aboard where your
+tonneau ain't, before you start. Don't it hurt
+you bad to hurry like that, you fellows?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a drawing aside by the cars opposite
+a wide door, and the machine guided by Rupert
+rolled through, winding a devious course toward
+where its owner waited. Without a word, Corrie
+turned and went into the office.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard remained still, following with his gaze
+the approach of the beloved car he would drive
+no more, until it came to a halt before him.</p>
+
+<p>"If we're going out, I'll fetch my muff and
+veils," suggested the mechanician, leaning nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Rupert. I am going with Rose,
+myself, this first time. You can be ready this
+afternoon, though."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert's dark face twisted in a grimace, his
+black eyes narrowed.</p>
+
+<p>"We're laboring under some classy mistake,"
+he dryly signified. "I was inviting myself to go
+with you. As for Rose, he and I won't perch on
+the same branch unless we get lynched together
+for horse stealing&mdash;and you know how I don't
+love a horse."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The amusement underlying Gerard's expression
+rippled to the surface.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he acquiesced. "Detail someone
+else. But, Rupert&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will race next spring as Corrie
+Rose's mechanician."</p>
+
+<p>Their glances encountered, equally cool and
+determined.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take in washing with a Chinese partner,
+if you and Darling French throw me out," assured
+Rupert kindly. "Don't worry about my future
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>And he slipped across the levers out of his
+seat, eel-supple, as Corrie issued from the office.</p>
+
+<p>There was a mile loop of the perfect macadam
+track circling the factory buildings, then the way
+ran off into the country roads, inches deep with
+heavy sand, littered with ugly stones, rising over
+and pitching down steep grades where holes and
+mud-patches abounded. Over this the new Mercury
+cars were driven at top speed, each one reckoning
+many miles before the makers allowed them
+to be clothed with bodies and gleaming enamels
+and to be sent to the purchasers. No flaw escaped
+unnoticed, no weakness passed. Jaws set under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+their masks, keen eyes on the road and keen ears
+listening for the least false note in the tone-harmony
+of their machines, the sturdy testers
+drove through a day's work that would have prostrated
+the average motorist. Out among these
+men went Corrie Rose, more self-conscious than
+he had ever been on race track or course.</p>
+
+<p>"I never had a ninety before," he confided to
+Gerard, as they finished the mile circuit. "A
+sixty was my biggest. She's, she's a <i>beauty</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The car slammed violently off the macadam onto
+the sand road, skidded in a half-circle and righted
+itself with a writhing jerk.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind your path," cautioned Gerard, in open
+mirth. "This isn't a motor parkway. Hello!"</p>
+
+<p>One of the smaller cars was coming towards
+them, limping back to the shops with a broken
+front spring. The man driving it touched his cap
+to Gerard as they passed, swinging one arm behind
+him in a significant gesture and shouting a
+warning concerning the bridge ahead. Corrie
+checked his speed, and barely skirted the deep
+washed-out hole that had caused the other
+machine's disaster.</p>
+
+<p>"There was rain yesterday and freezing
+weather last night," Gerard communicated, at his
+ear. "Now it is beginning to melt again and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+playing the mischief with the roads. There is a
+right-angle turn coming."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie nodded, fully occupied. His blood sang
+through his veins, his fingers gripped the steering-wheel
+lovingly; he was revelling in the speed
+exhilaration he had never expected to feel again.
+The driver who hoped for no such commutation
+of sentence watched him with quietly sad eyes;
+eyes in which no one ever was allowed to surprise
+their present expression, least of all Corrie Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Near noon a tire blew out. Gerard sat on the
+side of the Mercury and gave bits of ironical advice
+to the worker while Corrie changed a tire alone
+for the first time in his life. Corrie bore the
+teasing sweetly, even when a tool slipped and tore
+his cold-sensitized fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he deprecated. "Dean always did
+it and I just helped. I never did anything thoroughly;
+an amateur isn't a professional. We
+would have lost time by that in a road race."</p>
+
+<p>"You will learn. Rupert and I used to do it
+in two minutes from stop to restart," Gerard returned.
+"There&mdash;gather up your tools; we will
+go home to luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>"To the factory, first?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Go slowly and I will show you a short
+cut."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Corrie was not in a mood to go slowly, so
+that they almost missed the driveway that
+branched from the macadam track to curve around
+into a park set thickly with fragrant cedars, central
+in which grove stood the quaintly stiff house
+of dark brick and stone.</p>
+
+<p>"Run around to the garage," Gerard directed.
+"Since you will want the car all the time, you
+might as well keep it here and use the short cut
+out to the road. I will get out here and go into
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie obediently bent to his levers.</p>
+
+<p>"All the time?" he repeated, with an indrawn
+breath of reluctant ecstasy. "All the time!"</p>
+
+<p>As Gerard turned to the house, a small figure
+advanced to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>"We've sent out a gang to massage some of
+the freckles defacing the speedway," Rupert informed
+him. "Briggs chugged in with a broken
+spring, Norris side-wiped a fence, and Phillips
+fell into a hole without publishing a notice, so that
+his mechanician got off over the bonnet and broke
+his collar-bone. That ain't testing cars, it's
+promoting funerals. It's easier to motor into
+heaven on that road than to drive a camel in New
+York. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, have it put in order, of course. I sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>posed
+that Mr. Dalton would attend to the matter,
+since I was out. Rupert, who is the sharpest-tongued,
+most cross-grained and least ceremonious
+mechanician we have?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am," was the prompt reply. "Were you
+wanting me?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard looked at him and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You have ruled yourself off the list of
+eligibles," he declared. "I want a man to ride
+with Corrie Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" ejaculated Rupert. His malicious,
+shrewd face gained comprehension. "<i>Oh!</i> Well,
+I ain't boasting, but I could do that job up pretty
+fine. Failing me, Devlin is the nastiest thing on
+the place. You couldn't pat his head without
+pricking your fingers."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Tell him to report to Rose hereafter,&mdash;and
+do not tell him much else. Let all
+the men know that Rose is training to take my
+place in the racing work, but do not let them
+know anything about his millionaire father or his
+share in the Cup-race affair."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert directed his gaze towards the inert
+right arm hanging by Gerard's side.</p>
+
+<p>"Your place," he echoed. "Are you giving in
+without putting up a stiff fight?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gerard's chin lifted, his eyes sprang to meet
+the sharp challenge of the mechanician's.</p>
+
+<p>"No. The fight will soon be on. Are you
+going to be my second in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm guessing I'll be there when you look for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Their eyes dwelt together for a long moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like the men to treat Rose as they
+do each other, so far as possible," Gerard casually
+resumed his original theme. "It will be good for
+him. He needs roughing!"</p>
+
+<p>Rupert ran his fingers through his crisp black
+locks, wheeling to depart.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll slip control and run wild," he predicted,
+grimly vicious. "He needs the training you're
+planning for him, all right, but he ain't got the
+stuff in him to stand it. He'll slip control&mdash;here's
+hoping he smashes himself this time!"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard moved his head in disagreement.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," he advised. "You once said he could
+not last out a certain twenty-four-hour race."</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"He finished in third place."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you helped him through, that's why.
+He didn't have to do it alone."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't have to do this alone, either," reminded
+Gerard.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rupert looked at him, then walked away, every
+line of his body reiterating the prediction he could
+not sustain argumentatively.</p>
+
+<p>It was half an hour later that Corrie came into
+the room to join his host, carrying a letter in
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is from Flavia," he volunteered. "She
+promised to write as soon as they got across, but
+she did better; she wrote this on board the steamer
+so that it was all ready to send." He sat down
+in his place and rested his arms on the table in the
+boyish attitude so associated with the massively
+rich dining-room of his father's house and the
+light-hearted group who had gathered there. "It
+was like her to do better than her word,&mdash;she
+doesn't know how to do less. One, one can tie up
+to <i>her</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard continued to gaze out the window opposite,
+his expression setting as if under a sudden
+exertion of self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;well, I was always fond of my sister, but
+one learns a good deal more of people when things
+go wrong than when they just run along right.
+She asks me about you, how you are now."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Rose is too kind."</p>
+
+<p>Some quality in the brief acknowledgment compelled
+a pause. The once self-assertive Corrie had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+become acutely sensitive to any suggestion of
+rebuff or disapproval. He could not in any way
+divine this rebuke was not for him, or know of the
+bruise he innocently had touched.</p>
+
+<p>When the first course of the luncheon was
+served, Gerard came over to his seat and opened
+a new subject with his usual kindness of manner.
+It was a curious fact that, although Gerard had
+felt the awakening of love for Flavia Rose from
+his first glimpse of her, he never had aided Corrie
+for his sister's sake. Even when he had dragged
+himself from the overwhelming blackness of pain
+and the numbing effects of an&aelig;sthetics to defend
+the driver whose foul blow had struck him down,
+it was of Corrie alone he thought, not of Flavia,
+Corrie whom he had shielded from disgrace and
+open punishment. Man to man they had dealt
+together, no woman, however dear, entered between
+them. So when Flavia had seemed to fail
+her lover, again the separateness had held and
+Gerard never even imagined visiting her desertion
+on her brother. He had not resented Corrie's
+natural speech of her, now, but he could not listen
+to it; not yet.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find your regular mechanician waiting
+for you when you go out again," he observed.
+"You can learn much with him, if you choose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+Corrie, although he is no Rupert. Take your
+machine where and how you please; it is all practice.
+I will see you again at dinner, unless you
+grow tired before then and would like to come
+up to the draughting-room to meet my chief engineer
+and designer."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie looked down, crumpling a fold of the
+table cloth between nervous fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard, do they know?" he asked, his voice
+low. "I mean, how you were hurt and what
+Rupert accuses me of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. You are no one to them but
+my new driver."</p>
+
+<p>A still ruddier color tinged the young face, the
+fair head bent a little lower.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all I want to be, ever. Thank you,
+Gerard; I'll make good."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>XII</h2>
+<h3>THE MAKING GOOD</h3>
+
+<p>Corrie did not slip control during the weeks
+that followed. There was no running wild to
+record. At first he used to come in from his
+driving reddened by more than the cold wind,
+and there were rumors current of certain vigorous
+word-duels between him and his sullen assistant,
+Devlin. But he never complained to Gerard
+or exhibited any smart of excoriated vanity. The
+testers accepted him as a little more than their
+equal, after watching him drive, and he gladly
+met their comradeship with his own. It was very
+easy to like Corrie; soon he was surrounded by
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Only Jack Rupert never spoke to him. The
+thing was not done obtrusively, but it was done.
+He never openly slighted Corrie Rose or showed
+him discourtesy, he simply failed to come in contact
+with him. And Corrie tacitly accepted the
+situation, avoiding the inflexible mechanician, on
+his part. So winter shut in, with blizzards that
+frequently drove everyone off the roads until snow-ploughs
+and shovels had accomplished their work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+Then Gerard would summon Corrie to the inside
+of the huge, reverberant factory, where amid its
+lesser brothers the Titan racing machine was
+slowly growing to completion; the Titan of
+Gerard's past speed-visions, the dream-planned car
+that was now for another's control. He taught,
+and Corrie learned hungrily.</p>
+
+<p>It was in February Corrie first noticed that
+Gerard and Rupert simultaneously disappeared
+for an hour and a half every morning. No one
+knew why, or had interested enough to speculate,
+it seemed. Gerard always sent Corrie off on some
+duty, at that time each day, and only accidental
+circumstances awoke the young driver's attention
+to a custom without an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Corrie asked no questions. He was
+not temperamentally curious and he was well-bred.
+But, returning unexpectedly to the house, one
+morning in early March, he passed Rupert going
+out and realized himself encroaching on the tacitly
+established period of retirement. Sobered, half-doubtful
+of his course, he ran up the stairs, and in
+the upper hall came suddenly upon Gerard leaning
+against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard!" Corrie exclaimed; goggles and
+gloves fell to the floor as he sprang to his friend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+"Gerard, you're ill? Let me help you&mdash;lean on
+me! I'm strong enough to <i>carry</i> you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing," Gerard panted. "I tried to
+come after Rupert in too much of a hurry, that's
+all. I remembered something I had forgotten to
+tell him. What are you doing here? I sent you
+out."</p>
+
+<p>Once Corrie would have flashed hot retort to a
+reproof certainly undeserved, not now.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry; I didn't understand," he apologized.
+"You never said I <i>must</i> stay out. Let me
+help you, get you something."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; I'm unreasonable!" Gerard
+straightened himself. "Never mind me, Corrie;
+I am all right now."</p>
+
+<p>He was white with a singular pallor that Corrie
+was too inexperienced to recognize, but he smiled
+reassurance to his assistant and himself led the
+way to the room opposite.</p>
+
+<p>"There is some dose in the glass on the table,"
+he indicated, finding a chair. "I might drink it,
+if I had it here. And, don't you want to get me
+a cigarette?"</p>
+
+<p>In silence Corrie complied with the requests.
+Beside the slight, colorless Gerard, he radiated
+vigorous health and that scintillant freshness
+drawn from days passed in sunlight and sweet air,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+but his eyes at this moment held a desperate
+anxiety and unrest that left the advantage of contrast
+to his companion's clear tranquillity of regard.</p>
+
+<p>"You are getting worse," he declared abruptly.
+"There is no use of trying to spare my feelings,
+Gerard; instead of gaining, you are losing
+strength."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon; I am getting better,"
+Gerard corrected with perfect assurance. He put
+aside his glass and leaned back in his chair. "You
+do not in the least know what you are talking
+about. Since you are here, we might get a bit
+of business done that I had meant to leave until
+you came in to luncheon. You understand that
+the formalities must be preserved; are you willing
+to sign one of our regular driver's contracts, to
+drive for the Mercury Company this year, and for
+no one else?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will do," said Corrie, "whatever you want.
+Is this the paper?"</p>
+
+<p>He took up a pen and, still standing, wrote
+his name across the foot of the document, the
+other man's attentive gaze following his movements.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the way you sign legal papers, Corrie,
+without reading them?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes gave the questioner one expressive
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"You gave it to me," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard contemplated him, then drew another
+printed sheet from a pile on the desk and pushed
+it across.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I want you to sign this, too," he
+signified.</p>
+
+<p>As carelessly as before, Corrie set down his
+signature and turned away from the half-folded
+page.</p>
+
+<p>"I came back early because I had a letter from
+Flavia," he explained. "I wanted to answer it
+right away. She says that father doesn't intend
+to come home until autumn. I don't believe she
+likes it much, but of course she wouldn't tell him
+so. He has enough to stand."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard drew the two papers towards him and
+put them into a drawer. It is hard to be consistent;
+the temptation of seeing Corrie read
+Flavia's weekly letters had long since vanquished
+the resolution of the man whose love for her seemed
+to himself to illustrate that the economies of
+Nature do not include human passion. Corrie
+found a willing, if mute, listener to all confidences
+in regard to his sister.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She has never told Mr. Rose that you are
+with me?" Gerard asked, to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he responded, surprised. "Oh no! She
+promised me that, the night before I left home."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, living so close in thought with your
+father as she does, I should have fancied&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That she couldn't help telling him? I don't
+know who started that story that women can't
+keep secrets." Corrie laughed mirthlessly. "From
+what I have seen, they can keep quiet a secret
+that would tear itself out of any man I ever met,
+if the wrench killed him."</p>
+
+<p>He unclasped the heavy fur coat he still wore
+and pushed it aside from his throat with an impatient
+air of oppression.</p>
+
+<p>"But Flavia could not hurt anyone, and she
+knows that would hurt me," he added, more gently.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia could not hurt anyone. Allan Gerard
+considered that statement, not so much in bitterness
+as in a wonder that made all life uncertain.
+He recalled the fountain arcade of rose-colored
+columns and delicate lights, the sweetly demure
+girl who waited there for her brother, and her last
+brief glance of virginal candor and innocently unconscious
+confession. Flavia could not hurt anyone.
+Yet she had dismissed the man who loved
+her, without even granting him the poor alms of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+courteous sympathy, had left him to learn her
+decision from her silence. Long since, he had
+decided that he had been condemned as the cause
+of her beloved brother's downfall, and now he again
+excused her hardness to himself as a result of her
+over-tenderness for Corrie. Either that, or he
+himself had somehow failed, in some way had been
+found lacking.</p>
+
+<p>He never did Flavia Rose so much wrong as
+to suppose her affected by the physical injury he
+had suffered. If she had loved him, no such
+change could have come between them. He knew
+that no marring of her beauty would have had
+effect upon his steadfast love for her, and he
+rated her far above himself in all good things.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite a quarter-hour before Gerard looked
+up and saw that Corrie had remained standing
+by the table in an abstraction complete as his
+own, lips pressed shut and straight brows contracted.
+Startled out of self-contemplation, the
+older man leaned forward to give his aid to a
+moment whose bitterness he divined.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, take off your furs and come to
+luncheon," he directed, crisply energetic. "You
+have got to take out the Titan for its first run,
+this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Effectively aroused, Corrie swung around.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Titan?" he echoed. "To-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Come on."</p>
+
+<p>In the thin, clear March sunshine, two hours
+later, the Mercury Titan rolled out onto the mile
+track, shaking earth and air with its roar and
+vibrant clamor. The force of testers and factory
+operatives crowded about, busy men found time
+to cluster at the buildings' doors and windows in
+keen interest.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite Gerard and his little staff, the men
+who had designed and evoked the winged monster,
+Corrie Rose was in his seat, flushed with excitement,
+but collected and at home in the powerful
+machine which he was to be the first to test and
+master. "Until you give it to its racing driver,
+let no one except me take it?" he had begged of
+Gerard. And Gerard had given the promise,
+smiling oddly.</p>
+
+<p>But if Corrie was eager for the start, his
+mechanician palpably was not. The place beside
+the driver remained vacant until the last moment,
+when the reluctant Devlin slowly climbed into it.</p>
+
+<p>"Devlin is nervous," Gerard gravely commented,
+to his own one-time mechanician. "He is
+a very good factory man, but this is too big work
+for him. If they were going on a longer trip, I
+should not like to send Corrie out with him."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I ain't denying anything," snapped Rupert,
+scowling after the departing car as it leaped for
+the open track like an animal unleashed.</p>
+
+<p>That first afternoon's trial of the Mercury
+Titan proved it much faster than either the track
+or road would stand. Also, Corrie Rose was
+proved fully capable of handling his wheeled projectile.
+When he came in, at dusk, the testers
+regarded him with unconcealed respect; there was
+genuine admiration mingled with the congratulations
+offered him by the car's designers. He had
+become, after Gerard, the most conspicuous man
+in the great automobile plant.</p>
+
+<p>Devlin crawled out of his seat and complained
+of nausea.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day of practice, when Corrie
+brought the car back to the factory at noon,
+Rupert suddenly walked up to him and broke the
+silence of months.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with your fifth cylinder?"
+he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Amazed, Corrie slipped off his mask and turned
+his fatigued face to the questioner.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't help it," he deprecated, quite
+humbly. "Devlin was too busy holding on to
+do much, and I was driving."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rupert darted a glance of blighting contempt
+at the sullen Devlin, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard had not seen the episode, nor did it
+reach his ears. But he was chatting with Corrie,
+late on the same afternoon, when Rupert emerged
+from the factory and thrust an overcoat at the
+young driver who stood beside his car.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't hanging out a diploma," he stated
+acridly, "but this ain't summer by some months
+and you're qualifying for a hospital&mdash;which I
+don't guess is what you were brought here for."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," faltered Corrie, and wonderingly
+put on the garment.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard continued to survey the machine before
+him, not a flicker crossing his expression or betraying
+consciousness of any unusual event.
+Rupert's swift look of blended defiance and embarrassment
+directed towards his chief glided off
+an impenetrable surface.</p>
+
+<p>Corrie followed with wistful eyes the mechanician's
+return to the building.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew a West Point fellow, once, who had
+been given the 'silence' treatment&mdash;I used to
+wonder why he minded so much," he laughed,
+apropos of nothing, but his voice caught.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time Corrie had ever admitted
+knowledge of Rupert's ostracism of him, or re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>vealed
+how deeply the hurt had been felt. Gerard
+laid a caressing hand on his shoulder, wisely saying
+nothing. After a moment Corrie grasped the
+Titan's steering-wheel and swung himself into his
+seat behind it, but paused before summoning Devlin
+to start the motor, and rewarded Gerard's
+tact by another impulsive confidence, spoken just
+audibly:</p>
+
+<p>"I miss my father all the time. I think I
+always will. And I would miss him most if he
+came home and I had to live along side of him.
+He&mdash;well, he stays in Europe. I'll put up the
+car for the night, if you're ready to have me;
+it's getting pretty dark to run any more."</p>
+
+<p>"The car is in your hands; put it where you
+please, when you please," responded Gerard; that
+mark of trust seemed the only comfort he could
+offer, then; he was too fine not to ignore the
+other issues.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+<h3>THE TITAN'S DRIVER</h3>
+
+<p>There was a letter for Corrie in the evening
+mail, next day. At least, there was an envelope
+containing a gaudy picture-postal. It was at this
+last that Corrie was gazing, when Gerard came to
+remind him that dinner waited, and of it he first
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"It's from Isabel. I&mdash;she need not have sent
+it!" He abruptly pushed the card across the
+table toward Gerard and turned away to complete
+his preparations.</p>
+
+<p>"A postal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. She used to be fond of writing long
+letters, but she has quit the habit. Flavia tells
+me she has not received but three postal-cards from
+Isabel since they parted, although they used to be
+such chums."</p>
+
+<p>"I am to read?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you like."</p>
+
+<p>The red and green landscape represented,
+libellously, the Natural Bridge of Virginia. Across
+the glazed surface ran a few blurred lines of script:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Dear Corrie:</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 2em;">May I marry someone else, if I want to,
+or do you say not?</p>
+<p class="ralign">I.R."</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gerard laid down the card and regarded,
+troubled, his companion's straight shoulders and
+the back of his erect head, the only view afforded
+as Corrie stood before his mirror employing a
+pair of military brushes upon his unruly blond
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know that the affair&mdash;that matters
+were so far arranged between you and your
+cousin," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with hesitation, uncertain of how to
+venture upon a subject never before broached
+between them, yet feeling speech tacitly invited.
+In the stress of his own suffering at the time following
+the accident, preoccupied by the witnessing
+of Corrie's hard punishment of dishonor and
+grief and his struggle to fall no lower under it,
+he had forgotten that the boy-man also had to
+bear the loss of the girl upon whom he had spent
+his first love. For it required no deep insight to
+recognize that Isabel Rose was not the type of
+woman who is a refuge in time of disaster.</p>
+
+<p>But the embarrassment was his alone; Corrie
+answered without confusion:</p>
+
+<p>"We were engaged, yes. But that is ended.
+She had no need to write. She might have known,
+or have taken it for granted."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard studied the view presented of his com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>panion,
+striving to draw some conclusion from
+pose or tone. He had no mind to have his work
+of months marred and his driver distracted by an
+interlude of useless sentimentality; the temptation
+to congratulate Corrie upon his freedom from
+an unsuitable marriage was almost too strong.
+But what he actually said was quite different, and
+escaped from his lips without consideration of
+its effect.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not have supposed your cousin had so
+fine and strict a sense of honor."</p>
+
+<p>The oval brush slipped through Corrie's
+fingers and fell to the floor, rolling jerkily away
+with the light glinting on its silver mounting in
+a series of heliographic flashes. The owner
+stooped to recover it, groping for the conspicuous
+object as if the room were dark instead of flooded
+with the brightness of late afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" he demanded. "What
+did you say? Her sense of honor&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," Gerard promptly apologized,
+aware of worse than indiscretion. "I,
+really, Corrie, I hardly realized what I was saying.
+Certainly I did not mean that the way it
+sounded. I only intended to say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>What had he intended to say? What could
+he substitute for the spoken truth that would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+wound the hearer either for himself or for the
+girl he loved?</p>
+
+<p>"I only meant," he recommenced, "that her
+asking your formal release showed a careful punctiliousness
+not common."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie had recovered his brush, now. He laid
+it on the chiffonier before answering.</p>
+
+<p>"How do we know what is common? What is
+honor, anyway; what other people see or what
+you are? I fancy she wouldn't have written if
+she hadn't been sure of what I'd say," he retorted,
+with the first cynicism Gerard ever had seen in
+him. "She likes me to take the responsibility, that's
+about all. Well, I've done it. Did you say I was
+keeping dinner waiting?"</p>
+
+<p>This of the once-adored Isabel! However much
+relief the older man felt, there came with it a
+sensation of shock and regret. Had Corrie lost
+so much of his youth, unsuspected by his daily
+companion? Where were the old illusions which
+should have blurred this sharp judgment? He
+made some brief reply, and presently they went
+downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was rather a silent affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to drive me into town?" Gerard
+inquired, at its conclusion. "I find that I must
+see Carruthers before he leaves for the East, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+he is stopping at the Hotel Marion. If you are
+tired, I will get my chauffeur."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like it," Corrie exclaimed, rising
+eagerly. "I'll get the car. Your car?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so. I am not exactly anxious
+to drive into town with your racing machine,
+although we have got to make fair time in order
+to catch him before his train leaves."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie laughed, turning away.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll make the time, all right," he promised.
+"Your roadster isn't so pretty slow, considering.
+I'll be at the door in three minutes."</p>
+
+<p>He was, driving hatless and without a motor-mask
+in the fresh spring air.</p>
+
+<p>"No overcoat?" Gerard disapproved. "What
+would Rupert say?"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie flushed like a complimented girl; that
+the mechanician should have admitted him to any
+intercourse, however cold and slight, moved him
+so deeply that even Gerard's allusion was too much.</p>
+
+<p>"I have it with me; I don't need it," he
+evaded hurriedly. "Ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ready."</p>
+
+<p>The car sprang forward.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow country road merged into macadam,
+the macadam into asphalt. They were in the
+city, presently, slowly rolling through streets
+filled with playing children who garnered the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+daylight moments. On one corner a hand-organ
+was performing, and the group disporting itself
+to the flat, tinkling music broke apart to shout
+after the car, waving grimy hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Mr. Corrie!" one shrill voice came to
+the motorists.</p>
+
+<p>The driver lifted his hand in salute, glancing
+at his companion with a blended mischief and diffidence
+so delightful, so much like the old merry
+Corrie Rose, that Gerard laughed in sheer sympathy
+of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"They seem to know you, Corrie?"</p>
+
+<p>"They do. At least, what they call knowing
+me. You see, I blew out a tire here, on the way
+home after you sent me in to the postoffice, last
+week, and about three dozen kiddies gathered
+around to watch me change it. Bully little frogs;
+they nearly lost all the kit of tools trying to help
+me. And talk! So I&mdash;well, I gave them all a
+spin about the square, in blocks of as many as
+could hang on at a time, and I set up the ice
+creams all around. It seemed my treat. You
+don't mind? I suppose they <i>are</i> full of germs
+and want washing, but I just remembered they
+were kids."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do not mind," Gerard assured. He
+wanted to say something more, but found his
+thoughts singularly inarticulate. There was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+certain verse commencing with "Inasmuch&mdash;&mdash;"
+that he would have quoted to Corrie, had they
+been of any blood but the reticent Saxon. "They
+remembered part of your name," he added instead.</p>
+
+<p>"That was all I told them. The Hotel
+Marion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Speed up all you dare, our time is
+short."</p>
+
+<p>The time was indeed short. As they came
+down the avenue, Gerard uttered an exclamation,
+catching sight of a man who descended the hotel
+steps toward a carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Cross the street! There he goes. Quick, or
+we'll lose him! Cross over."</p>
+
+<p>He was promptly obeyed. The car shot across
+the street regardless of traffic rules, and was
+brought shuddering to a halt beside the left-hand
+curb. Gerard sprang out and went to join the
+man who had stopped beside the carriage to wait
+for his pursuer.</p>
+
+<p>Left in the car, Corrie took a leisurely survey
+of the street, preparatory to withdrawing from
+his illegal situation. But it was already too late.
+Even while he looked, a blue-garbed figure appeared
+around a corner, perceived the south-bound
+automobile beside the east curb and marched upon
+the offender.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To some temperaments there is an undeniable
+exhilaration in conflict. Corrie puckered his lips
+to a soundless whistle, settled back in his seat, and
+waited.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing over here?" the officer
+challenged, arriving. "Don't you know how to
+drive? You're under arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" Corrie asked unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>"What for? How did you get a chauffeur's
+license? For driving on the wrong side of the
+street, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not driving."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be funny, young fellow! For stopping
+on the wrong side, if you like it better, then."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not stopping."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am stopped. You did not see me do it. I
+might have come out of one of those buildings, or
+have come up on one of those sidewalk elevators, for
+all you know. You can't arrest me for something
+you didn't see me do, man. You wouldn't if you
+could; I can see you have a sweet disposition."</p>
+
+<p>The officer stared, and took a more careful
+survey of his antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>"You're no chauffeur, I guess," he pronounced
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've got a license."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That may be. Anyway, chauffeur or college
+student, you can't stay here with that machine."</p>
+
+<p>"You want me to leave? Certainly, officer, I
+always obey the law. Here comes my friend;
+I'll go now."</p>
+
+<p>The policeman's face relaxed into a sour smile,
+the nonsense snaring him into unwilling participation.</p>
+
+<p>"Do," he recommended. "The minute your
+wheels move, you will be driving on the wrong side
+of the street and I will pull you in."</p>
+
+<p>"When I drive on the wrong side of the street,
+go ahead and do it. Are you ready to start,
+Gerard?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerard, who had come up in time to hear
+enough, had interpretation been necessary, put
+an additional argument into the man's hand before
+entering the car.</p>
+
+<p>"My fault, Johnston," he stated, with the quiet
+serenity of one certain of his ground. "You know
+I am not a law-breaker, I fancy; this was a case
+of necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"It was your friend, Mr. Gerard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie reached for a lever, smiling ingenuously
+across as he interrupted to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"The rule says to keep to the right, officer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am left-handed, that's all. Now look
+at this."</p>
+
+<p>This was the execution of a movement that
+sent the automobile rolling backwards.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I go north on the east side," the
+driver called, while the machine slid away. "All
+right, yes? Nothing in the rules about which end
+first you drive your car? No? I thought not.
+Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>The car was at the corner, rounded it, and
+darted away in the customary method of straightforward
+progression.</p>
+
+<p>"But if this had been New York, I would be
+in jail," Corrie added placid commentary, when
+security was attained. "I know all about it; I
+was arrested in Manhattan, once, for driving
+without a license number displayed. The cords
+must have broken and have let the number-plate
+fall off. Much that policeman listened to me. He
+ordered Dean into the tonneau with Flavia,
+stepped up into the seat beside me and ordered me
+to drive to the nearest police station."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I drove. It cost me twenty-five dollars, a
+week later, and I had to 'phone for the family
+lawyer with bail to keep me from spending that
+night in a cell. Father&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The stop was full. Gerard turned his attention
+to the street traffic, giving his companion liberty
+to evade continuing the theme. The evasion was
+not made.</p>
+
+<p>"Father," Corrie resumed, clearly and steadily,
+"gave me this diamond I wear, when I told him,
+so that I might always have something with me to
+give as a bond for reappearance instead of having
+to be locked up until I got help. He said one
+might be caught without one's pocketbook along,
+but not without one's ring. I have never taken
+it off since."</p>
+
+<p>There was a change in his tone that Gerard had
+heard before, and never had succeeded in analyzing;
+not the change from gayety to gravity,
+although that was present, but some more subtle
+alteration that stirred the hearer to a strange,
+illogical sense of discomfort and failure on his own
+part. The feeling was transient and most unreasonable;
+common-sense swept it aside almost
+as it was formed. He said nothing, nor did his
+companion speak again.</p>
+
+<p>The sunset glow and color were gone, but the
+delicate after-light still remained as a luminous
+presence in the land when the automobile entered
+the boundaries of the Mercury Company's property.
+There was a gate before the private road<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+to Allan Gerard's house. When Corrie halted the
+car there and descended to open the way, a ragged,
+unsavory figure rose from the grass before him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll open it, mister," the man volunteered.
+"Never mind it," as Corrie felt in his pocket for
+coin. "I want more than that. Forgotten me,
+have you?"</p>
+
+<p>Astonished, Corrie scrutinized him, seeking the
+recollection implied.</p>
+
+<p>"You're the man in the <i>Dear Me</i>!" he identified
+suddenly. "The man I threw overboard."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! You're it." He drew nearer, blinking
+intelligence. "I served you a square turn for
+your grub and clothes, too. Get rid of your
+friend; you an' me has got to talk."</p>
+
+<p>Before the bearing of confident familiarity, the
+unclean personality and significant smile, Corrie
+slowly stiffened in rigid distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to say to me?" he demanded
+curtly. "What do you mean by serving
+me a square turn? Speak out. There is nothing
+concerning me that my friend doesn't already
+know."</p>
+
+<p>The man projected his unshaven chin, cunningly
+interrogative. The intervening months had altered
+him, not pleasantly. The tramp of the <i>Dear Me</i>
+had been unattractive; this man was repellent.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is he on to what happened on the day before
+the last Cup race? Given him the inside story
+of that, have you? Or was he there?"</p>
+
+<p>The pause was not noticeably long.</p>
+
+<p>"He is Allan Gerard," said Corrie, his voice
+suppressed. "Say what you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you ridin' past without a hat on, a
+while ago, an' I knew you. Want? I want you
+to stand somethin' for me to live on, Mr. Rose,
+you bein' a millionaire. I was on the spot after
+the smash an' heard the talk an' saw your wrench
+picked up. You'd treated me right, so I just
+lifted a bunch of tools from one of the machines
+standin' empty, an' sprinkled them around that
+twelve-mile race track. The newspaper fellows
+found the things, too, an' kind of thought less
+of findin' the one where you smashed Mr. Gerard.
+One fellow help another, eh? No use of goin' to
+Sing Sing, neither."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie's movement was swiftly accurate and uncalculated
+as the leap of some enraged primitive
+creature. His ungloved fist struck with an impact
+sounding like the slap of an open hand, and
+flung the man crashing through the hedge of lilac-bushes
+to roll over and over on the ground, clutching
+blindly at the turf strewn with broken leaf-buds.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Corrie!" Gerard cried stern warning, too late,
+starting from his seat.</p>
+
+<p>Corrie swung about, his blue eyes blazing in
+his flushed face, his lips parted in a scarlet line
+across the white gleam of his set teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"If he comes near me again, I'll <i>kill</i> him!" he
+panted savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me you have done enough of that
+sort of thing, already," Gerard retorted, equally
+angered.</p>
+
+<p>The biting reminder was not premeditated; it
+leaped out of brief wrath and all the aching
+memories stirred by the episode. But it was none
+the less effective. Gerard himself did not realize
+how effective until he saw all the color and animation
+wiped from the young face and saw Corrie
+put his hand across his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie!" he exclaimed, cut deeply by his own
+cruelty, amazedly furious with himself. "Corrie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie had turned his back to him, not in offence,
+but as a woman would cover her face. He
+answered without moving.</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;all right. I understand; it is&mdash;all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard left the car, more humiliated in his own
+sight than he ever had been in his life. For the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+moment his own lack of self-control loomed larger
+than Corrie's, past or present.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, I said what I did not mean," he appealed,
+laying his hand on the other's shoulder.
+"Forgive me. Don't take it like this!"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie slowly turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't anything you can say to me, that
+I can complain of," he checked apology, quietly
+serious. "It is all right, of course. I&mdash;no one
+can understand just what it was like to hear him
+talk that way to me, no one can, ever. But I
+should not have struck him."</p>
+
+<p>The expression in his eyes as they encountered
+Gerard's was not of remorse or shame, or resentment,
+was not any mingling of these, but simply
+of utter loneliness patiently accepted. Gerard
+stood back in silence, helplessly aware of having
+inflicted a hurt no contrition could heal.</p>
+
+<p>The man was sitting up, dazed and bruised, his
+stupid gaze following his assailant. To him Corrie
+went, dragging forth a handful of paper money.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep away from me," the victor cautioned
+with harsh dislike. "I mean it. Here, take this
+and go. I'm giving it to you because I knocked
+you down and not because of anything you claim,
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>The man grasped the money eagerly, peering
+up with more admiration than sullenness.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You've got a good punch, mister," he conceded.
+"I'll get out. I wouldn't have come, only
+I thought you'd really done what they said, that
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie drew back sharply, staring at the other.
+His right hand was cut and bleeding from the
+blow he had dealt, red drops trickled and fell as he
+stood, but he did not seem aware of the fact, either
+then or when he turned away to take his place at
+the steering-wheel. Gerard took the seat beside
+him without comment; he fancied he could imagine
+very exactly what Corrie Rose, gentleman, was
+enduring.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever Corrie had to endure then or at
+any time, he was quite masculine enough to hurry
+it out of sight. At the house, he turned to Gerard
+his usual matter-of-fact glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I will put the car in the garage and go over
+to the factory for a while," he said. "Mr. Edwards
+was going to examine that throttle which
+jarred open&mdash;on the Titan, I mean&mdash;so it would
+be ready for me to start early to-morrow. I told
+him I would be over, this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"As you like. But do not stay too long; the
+house is lonely without you. And, do something
+for that cut hand, Corrie, or it may make you
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," acknowledged the younger.</p>
+
+<p>The Titan was ready next morning, as due,
+and the early start was made.</p>
+
+<p>The great machine had run for several days
+without especial incident, but this morning Devlin's
+nervous incompetency manifested itself in a new
+direction. He forgot to fill the oil-tank of the
+car he served as mechanician, before Corrie took
+it out. One of the testers drove into the busy
+courtyard, about ten o'clock, shouting the information
+that the Titan was stuck eight miles out on
+the back road and Rose wanted the emergency car
+to bring him oil.</p>
+
+<p>Sardonic of eye, caustic of tongue, Rupert himself
+attended to the carrying out of the request
+and watched the rescuing car depart on its mission.
+Half an hour later the Titan rolled past, missing
+fire and running with a sound like a sick gatling
+gun. Bare-headed and without his mask, Corrie
+was driving with one hand and striving to aid his
+mechanician's efforts with the other, as they swept
+around the mile track. In gritting exasperation
+Rupert stared after them, then snatched up a
+red flag and ran to the edge of the road.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard, notified of trouble with the big car,
+arrived from his office in time to see the Titan
+halt, flagged, and the lightning strike Devlin.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Get out," snarled Rupert, his dark face black
+with scorn, swinging one small arm in a wide
+gesture. "I ain't had any explanation of what
+you're doing behind anything except a baby-carriage,
+and I don't want it. Get out and don't
+come back. Quick!"</p>
+
+<p>Dazed, Devlin obeyed. Rupert dragged open
+the motor's hood, busied himself for thirty
+seconds and crashed the metal cover shut again.
+As he flung himself into the seat beside the stupefied
+Corrie, he first caught sight of Gerard standing
+on the stone portal.</p>
+
+<p>"Better send someone to hold down the yard,"
+he sharply advised. "I ain't going to be there.
+What?"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie had sufficient presence of tact to send
+the car forward without pause or comment, not
+daring to look at his new companion. But he
+gathered a jumbled view of Gerard's mirthful
+face and of Devlin standing sulkily at bay before
+his grinning mates.</p>
+
+<p>When the Mercury Titan returned from its
+morning's work, it was running with the velvet
+purr of a happy tiger, the flames from its exhausts
+shimmered in the violet tints of perfect mixture,
+and the indicating dial pointed to the fact that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+Corrie had found some stretch of road where he
+had passed the hundred mile an hour gait.</p>
+
+<p>"She's in exact shape," approved Gerard, who
+had come out to meet them. "Good work,
+Rupert."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert turned a hard dark eye upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't pining for this," he signified measuredly.
+"But there's something coming to any
+decent car, and this one's suffered cruel."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been wondering where I could find a
+mechanician fit to race with Corrie this season,"
+he confided, nonchalantly serene.</p>
+
+<p>The double bombshell dealt full effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, rest yourself," urged Rupert tartly,
+leaving his seat. "I'll do it. I know I'm a liar,
+I guess, but that won't hurt my work none."</p>
+
+<p>"Race?" gasped Corrie. "Race? <i>I!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>One rebel vanquished utterly, Gerard surveyed
+the other, preparing for his first conflict with
+the new Corrie Rose he had himself created; the
+Corrie Rose who in his twentieth year was a full-grown
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had you and the car entered for the
+Indianapolis meet, next month," he announced;
+"after that we are going to Georgia, then down
+to try the sea-beach along the Florida shore, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+you can let out all the speed the machine has got.
+Of course you will race. What else have you
+been training for?"</p>
+
+<p>Corrie's full red lips closed, his blue eyes braved
+Gerard's.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not. Gerard, I cannot. To go back
+as the millionaire amateur of the pink car, to
+stand the toleration of the professional drivers,
+who cannot really handle their machines better
+than I can mine, to know that the story of how
+you were wrecked is being whispered after me&mdash;I'm
+not big enough to face it all! I might be
+challenged and sent off the track, for all I know."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not go back as an amateur," Gerard
+corrected. "You are entered and registered as a
+professional automobile racer, enrolled on the
+books of the A.M.A., under their protection and
+subject to their rules and authority for the future.
+You will find your certificate of the fact lying on
+your table. Yes, I did it without consulting you.
+You signed the necessary papers yourself, without
+reading them, and you cannot undo this without
+a formal resignation&mdash;unless you contrive to
+get yourself suspended."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie's fingers gripped the wheel, the varying
+expressions changing his face like storm-swept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+water, while the hunger of his gaze besought
+Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;it's <i>true</i>? Gerard, you've done <i>that</i>
+for me? They, the A.M.A. officers, they accepted
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Once for all, there are no whispers connecting
+you with my accident. That matter is
+dead. You go back to the racing as a recognized
+driver in the employ of the Mercury Company, I
+acting as your manager and Jack Rupert as your
+mechanician. Do you think it probable that anyone
+would credit the idea of trouble between us,
+Corrie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a moment, or I'll lose the only honor
+I've kept," said Corrie Rose, and turned away
+his face. "I shall do whatever you bid me,
+of course."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>XIV</h2>
+<h3>VAL DE ROSAS</h3>
+
+<p>On the day that Corrie in his American home
+consented to drive the Mercury Titan through the
+racing season, Flavia and Mr. Rose arrived at the
+tiny Spanish village of Val de Rosas&mdash;arrived,
+not so much through design as through the bursting
+of a tire on their motor car.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems as if the name of the place might be
+one of our lost titles," observed Mr. Rose idly.
+"And there is the castle to match, on the hillside.
+Come stroll through the town, my girl, while
+Lenoir repairs damages."</p>
+
+<p>Smiling, Flavia stepped down beside him, throwing
+back her silk veils and lifting her fair, almost
+too delicate face to the Andalusian sunshine. After
+her stepped a great dog, with the sedate, matter-of-course
+bearing of a constant attendant.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who lives in the castle," she responded
+to his mood of playfulness. "<i>Our</i> castle.
+We should dispossess them."</p>
+
+<p>"Lets," proposed her father.</p>
+
+<p>There was an inn in the village, kept by a
+ravishingly plump landlord of sixty who wore a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+short velvet jacket. He informed the travellers
+that the diminutive white castle was not only
+vacant, but to let, being the property of a mad
+Englishman who had bought it to live in while
+writing a book, and having finished the book had
+departed. Mr. Rose regarded his daughter speculatively.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been going from one place to another
+for five months, and we have got to put in six
+more," he said with brief decisiveness. "I mean
+to stay on this side of the water until fall. Do
+you want to try living here for a while, or would
+you rather keep moving?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us stay here," Flavia voted eagerly.
+"Dear, I am so tired of hotels."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose studied her as she stood, slim and
+frail, before him, her large eyes fixed on his.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we are tired of more than that, you
+and I," he pronounced. "But I'll run up and see
+if the place can be made fit to live in. You had
+better rest here, in the shade; Frederick will take
+care of you and Lenoir is within call. Here,
+se&ntilde;or, set a chair here under these trees."</p>
+
+<p>She moved to the seat placed for her by the
+deferential host, and watched her father's departure
+up the winding road. They were both
+thinking of Corrie, lacking whom all places were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+blank, with whom, in one winter's enthusiasm, they
+had studied this soft Spanish tongue they now
+used without him. They had planned a trip to
+Puerto Rico, then, that never had been taken. But
+Flavia also was thinking of Allan Gerard&mdash;Allan
+Gerard, who loved Isabel and for whose sake Flavia
+carried a double sorrow, his and her own. As he
+had found excuses in his mind for her apparent
+failure of him, so she on her part never had blamed
+him for what she considered her own misunderstanding
+of his purpose. They were not given to
+the small vice of ready condemnation. There is
+no comfort in blaming the one loved, where the
+love is great.</p>
+
+<p>A murmur of wondering dismay aroused Flavia
+from her musing, a sound scarcely louder than
+the murmur of the bees busied among the heavy
+waxen-white lemon-blossoms overhead. She lifted
+her chin from her hand, and saw a brown-haired,
+brown-skinned, brown-eyed girl standing on the
+path, gazing at the huge dog that barred her
+passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do not be frightened," Flavia begged.
+"Come here, Frederick! Indeed, he is only a
+young dog and very gentle."</p>
+
+<p>"He is very large, se&ntilde;orita," the girl smiled,
+half-reassured, half-fearful. "He bites, no?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed. See."</p>
+
+<p>"He loves the se&ntilde;orita. That does not surprise,"
+with Latin grace of compliment.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia smiled, too, drawing the Great Dane's
+bulky head against her knee.</p>
+
+<p>"I love him, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"One sees it, since he voyages with the se&ntilde;ores
+in that splendid automobile, where a man might
+find place with joy."</p>
+
+<p>A wistfulness in the comment moved the listener
+to give explanation, almost in apology for lavishing
+upon an animal what might have rejoiced a
+human being.</p>
+
+<p>"He is my brother's dog. But my brother
+went away, and the poor dog grieved for him
+all the time, except with me. I could not leave
+him to fret, without either of us, so he came abroad,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Across the ocean, se&ntilde;orita?"</p>
+
+<p>"Across the ocean. From America."</p>
+
+<p>The two young girls considered one another in
+a pause full of cordial sympathy. Different in
+race, station and experience, the bond of maidenhood
+drew them to each other with delicate lines
+of mutual comprehension and accord.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the dog's name which is on the great
+silver-and-leather collar, or the name of the
+se&ntilde;orita?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flavia's small fair hand guided the plump
+brown one tracing the legend upon the massive
+band.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Federigo el Grande, que pertenece &aacute; Corwin
+Basil Rose, Long Island</i>,'" she translated.</p>
+
+<p>"Don Corwin&mdash;that does not say itself easily!"</p>
+
+<p>"We called him Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that I can say; Don Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>The soft household name sounded yet softer in
+the Andalusian accents. Flavia looked away, feeling
+her lips quiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tell me your name?" she asked, by
+way of diversion. "Mine is Flavia Rose. Perhaps
+we shall see more of each other, if I stay
+here and you do also."</p>
+
+<p>"I am called Elvira Paredes, se&ntilde;orita. And I
+shall be here&mdash;I cannot go for so long, so long,
+perhaps never."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia leaned forward, her clear eyes questioning.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to go away? To leave this place
+for some other?"</p>
+
+<p>The confidence came with an outrush of feeling,
+a wealth of expression and expressive gestures.</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;orita, to join my betrothed. Ah, there
+never was one like him, so beautiful, so brave, so
+constant like the sun in rising! You cannot know.
+No one can know who has not seen it. And sing!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+Under my window he would sing until the birds
+would hush, hush to listen. I have no marriage-portion,
+I who am an orphan living with the sister
+of my mother's cousin. Not for that did Luis
+hesitate. But the time came when he must do
+military service; serve in Morocco, se&ntilde;orita, serve
+among savages who would torture him! And to
+come back poor as he went. So he left. Far away
+he journeyed, to New York, which is in America,
+to find peace and make a home."</p>
+
+<p>"Where you will go to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;orita, we hope it. He works, I wait. We
+write long letters. But it is three years. It costs
+much to cross the ocean, and one grows old." The
+brown eyes looked the tragedy of hope deferred.</p>
+
+<p>"For men must work and women must
+weep&mdash;&mdash;" The old refrain came to Flavia.
+But not this woman, not if her American sister
+could prevent. And the preventing was so easy!
+She drew the girl down on the seat beside her,
+impulsive as Corrie could have been.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Elvira&mdash;I may call you Elvira? Let
+me help you. I have so much money, so much
+more than I can spend, and I am not very happy.
+Let me think that I have given you what I cannot
+have; let me send you to Luis. My father will
+tell us how, he will arrange everything so that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+will not have to trouble at all. We will send a
+message to Luis so that he may meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;orita!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will let me? You will not say no? Why,
+Elvira!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl dropped her face in Flavia's lap and
+burst into hysterical tears, covering her hands
+with kisses.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Rose returned, half an hour later,
+this time in the big automobile whose rushing passage
+stirred whirlwinds of dust on the age-old
+road, his daughter met him eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, I want to send Elvira Paredes to
+America, to her fianc&eacute;e. She is a kinswoman of the
+inn-keeper, here. Will you arrange it for us? I
+think she would be frightened if you sent her by
+first-class, but second-class would be very nice.
+She knows how to go in the train to Malaga, if
+you get the ticket, and ships sail from there, do
+they not? Oh, and would you cable to Luis
+C&aacute;rdenas, in New York, so he will know she is
+coming? I will find the street and number from
+Elvira."</p>
+
+<p>His children long since had trained Mr. Rose to
+be surprised at no charming vagaries. He contemplated
+Flavia, amused, and well pleased with
+her animation.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Found something to play with, eh? Very
+good, we will fix it. But your Elvira will have to
+wait until I get an answer from her lover through
+the cable company; I'm sending no girls to New
+York without knowing they'll land in the right
+hands. Now, I believe that house up there will
+suit. We'll have some luncheon and then drive
+up for you to see it. I like the place, myself. It
+opens well."</p>
+
+<p>It opened well, if the happiness of Elvira
+Paredes was a good augury.</p>
+
+<p>"All the rest is from my father," Flavia said, in
+parting from her. "But take this from me, to
+wear or for a marriage portion, as you choose."</p>
+
+<p>The gift was a sapphire ring slipped from
+Flavia's slim finger.</p>
+
+<p>"It resembles the eyes of the se&ntilde;orita; may
+they always be as bright and clear," fervently
+returned Elvira, who was an Andalusian and therefore
+a poet.</p>
+
+<p>"That cost some money, when I bought it,"
+Mr. Rose practically observed, from his seat in
+the motor-car. "Tell her not to flash it in New
+York, alone, if she wants to keep it. You can put
+that into classic Spanish for me, my girl."</p>
+
+<p>That was the beginning of an interlude whose
+placid monotony was tempered by much equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+placid incident. The Americans liked the village,
+and the village rejoiced in the Americans, so that
+they came to know each other very well. More
+than once Flavia thought of the legend of Al-Mansor,
+and that if one of these days could be
+deemed happy enough to record by a pearl, the
+vase could be filled with the gem-chronicles, so
+much alike were the weeks.</p>
+
+<p>For the white castle on the hill kept its visitors,
+and so it happened that the summer most crowded
+and busy of any Corrie ever had known, slipped
+drowsily by in drowsy Val de Rosas for the two
+most interested in him.</p>
+
+<p>He never told Flavia what he was doing. The
+new Corrie Rose was more considerate than the
+self-centred thoughtlessness of youth had permitted
+the boy Corrie to be. He would have remembered
+her anxiety for his safety and dread of
+danger for him, of himself, but his silence was
+further impelled by Gerard, who had pointed out&mdash;in
+a few brief sentences that avoided Flavia's
+name&mdash;the responsibility she must feel in keeping
+such a secret from her father. But, because it
+was so difficult to write to his "Other Fellow"
+without telling her all, Corrie's letters came with
+greater intervals and were less in length.</p>
+
+<p>"I am still touring with Gerard," he wrote to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+Flavia, in the last note of his that came to Val de
+Rosas. "Don't mind if my letters come slower,
+please; I am pretty busy. I guess you will understand
+what it means to me when I can say that I
+am doing some work for Gerard and that he calls
+it good. I wish it cost me more to do. I hope
+father is well; you didn't say, last time. Keep
+on writing often, you know, it's the next thing to
+seeing you."</p>
+
+<p>He wrote that note the night after he broke a
+track record in California, wrote it on the chiffonier
+of the hotel bedroom while making ready
+to attend a motor club dinner at which he was to
+be chief guest in honor of the day's event. Four
+weeks later Flavia read it, under the flowering
+almond trees that surrounded the house so closely
+as to overhang the balcony on which she sat. Read
+it, then kissed the careless, boyish <i>Corwin B. Rose</i>
+that slanted crookedly across the foot of the page.
+Holding the letter, she sat quite still.</p>
+
+<p>From the room within drifted the voices of Mr.
+Rose and the mild Father Bartolom&eacute;, between
+whom the last months had established a cordial
+basis of esteem. The village priest had dined with
+them; it was in deference to his presence that
+Flavia wore a gown whose lace collar came up
+to her round chin, and now had left the two gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>men
+to after-dinner conversation instead of herself
+entertaining her father. She had the sense of
+being horribly alone; her longing for Corrie became
+physical pain, so that she crushed the letter
+in her fingers, catching her breath with difficulty.
+Close to one another they always had been, still
+closer together trouble had drawn them, but now
+half the world stretched its empty spaces between.
+The impulse that goaded her was to cry out to her
+father that she must see Corrie&mdash;to take her to
+him&mdash;yet she did not speak or move, resolute in
+endurance. To make that appeal to her father
+would be to separate Corrie from Allan Gerard,
+she knew, to bring her brother back to the
+atmosphere of constraint and reproach to escape
+which he had left the rose-colored Long Island
+villa they called home.</p>
+
+<p>"Taxes are taxes," Mr. Rose's raised accents
+set forth. "Governments have to be maintained.
+If the tax collector is due to-morrow, Val de Rosas
+has got to pay up."</p>
+
+<p>There was a murmured reply in the softer tones.</p>
+
+<p>"No money?" the American echoed. "I suppose
+I could guess that." There came the crisp
+sound of parting paper. "Now, if you will make
+a figure for the total, Father, I'll give you this
+check to pay for the whole thing. I've lived in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+town five months, and I like the people&mdash;it's my
+treat. No, I haven't counted the chickens and
+measured the houses, but I can see the amount
+isn't exactly ruinous. Now, we won't talk any
+more about it; here you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;or Rose," solemnly said the old man, with
+inexpressible dignity and authority,&mdash;Flavia heard
+him rise,&mdash;"this will be repaid by the One to
+Whom you lend through the poor&mdash;repaid to you,
+and to your daughter."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause.</p>
+
+<p>"You might include my son in that; I've got
+one, you know," suggested Thomas Rose, carefully
+casual.</p>
+
+<p>Flavia covered her eyes, and the tears trickled
+through her slender fingers.</p>
+
+<p>When the moon was up and the pant of a
+distant motor announced that the guest was being
+conveyed to the village by Lenoir and the big automobile,
+Flavia went in to her father. Both of
+them maintained their usual composure, as they
+smiled at one another across the room, but the
+young girl's extreme pallor was not to be disguised
+when she came into the light. Mr. Rose looked
+at her, and continued to look.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not well, my girl," he asserted, concerned.
+"Never mind drawing that curtain; come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+over here. Don't you think it's time to tell me
+why you sent off Gerard? I know how hard it
+must have hit him, when he was down already,
+and I've felt sorry often enough, but a man has
+to take a woman's answer and I've said nothing.
+But I believed at home that you liked him, and I
+believe you have been fretting ever since."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia grasped the heavy curtain, gazing at him
+in an utter confusion of thought that amounted to
+actual giddiness.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I sent away Mr. Gerard?" she marvelled.</p>
+
+<p>"Who else? Or if you accepted him, why was
+I not told?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tell me what you mean?" she asked
+brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mean? I mean that the last time I saw
+Allan Gerard alone, on the day I met you and
+Corrie driving home together, he asked my permission
+to propose to you. I rather guess that
+hour with him didn't make me very easy on Corrie,
+although I was given no cause to be otherwise by
+Gerard. Gerard said frankly that he wouldn't
+have offered you such a wreck as he felt himself,
+much as he loved you, if he had not gone so far
+before he was hurt that he had no right to leave
+in silence. He said that as a matter of honorable
+justice he must lay the decision before you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+abide by your will. Very quiet, he was&mdash;I told
+him that I would rather give you to him than to
+any other man on earth, and I meant it."</p>
+
+<p>The room blurred before Flavia's dilated eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You never told me! Papa, you never told
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>The passionate cry of grief brought Mr. Rose
+to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Told you? Gerard was to tell you. I wanted
+to carry him home with me that afternoon, but he
+refused. In fact, he was not fit, nor I either, to
+stand any more sentiment just then. He said he
+would write and ask you to see him, if you cared
+to have him speak or come back at all. That trip
+West he had to take. Didn't he write?"</p>
+
+<p>She saw the softly-lighted little room at home
+where Jack Rupert had come to her, and Isabel's
+suffused, desperate face as she snatched the letter
+from its owner. And as a pendant picture she saw
+the bleak, solitary railway station in the gray
+December morning, where Gerard, ill and reft of
+his splendid strength, had waited alone for the
+girl who did not come.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose reached her as she swayed forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Take me home," she gasped, clinging to him
+with small fierce hands. "I never knew. Dear,
+take me home."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next morning they left Val de Rosas.</p>
+
+<p>It is a long journey from Andalusia to New
+York. But it was on the morning they boarded
+the ocean liner that Mr. Rose purchased a New
+York journal&mdash;and met a news item that gave
+him material for thought during the rest of the
+trip. The item was on the sporting page, and
+stated that the Cup race course was now open for
+practice; among the first of the cars to commence
+training being the Mercury Titan, driven by Corrie
+Rose&mdash;one of the cleverest young professionals
+in America, whose work with the Mercury Company's
+special racing machine had given the
+greatest satisfaction to its owner and designer,
+Mr. Allan Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>There was no longer any cause for concealment.
+When Mr. Rose carried the journal to
+Flavia, she told him quite simply to whom Corrie
+had gone in his exile and what she knew of his
+life with Gerard. Of his racing she herself had
+been left ignorant; she could guess whose forgiving
+tenderness had spared her that anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not angry with Corrie," she ventured,
+before her father's knit brow and squared jaw.
+"You did not forbid him to race or he would not
+have done so, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I did not. I didn't think I had to," was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+the dry response. "Angry? He and I are past
+that. The days are gone when we used to have
+our differences and shake hands on them. We'll
+get along together quietly enough, I dare say."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I would rather you said you were
+angry," she grieved.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Rose thrust his hands into his pockets,
+looking down at the newspaper page. He had
+altered during the last year in a way difficult to
+characterize. It was not that he looked older or
+more hard, there was no bitterness in the strong
+face, but he looked like a man who stood in the
+shadow instead of in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"So would Corrie, I fancy," he said heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Corrie's sister folded her hands in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no chance if one falls once?" she
+rebelled in futile reproach. "He was so young,
+he has suffered so much&mdash;can he never pay?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not much of a reader, as a rule, but I
+did a good deal of it at Val de Rosas, this summer,"
+Mr. Rose slowly returned. "And a line from an
+Englishman's work stuck in my memory. He
+said that tears can wash out guilt, but not shame.
+I can give Corrie all I've got, I have always been
+fond of him and I am yet, but I can't give him my
+respect. It was a shameful thing to strike down
+an unprepared man from behind, because he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+losing in a game. Some things can't be paid for,
+because they are not bought and sold. Of course
+he will have every chance possible. He isn't what
+I supposed; well, there is no use of complaining,
+we will make the best of what he is. I sent him
+away while we settled down to living on the new
+basis; I guess we are as ready to go on, now, as
+we ever will be."</p>
+
+<p>"If he heard you say that, I think he would
+die," she stated her hopeless conviction.</p>
+
+<p>"People don't die so easily, my girl. I tell you
+he and I will get along well enough. Pass me
+those books over there."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia obeyed, having no words. Mr. Rose sat
+down and compared the date of the steamer's
+probable arrival with that of the Cup race.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>XV</h2>
+<h3>THE STRENGTH OF TEN</h3>
+
+<p>It had required more than eloquence or tact,
+it had required actual compulsion to bring Corrie
+Rose back to race at Long Island. All his successful
+work, all the cordiality that met him wherever
+he went, and the temptation to essay new conquest,
+failed to overcome his repugnance. But he could
+not defy Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how <i>you</i> can bear to look at the
+place," he had flung, in his final defeat.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Corrie, I am not any further from
+that here than there," Gerard had quietly replied.</p>
+
+<p>Corrie understood, and submitted dumbly thereafter.
+And, in spite of himself, his first day's
+practice on the course swept everything aside
+except eager exhilaration. He was too superbly
+healthy for morbidity, too masculine for continuous
+dwelling in memories; if Gerard had not been
+very certain of that fact, he would never have
+brought his ward there. When Corrie was driving,
+Corrie was happy. He drove with a sober intensity
+of devotion, his passion was serious,
+whereas Gerard had raced fire-ardent and won or
+lost laughing.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a small hotel near the course which
+the motor-men had made a rendezvous. Here
+Gerard established his party, during the two
+weeks of practice work. He did not choose to
+have Corrie in New York, although Rupert chafed
+and he himself was obliged to go in to the city
+frequently, at considerable inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>On the last afternoon before the race, he returned
+from such a trip, and arrived before the
+hotel just as Corrie rolled up with the Mercury
+Titan and halted it opposite him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's five o'clock," the driver explained, stilling
+his roaring motor and leaning out. "Everyone
+is coming in, to get ready for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>There was little trace left of the petulant,
+gaudily dressed boy who a year before had driven
+the pink car, in this serious young professional
+clad in the Mercury's racing gray and bearing
+the Mercury's silver insignia on his shoulder. The
+bend of his mouth was firmer, his dark-blue eyes
+had acquired the steady, all-embracing keenness
+of Gerard's&mdash;the gaze of all those men with whom
+the inopportune flicker of an eyelid may mean
+destruction. He was clothed with his virile youth
+as with a radiant garment, as he smiled across at
+Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, get some rest; you will be out at dawn,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+approved Gerard, coming closer. "Where is
+Rupert? What is the matter, Corrie? You look
+disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert got off at the corner, back there. I
+suppose if I look rattled, that <i>he</i> is what is the
+matter. He&mdash;&mdash;" Corrie suddenly dropped his
+face in his folded arms as they rested upon the
+steering-wheel, his shoulders shaking.</p>
+
+<p>"He? How? He has been talking to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He sure has been talking to me," Corrie
+affirmed, lifting his laughter-flushed face. "When
+I think that he once gave me the silence treatment!
+His tongue would take the starch out of
+a Chinese laundry and make a taxicab chauffeur
+feel he couldn't drive."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not let him talk to you when you are
+driving!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, when I am driving he is the perfect
+mechanician. He wouldn't open his lips if I hit
+a right-angle turn at ninety miles an hour or
+disobey if I told him to climb out and cut the
+tires off the rear wheels. No, it is when I am not
+officially driving that he gives me some remarks
+to study about. Good pointers, too! I like it,
+really. I only wish," his expression shadowed
+abruptly, "I only wish I didn't have to remember
+that nothing could bring him to shake hands with
+me."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Corrie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;I beg your pardon for speaking of
+that to you. But, Gerard," he bent to grasp a
+lever, "I'd take what you got last year, I'd consent
+to be picked up dead from under my car
+to-morrow, if I could that way buy one hour to
+stand clean before you and Jack Rupert. That's
+all&mdash;don't think I want to flinch, please. If you
+will go on in, I'll put this machine away and be
+back to dinner in fifteen minutes. I see Rupert
+coming to help me, now. We're starved to death
+and some tired. By the way, George shouted
+over to me that he would be in as soon as he got
+the Duplex canned for the night, and to order a
+few dozen eggs and a couple of hams fried for him.
+Would you attend to it on your way in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I surely would," Gerard answered, the great
+gentleness of his tone mating oddly with the light
+words. "What do you want ordered for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything, and plenty of it."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard did not smile as he went into the building.
+He too would have given much to spare
+Corrie Rose the memory of that October morning's
+fault. From all punishment except that memory
+he had sheltered him, further aid no one could
+give. But because he loved Corrie, he climbed the
+hotel stairs in slow abstraction and failed to per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>ceive
+the limousine that came up before the Mercury
+Titan, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing by a table in the empty parlor
+of the hotel, when the door opened, and closed.
+Thinking some other guest had entered, he did not
+turn from the letters he was reading, nor was there
+any further movement or demand upon his attention.
+That which slowly invaded his consciousness
+was a summons more delicate than sound, a faint,
+distinctive flower-fragrance that proclaimed one
+individual presence. Flavia Rose was in the room;
+he knew it before he swung around and saw her
+standing there.</p>
+
+<p>The shock that leaped along his pulses was less
+of hope than of renewed pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Rose!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>She moved a little forward. Against her dark
+velvet gown, under her wide velvet hat, her soft,
+earnest face showed whitely lustrous and irradiated,
+her beautiful eyes dwelt on his.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew," she said, her clear voice like
+rippled water. "Your letter, the night before you
+went away, never came to me. I never knew you
+had sent for me, until last month."</p>
+
+<p>The movement that brought Gerard across the
+room was as nakedly passionate as the incoherent
+simplicity of her speech.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You never knew? Flavia, you would have
+come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would have come; I wanted to come long
+before, while you were so ill&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They had waited a year on the verge of that
+moment; it was enough to touch one another in
+this security of understanding. There was no
+question between them, no doubt, now that they
+saw each other face to face; all their world flowered
+into light and fragrance, present and future
+one dazzling marvel.</p>
+
+<p>But at last they drew slightly apart, gazing at
+each other with an incredulity of such happiness,
+both Flavia's little hands held in the firm clasp
+of Gerard's left. And then gradually awoke
+amazement that they could ever have been
+separated, who were so closely bound together.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, my dear, you knew I loved you," he
+wondered. "How did this happen to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could I know? You had never said it."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I need to? I thought the very stones in
+the fountain arcade must have seen it. And I
+trusted Rupert with the letter; he said he had
+given it to you, he even brought an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not blame him," she quickly defended.
+"He told you that he had given it to Miss Rose;
+he meant to Isabel, who claimed it."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your cousin? What had I to do with her?
+Why should I have written to her? Have written
+<i>that</i>, Flavia!"</p>
+
+<p>The tears rushed to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Your letter&mdash;Allan, if I had known that message
+was for me, I would have gone back with
+Rupert to you that evening. But Isabel took it,
+for some reason she expected a message from you,
+that night. I have not been able to understand
+that, although I have tried ever since papa told
+me, last month, that it was I whom you chose. She
+spoke of something Corrie had said. I&mdash;I think
+she believed you did care for her more seriously
+than she had meant you should. She was so very
+sure the letter was for her&mdash;and you did not call
+me Flavia once."</p>
+
+<p>"I had no right, I dared not. Dear, I had had
+a bad month; I did not remember that any Miss
+Rose but you existed. I used to close my eyes,
+when things were worst, and see your eyes against
+the dark. There were days when I did not see
+much else. But they were not so bad, no day ever
+was so bad as the morning Corrie came to the
+station without you. Forgive me, I hurt you!"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her fair head, wordless. Quiet from
+the very vehemence of feeling that possessed them
+both, Gerard stooped and kissed her.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will you marry me soon, Flavia? After this
+race, when Corrie can be with us? Let us waste
+no more time apart; I have wanted you so long,
+so very long."</p>
+
+<p>The lovely color flushed her transparent face,
+but her fingers clung to his.</p>
+
+<p>"All the way home from Spain, I have been
+remembering that I really was betrothed to you
+this whole year," she answered, not turning from
+him the innocent candor of her clear gaze. "Before
+that, before I knew the truth, I used to think
+how strange a thing it would have been if you had
+died in the accident and I had lived all the rest
+of my life believing myself promised to you, when
+in fact you had loved Isabel, not me. I used to
+think, often, of that first day when I fell on the
+stairs at the Beach race track&mdash;when you caught
+me and held me close to you&mdash;and how you would
+never again hold me like that or miss not doing
+so. I am quite sure that no one ever was wanted
+so much as I have wanted you. It may not be
+right to tell this even to you, but it is true. And I
+will marry you whenever you ask, Allan."</p>
+
+<p>Allan Gerard, man of the practical world and
+the twentieth century, went to his knee on the
+floor of the hotel parlor and hid his face against
+her hand.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The room was rosy with the glow of sunset,
+when someone discreetly knocked. In response to
+Gerard's invitation to enter, the door opened and
+revealed the wiry, jersey-clad form of Rupert on
+the threshold. Grimy yet from his recent employment,
+he was engaged in deftly winding a
+strip of antiseptic gauze around his wrist while he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't one to invite li'l' Artha' Brownskin to
+meet the A.M.A. on Sunday," he began discontentedly,
+and broke off at sight of Flavia.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't need to introduce you to Miss Rose,"
+smiled Gerard. "What have you done to your
+wrist? Much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scratched it threading my sewing-machine;
+I'll be able to sit up in bed to-morrow," reassured
+the mechanician, his acute black eyes travelling
+from the young girl to his chief. "I didn't mean
+to run into this camp without being signalled. As
+I was saying, I ain't one to promote trouble, but
+there's a gentleman downstairs who's calling off
+our race."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rose is explaining to our driver that he
+ain't fit to be allowed on a race course. And no
+one's opposing his remarks any."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard divined the situation.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Go down," Flavia begged, as he turned to her.
+"I have been selfish to keep you here; I might
+have known! But I saw Corrie just for a moment,
+then father sent me to you. Go to Corrie; Mr.
+Rupert will bring me."</p>
+
+<p>"I can guess that I'm a fierce bad postman,"
+Rupert dryly acknowledged. "But I ain't likely
+to confuse ladies on the way downstairs. You're
+sure needed below."</p>
+
+<p>In the empty paved space before the hotel, the
+Mercury Titan still reposed its massive bulk, with
+its driver in his seat, his fair head uncovered in the
+pink-and-gold light and his face turned to the
+man who stood beside the car. There was neither
+heat nor resentment in either Mr. Rose's expression
+or his son's as the older man came over to
+shake hands with Gerard. Corrie did not move;
+his left arm was thrown about the neck of the huge
+dog reared up beside him against the machine.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad to see you looking so well," Mr. Rose
+briefly greeted. "I have been talking to Corrie,
+here, while we waited for you, Gerard, but this
+thing won't do."</p>
+
+<p>"What won't do, Mr. Rose?" Gerard questioned,
+equally matter-of-fact.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, and Corrie knows. I appreciate
+the way you have stood by him and the way he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+has kept to his work&mdash;I'm proud of it&mdash;but this
+isn't a question of how any of us three feel. I am
+sorry to hurt him, but we have got to face facts.
+A man who loses his temper is not fit for certain
+places; a race track is one."</p>
+
+<p>"The Corrie Rose whom I know and who
+trained under me is fit for any place," Gerard
+gravely maintained. The work of months was on
+the verge of loss; he gauged very exactly what
+this sentence would result in for Flavia's brother.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose glanced towards his son; if his powerful,
+square-cut face was inflexible, it was without
+hardness.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard, I am sorry," he repeated. "It's like
+you to overlook what happened to yourself and
+try him again; he and I have got more to consider
+and to be responsible for. He might race straight
+for years, yes, forever; but his temper might
+slip him to-morrow. I know he means right, but
+it can't be chanced. I'll risk seeing no more men
+picked up as you were. Corrie, whenever I've
+said must&mdash;that hasn't been often&mdash;you've answered.
+I think you will now. Get off that
+machine and come home with me, my boy; we will
+try a fresh start, you and I."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie stirred slightly; even his lips were gray
+and dark circles appeared suddenly stamped be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>neath
+his eyes. He offered no defence or demur,
+but before his movement could spell obedience
+Gerard had sprung across the intervening space
+and dropped his left hand on the driver's arm,
+forcing him to retain his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay there," he commanded curtly. "You
+are my employee, under contract to drive my cars
+this season; if you break your signed agreement
+I will bring you up before the A.M.A. board
+and have you suspended for unprofessional conduct."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie gasped as from a dash of cold water in
+the face, the rough tonic effectually bringing him
+out of his daze of habitual submission.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rose, this is not sentiment, but business,"
+Gerard continued in his usual tone. "Corrie is
+not racing to-morrow for the first time, or for the
+fifth or sixth, this season. He is the cordially
+liked and respected comrade of his fellow-drivers&mdash;there
+is not one who would not laugh in your
+face at the idea of fearing to have him among
+them. I tell you, for the rest, that any other
+man on the course might let his nerves trick his
+self-control; Corrie Rose never will. I know
+him, now, better than you yet can. But," he
+snatched a rapid survey of Corrie, then lifted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+hand from the other's arm and drew back, "he
+is not a child; let him decide."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie&mdash;&mdash;" his father recommenced, his
+voice choked.</p>
+
+<p>But Corrie had found himself. He laid one
+firm, gauntleted hand on the beloved steering-wheel
+and turned to Mr. Rose the serious countenance
+and steadfast eyes of the new Corrie of the
+Mercury's making. With the other hand he
+pressed the dog's great head closer to him; perhaps
+only Allan Gerard saw and translated the
+pathos of that unconscious gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"I would do anything else, sir," he stated
+simply. "But Gerard has stayed by me through
+the worst time I will ever have. I know&mdash;you
+gave me money; but he helped me <i>live</i>. Afterward
+I will do whatever you bid me, now I cannot
+leave him without a driver on the eve of a race.
+All the more," his speaking glance went to
+Gerard, "all the more I must stay, because he
+would rather hold me strictly to a business contract
+than remind me that I owe him anything or
+that it is through me that he is not driving this
+car himself."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of absolute silence. Then
+the rustle of soft garments came with Flavia's
+swift crossing from the doorway where she and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+Rupert had witnessed the contest. Straight to
+the side of the gray machine she went, and clasping
+her little hands over her brother's arm, raised
+to him the high trust and unchanging love of
+her regard.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest, I hope you win, to-morrow," she said
+bravely and sweetly. "But kiss me, Corrie, and
+come home afterward. We need you, papa and
+I&mdash;and Allan."</p>
+
+<p>"Other Fellow," he thanked her, under his
+breath, and leaned down to give the caress.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard and Mr. Rose were looking at each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You win," conceded the older man, without
+rancor. "I hope we are not sorry. Bring him
+to the house after you get through, to-morrow, I
+guess we'll be a family party."</p>
+
+<p>The snorting uproar of an arriving racing car
+crashed across reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Rosie, did you rope those hams and
+eggs?" blithely shouted the masked driver, checking
+his machine. "If you didn't, I'll hook a wheel
+off your cart to-morrow when I pass you. Why
+haven't you canned your car yet? Oh, excuse
+<i>me</i>!" perceiving Flavia.</p>
+
+<p>"I roped them, George," assured Corrie. "I'm
+coming in, now."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rupert advanced to the front of the Mercury.</p>
+
+<p>"You're giving orders," he signified to his
+driver. "Do I crank?"</p>
+
+<p>The slight episode was the fitting period to
+Gerard's argument; he gave Mr. Rose his fine,
+cool smile to point it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Frederick the Great did not go home to the
+pink villa. Not even Flavia could win him from
+the master he had refound. So it happened that
+when Gerard went to Corrie, after midnight, he
+discovered his driver seated beside an open window
+in the drab, cheerless hotel bedroom, his arms
+folded on the sill and the dog's head resting on
+his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, do you know it is past twelve o'clock?"
+he exclaimed, purposely authoritative in spite of
+his aching pity. "I saw the light over your
+door and came in to give you what Rupert describes
+as a calling down. How do you expect
+to be up fresh and fit for a race at dawn? You
+go to bed, young man, where I sent you two good
+hours ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going," Corrie replied, without turning.
+"I'm&mdash;all right. Gerard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The pause was so long that Gerard came quietly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+over and put his hand on the other's shoulder,
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard, do you remember what Rupert once
+said, in the yacht club where we fed the tramp,
+about my getting just what I earned and that no
+luck would soften my brick walls? And I said
+I was content because I meant to earn what I
+wanted. I didn't know what I was talking about,
+but he was right. I'm not complaining, you know;
+it's fair enough. No, don't answer yet; that isn't
+what I meant to say."</p>
+
+<p>The dog moved restlessly and whined, nestling
+closer to the master he loved. Corrie dropped a
+hand to the animal's neck.</p>
+
+<p>"This good old chap and I will go to bed,
+presently. We've got to win, to-morrow; it's the
+last time. Gerard, did you ever read a poem
+Flavia and I used to like, I wonder? About a
+man having the strength of ten, because his heart
+was clean? Do you believe it&mdash;I mean, that a man
+can stand more if he knows he is right inside
+than if, if he could not think that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, yes, I do believe it. But there are
+few stainless Galahads. Strength and rightness
+do not depend on the past, but the present. The
+finest strength I have seen, has been in men who,
+who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The intended conclusion died on his lips, before
+he found words to soften its intrinsically harsh
+implication. Corrie had turned to him a glance so
+clear, a face so startling in its white resolution
+and dignity of fearless candor, that Gerard drew
+back with a sensation of rebuked presumptuousness.
+What he had offered as a consolation suddenly
+loomed as an insult.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Corrie, quite simply.
+"You're awfully good to me, Gerard. I don't
+know why I said all that&mdash;I, I guess something
+slipped. Good night; Fred and I will get some
+sleep. It's a short night, anyhow."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>XVI</h2>
+<h3>THE WHITE ROAD OF HONOR</h3>
+
+<p>The ruddy dawn that flushed along the edge
+of the east illuminated a vast, waiting multitude.
+For its twelve miles of twisted length, the narrow
+ribbon of the Cup course was walled in on either
+side by the massed people and uncounted
+hundreds of automobiles. The neighboring
+States, the great cities of New York and Jersey,
+the countrysides far and near had emptied their
+motor-car enthusiasts and sport lovers into this
+strip of Long Island, for to-day. Laughing, eating
+picnic breakfasts, laying wagers and preparing
+score-cards, the crowd swayed tiptoe on the
+keen edge of expectancy; while up and down the
+course drove and pushed the hurrying hundreds
+who had not yet found satisfactory place.</p>
+
+<p>As the dawn brightened into full, golden
+October day, the crush became greater, the haste
+and anticipation more intense. When a spluttering
+roar announced one of the arriving racers,
+the press would open, cheering, to leave his car
+passage and close in behind him with boisterous
+comment and criticism.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That was the six Atlanta, Louis driving,
+wasn't it, Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rub your eyes, you're asleep yet&mdash;that was
+the Mercury, Rose up. Can't you tell a peach
+from a lemon? Quit shoving, there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bet you ten a foreign car wins."</p>
+
+<p>"Take you. It'll be the Bluette or the Mercury.
+Get back, here comes another. They start in
+twenty minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Opposite the grand-stand the excitement was
+greatest, but most orderly. Around the row of
+repair pits men ran in and out, hovering about
+their cars with solicitous final attentions and
+eager encouragement to the smiling drivers. The
+first machine was already at the starting-line,
+ready as an arrow on the cord, its pilot smoking
+a cigarette and chatting indolently with the official
+starter.</p>
+
+<p>"I drew second for you, last night," Gerard
+reminded his driver, leaning against the Mercury
+to look up at him. "Of course, you have your
+numbers on. You will have to get into line in a
+moment; don't you want to get out and move
+about, first? You are going to have six or seven
+hours' grind."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm rested best right here," responded Corrie
+placidly. He nestled himself more snugly into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+his seat and proceeded to fasten on the mask and
+hood that quenched his blond youth into kinship
+of blank identity with every other driver on the
+course. "The crowd is pretty thick; I hope they
+get the people off."</p>
+
+<p>"The police are clearing the way, now.
+Corrie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The thunderous voice of the car from the next
+camp interrupted speech as it went past them.</p>
+
+<p>"Good luck, Rosie! I'll leave your rear wheels
+alone," shouted its driver. "By-by, Allan."</p>
+
+<p>"If he's worried bad about his, I'll lend him a
+safety-pin from my shirtwaist," drawled Rupert,
+lounging up, hooking his own mask. "I ain't
+muck-raking, but he broke his rear axle at Indianapolis,
+last month, and lost two wheels."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie," Gerard pursued, "you are to bring
+yourself back safely. I do not want any victories
+at the price of your wreck. Remember that I am
+responsible for your being at this work, and remember
+Flavia."</p>
+
+<p>"If I wreck my car there won't be <i>any</i> victory,"
+Corrie practically returned. "Besides, I have
+got Rupert with me to be looked after; if I were
+making a speed dash by myself I might take a
+chance or two. You never let me out alone. It's
+all right. They are signalling."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rupert sprang into his seat like a rubber ball,
+bracing one small legging-clad foot for support;
+not the least of a racing mechanician's arts being
+that of clinging at all times to his reeling post of
+duty. Gerard held out his hand for Corrie's parting
+clasp, then exchanged a warm grip with
+Rupert. Between the driver and mechanician who
+were to play the perilous game side by side, there
+passed no such friendly touch. Gerard never
+looked at the watching violet-blue eyes of the third
+man during that farewell ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of yourselves," he bade.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a nice morning for a ramble," observed
+Rupert. "Don't worry, love, we'll be in to tea."</p>
+
+<p>The Mercury Titan rolled into place in the
+line of flaming, panting machines. The driver of
+the first car threw away his cigarette and sat up.
+There was a pause while the group of officials
+poised, watches in hand, the people rose, then the
+starter leaned forward and the first car sprang
+from the line.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the gay tumult of music and cheers, Corrie
+waited the half-minute interval, his eyes on the
+counting official, his hand on the lever, until the
+starter's hearty clap fell on his shoulder with
+the word:</p>
+
+<p>"Go!"</p>
+
+<p>With an explosive roar the Mercury shot across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+the line and rushed, gathering speed in long leaps,
+down the white course. Under the first arched
+bridge, out of sight it flashed, followed by an
+answering roar from the countless throats of those
+between whose dense ranks it sped.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard moved back a few paces. He had become
+rather pale and grave; his gaze remained
+fixed on the distant arch through which the Mercury
+had vanished, nor did he turn to watch the
+sending away of the other nineteen racers.</p>
+
+<p>The touch laid on his sleeve was feather-light.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not stay away," pleaded Flavia, beside
+him. "May I watch Corrie with you, Allan?"</p>
+
+<p>He wheeled eagerly, catching her retreating
+hand before it escaped from his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I know why Corrie calls you 'Other Fellow,'"
+he welcomed. "It is because you always know
+the right thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other in the morning
+brightness, revelling in the fresh wonder of
+mutual possession.</p>
+
+<p>"This is hurting you," she grieved. "I saw
+you before you did me, when the cars started&mdash;you
+were thinking that last year you yourself
+would have been there."</p>
+
+<p>He checked her with the warm brilliance of his
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Not of myself," he denied. "If there was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+anything to regret, do you think I could remember
+it since I have you? No, I was thinking that
+Corrie is barely twenty, that I had trained him
+and sent him out there in that machine in defiance
+of his father's wish&mdash;in fact, I believe I had an
+attack of remorseful panic."</p>
+
+<p>"You did it for Corrie," she gave swift comfort.
+"Can you suppose that papa and I do not understand
+that? You could have found drivers already
+skilled, for your car; instead you troubled to
+take him and make him what he is now. He is so
+different from the desperate boy we left, Allan.
+Whatever happens out there to-day, you have
+done the best for Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>The feverish activity of the camps was swirling
+around them. Gerard gently drew the young girl
+to the place where his private roadster waited,
+somewhat aside from the centre of action, and
+put her in the scarlet-cushioned seat. After her
+paced Corrie's dog and took its place beside her
+in stately guardianship.</p>
+
+<p>"You can see everything here, and it is not so
+rough for you," he explained. "Flavia, a year
+ago I bought this, when I bought the yellow roses
+on the night before my last drive. Will you let
+me take off your little glove and put it on your
+finger, now?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her lashes sparkling wet, Flavia bent to him,
+and in the face of crowds and camps Gerard set
+his ring on her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Men were leaning over railings, holding ready
+watches open. At the repair pit next but one to
+the Mercury's, the mechanics and men in charge
+had drawn together in whispering groups.</p>
+
+<p>"Car coming!" the word passed suddenly from
+lip to lip.</p>
+
+<p>On the summit of the white hill a mile distant,
+a red signal flag went up. A dark shape darted
+up over the rise, glanced with incredible swiftness
+down the incline, disappearing momentarily behind
+the packed angle, then again shot into view
+and sped past the grand-stand like a humming
+projectile; the driver a fixed statue of concentration
+on the road before him, the mechanician half-turned
+in his seat to watch for cars behind.</p>
+
+<p>The place burst into uproar.</p>
+
+<p>"Number two! Number two first!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mercury leads!"</p>
+
+<p>Horns were blown, handkerchiefs waved, the
+applause breaking out anew as a second car
+rushed past in hot pursuit of the flying Mercury.</p>
+
+<p>"Three! Number three!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh you Bluette!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes another&mdash;get back!"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flavia stooped from her seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Allan, that was Corrie&mdash;where is the car that
+started before him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tire trouble, perhaps. You are trembling,
+dear! Let my chauffeur take you home and wait
+quietly there until I bring Corrie to you after
+the race."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, please no. Here I can see him each lap
+and know he is safe so far. Let me stay."</p>
+
+<p>Two cars thundered past, struggling desperately
+for place. The noise of the excited
+people overwhelmed all conversation and left the
+two lovers silent. From time to time a telephone
+bell jingled across the tumult, blue-uniformed messengers
+hurried here and there. But when the
+last of twenty cars had passed, the twenty-first
+not appearing, there fell a lull and men settled
+back to wait for the second lap.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes passed, ten. The red flags went
+up again; two speeding shapes topped the rise
+and plunged out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Two and three!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Bluette&mdash;no&mdash;Mercury leads still!"</p>
+
+<p>Excitement flared high as the two racers reappeared.
+But as they swept down the straight
+stretch, the mechanician of the Mercury raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+his arms above his head in warning, the car slackened
+speed and drew to the side of the course.
+As the Bluette machine fled past him, Corrie
+brought his car to a halt opposite the judges'
+stand, leaning toward the official who sprang to
+his side.</p>
+
+<p>"The America's off the second bridge&mdash;send
+the ambulance to the road below," he called, his
+ringing voice penetrating bell-clear through the
+heavier sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Before his grim message was fairly comprehended,
+he had slammed into a gear and was off
+to regain the sacrificed moment.</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief flurry in the official stand.
+One man seized the telephone while another went
+slowly to the lost car's camp. From lip to lip
+the news went.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry was married last week," observed an
+oil-smeared mechanic, touching his cap to Gerard
+in going by. "I guess there's no show after that
+tumble; Rose might as well have saved his time."</p>
+
+<p>"There is more than one prize in a contest,"
+Gerard disagreed, meeting Flavia's awed eyes.
+"Corrie Rose may win better than a gold cup."</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie&mdash;&mdash;?" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie has given his leading place and one
+of his hoarded fragments of time&mdash;these races are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+won or lost by scant minutes&mdash;for the bare chance
+that his report might send aid to the injured men
+a little sooner than if that task were left to the
+frightened witnesses of the disaster."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia's small head lifted proudly, bright color
+flashed into the countenance whose loving faith
+had never failed Corrie in his hours of disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish papa had seen," she longed wistfully.
+And after a moment: "You yourself have done
+the same; he told me so, once. Now you have
+taught him to do what you never can do any more,
+poor Allan."</p>
+
+<p>A curious expression crossed Gerard's mobile
+face; hesitation and doubt blended with a luminous
+radiance shining from some inward thought that
+leaped up like a clear flame. He moved as if to
+speak impulsively, but Flavia had turned to watch
+the approach of a rushing car, and he remained
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>In the next hour, the Mercury passed the grand-stand
+five times; sometimes alone, sometimes the
+quarry of a coursing group of speed-hounds whose
+flaming breath was close behind, sometimes itself
+curving around some slower rival amid the wave-like
+succession of cheers. The bulletin-board
+showed Corrie running in third place when he
+passed for the sixth time, with Rupert stretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+along the edge of the car to relieve his cramped
+limbs in an ease that suggested imminent death by
+falling.</p>
+
+<p>The seventh time the Mercury did not come
+around. Gerard, who had been in front, returned
+to Flavia with his steadying reassurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Tire trouble, no doubt," he told her. "He
+is due to have some; his luck has been astonishing
+in escaping it so far. He is driving to win;
+no car ever held the lead from start to finish."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia folded her hands in her lap, not trusting
+herself far enough to reply. Gerard studied his
+watch in silent calculation, as the minutes ticked
+past.</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been two tires," he at last
+hazarded. "When one blows out while actually
+on a turn, the other is almost certain to follow.
+Of course, they might have engine trouble."</p>
+
+<p>A French car rolled up to its repair pit,
+stopped, and suddenly burst into flames. There
+was a wild scramble among its force of attendants,
+a rush with fire extinguishers and pails of sand.
+Before the danger was realized, it had ended and
+the mechanics were at work upon the choked pipe
+which had sent the car to its camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped the young girl, rising.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard stopped her, pointing to the white hill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+The roar of an approaching car filled the air;
+as Flavia looked, the Mercury shot past, running
+faultlessly, but carrying two spare tires where she
+had started with four.</p>
+
+<p>"They will be in, next lap," Gerard predicted.
+"Rupert won't want to run with only two extra
+tires on board, and I don't think Corrie will overrule
+him."</p>
+
+<p>He went forward to give some directions to
+prepare for the flying visit, Flavia watching. She
+made no demand for attention, no betrayal of
+feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into
+which she had been brought. Men looked curiously
+at the delicate, serious girl who sat so quietly
+in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information
+crept out that she was Rose's sister and
+Gerard's fianc&eacute;e, so that wonder became merely
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>True to expectation, the Mercury halted before
+her repair pit, on the next circuit.</p>
+
+<p>"Cases," commanded Rupert, tersely, out of
+his seat before the stop. "Move quick! Who's
+nailed fast now?"</p>
+
+<p>The slur was undeserved; the waiting tires were
+flung on and secured by hurrying hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink it," Gerard ordered, thrusting a cup
+at Corrie, as that young driver leaned wearily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+back. "I don't care whether you want it or
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the people," Corrie explained, his blue
+eyes seeking Gerard's across the goggles. "I
+don't mind anything else. They're over the course
+so you can't see ahead. Jim hit a woman, on the
+back stretch, as we passed."</p>
+
+<p>He put the heavy china cup to his lips, but
+dropped it with a crash to seize his levers as
+Rupert bounded in beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Have the people cleared off," he petitioned
+over his shoulder, while sending his car forward.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard went to the judges' stand.</p>
+
+<p>Corrie Rose was not the first or only driver to
+complain of the packed course. The Mercury had
+scarcely departed when the Marathon car came
+in, its experienced and steel-fibred pilot on the
+brink of nervous breakdown.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't drive if the mob isn't put off the
+road," he defied his manager. "I've killed a
+woman back there&mdash;do you hear? A <i>woman</i>!
+There are women and kids right against the
+wheels on the worst turns. Get 'em off!"</p>
+
+<p>The Marathon force flocked around him in consternation,
+while his manager ran to the judges
+and the owner of the car implored and adjured
+the recalcitrant driver to go on without further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+loss of time. But it was Gerard who saved the
+situation for his rival.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, Jim," he called across, issuing
+from the official stand and comprehending the
+deadlock at sight. "You only broke her leg&mdash;a
+telephone report came. Go on; everyone's with
+you, man!"</p>
+
+<p>The Marathon's mechanician, wise in knowledge
+of his pilot, at this juncture leaned over and thrust
+between Jim's lips a lighted cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Buck up! We're losin'," he urged roughly.</p>
+
+<p>The driver's teeth sullenly clamped shut upon
+the strong tobacco; he slammed viciously into a
+gear and hurled his machine down the course
+before the startled camp realized its victory. The
+stop had lasted exactly three minutes, but it cost
+the Marathon its hope of the race.</p>
+
+<p>The morning advanced, gaining in sun-gilt
+beauty. In the next hour four racers were taken
+from the contest, three by mechanical difficulties,
+one as the result of an accident that sent both
+driver and mechanician to the hospital. The
+Mercury continued to run steadily and evenly,
+keeping a consistent pace.</p>
+
+<p>"How much longer?" Flavia anxiously questioned,
+once. "Do you think everything can stay
+right to the very end, Allan?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gerard laid his warm left hand over her cold
+one, as it rested on the cushions, his loving eyes
+caressing her.</p>
+
+<p>"Two hours more, my Flavia. Most surely I
+believe everything can stay right; why not? Remember
+Corrie delights in this. He is happier now
+than when he is what we call at rest. If," again
+that singular expression of blended shadow and
+inward illumination rose over his face, "if I were
+to be made myself and wholly cured, it would not
+change Corrie's position in Corrie's eyes. I cannot
+help him there in that hard part, but I have
+given him a way to forget for a while."</p>
+
+<p>Her soft mouth bent grievedly; Flavia's attention
+was effectually distracted from contemplation
+of her brother's bodily peril.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard turned aside. He had heard the reports
+arrive of one accident after another, he saw driver
+after driver come in gray-lipped and savage under
+the strain of racing on the crowded path, and he
+knew what Flavia did not&mdash;that this was proving
+the most disastrous affair ever held on the Cup
+course.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind risking my own neck, I'm used
+to that," gritted an old-time comrade to Gerard,
+during a pause for refilling tanks. "It's the
+people under foot; &mdash;&mdash; them! Haven't they any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+sense? Jim's Marathon hit a man, ten minutes
+ago; he's still driving, half crazy, because he
+can't stop. <i>Damn</i> the country police!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose is changing tires at the Westbury turn.
+I'm off."</p>
+
+<p>That bit of news spared a bad quarter-hour to
+the two who loved Corrie.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard was at the front of the camp, watching
+for his car, when he felt a hand lain on his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Some racer just went off the turnpike into
+the ditch," Mr. Rose's subdued tones informed
+him. "Where's Corrie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Safe; changing tires on this side of the turnpike,"
+Gerard gave quick assurance. "It's not
+he. But this has been a bad day; I'm not surprised
+that you couldn't keep away from here."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't keep away," Mr. Rose assented
+heavily. He drew out his handkerchief and passed
+it across his forehead, damp under the line of
+reddish-gray hair, pushing open his overcoat with
+the abrupt gesture that was also a habit of his
+son's. "I've had a hell of an hour where I was,
+Gerard. This morning I got a letter from my
+niece, Isabel. It seems she is married and her
+husband made her write it."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The two men looked fully at each other; some
+quality in Thomas Rose's expression communicated
+its white reflection to Gerard's changing face.</p>
+
+<p>"He never did it&mdash;Corrie, I mean. Gerard,
+Isabel Rose threw the wrench that struck you and
+wrecked your car, last year. He's been shielding
+her. God, how I've ground it into the boy!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a tall pile of spare tires beside them;
+on it Gerard put his hand, steadying himself
+against the shock that was less of surprise than
+of poignant self-reproach for his own failure to
+divine this open riddle. In that moment of final
+understanding, he knew that he had seen the pitiful
+truth rise to the surface of Corrie's blue eyes a
+hundred times, and had left its appeal to die out,
+unanswered.</p>
+
+<p>Far down the course a ripple of cheering started,
+running nearer in a wave of gathering volume.
+Out around the curve swooped a gray streak, fled
+toward the camps, was opposite, and past. The
+Mercury was unleashed and hunting down its lost
+lead in the fastest speed of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rose brought his eyes from following its
+flight to meet Gerard's gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember how Isabel nagged him to take
+her around the race course in his pink machine,"
+he reminded. "I forbade it and thought no more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+about the thing. Well, she got him alone&mdash;you
+know, I guess, that he was wild with boy's near-love
+for her and would have let her drag the
+heart out of his body&mdash;and she got his promise to
+take her around once. She worked the plan all
+out; Corrie started without his mechanician, and
+she waited for him a mile down the course, dressed
+in her riding-habit and wearing a man's cap and
+motor-mask. She figured that no one would notice
+her much on the road and Corrie could drop her
+off after making the circuit, just before he reached
+the camps, so that he would come in alone as he
+started and no one would be the wiser. They were
+just a couple of fool kids on a kid lark."</p>
+
+<p>A yellow car roared to a stop beside them,
+interrupting clamorously. From his seat its
+mechanician fell rather than stepped.</p>
+
+<p>"He smashed his wrist cranking her," the
+driver raged. "Someone else&mdash;quick!"</p>
+
+<p>A blue-clad factory mechanic flung himself into
+the vacant place, bare-headed, without coat or
+mask.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's my chance!" he exulted. "Go on,
+I'm it."</p>
+
+<p>The car leaped out, no second wasted in parley.
+Men gathered up the injured mechanician and
+hurried him away. Mr. Rose looked on as if at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+a stage scene which did not interest him, and dully
+resumed his narrative.</p>
+
+<p>"It worked all right, Gerard, until they met
+you on the back stretch and you challenged Corrie
+to race. He didn't want to, with her along,
+but she devilled him to go on, and he did. I can
+guess it went to his head, having her beside him.
+When you began cutting Corrie off so he couldn't
+pass by, he caught the joke right enough. She
+says he was laughing when he began to pitch odd
+screws and bolts at your car&mdash;he was never angry
+for a moment, just playing, as you were. But
+she was all excited over losing; when she saw he
+had both hands busy and you were forcing them
+back again, she snatched something out of the open
+box Corrie had got the bolts from and threw it
+at you, herself. She didn't know what she had
+thrown or done, until she saw you fall stunned
+across your steering-wheel and your car plunge
+off the road."</p>
+
+<p>"I might have known," said Gerard, and turned
+his face to the course he did not see.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> might have known!" flared Mr. Rose.
+"What was the matter with <i>me</i>? Hadn't I lived
+with Corwin B. Rose since he was born and never
+had seen him cheat or play foul, win or lose?
+He was straight, always. I should have known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+when he wouldn't talk&mdash;he never was afraid to
+speak out and take his licking. Oh yes, I belong
+to the brutal common people and Corrie wasn't
+brought up by moral suasion; he had more
+than one flogging before he was fourteen and we
+called him a man. And he never lied to dodge one.
+I went back on him; he never did on me."</p>
+
+<p>The gay tumult of the tensely-strung multitude
+was in their ears, the band-music crashed blatant
+aid to the excitement. With a humming purr and
+rush the Mercury car shot past again, followed by
+the long roll of applause.</p>
+
+<p>"We're leading by a minute and a half," one of
+Gerard's men triumphed, running past on some
+errand. "Oh you Rosie!"</p>
+
+<p>"He stopped his machine as soon as he could,
+and put Isabel out," Mr. Rose continued sombrely.
+"She says herself that she was scared sick and
+begged him to save her. I can guess that part.
+Anyhow, he told her to go home and say nothing,
+that he would take care of her. He did. If it
+hadn't been for your protecting him, that morning,
+he might have ended in State's prison. I
+don't suppose she would ever have cleared him if
+she hadn't fallen in love with one of those Southerners
+she has been visiting, and blurted out the
+truth when he proposed, the other day. He put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+her in a buggy, drove over to the nearest clergyman,
+and married her then and there; then gave
+her paper and pen and made her write the whole
+story to me. He is a gentleman; he'd stand with
+her for whatever she had done, but he would not
+stand for her leaving Corrie to bear her blame.
+I'll make it up to him, yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does Flavia know?" Gerard asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I gave her Isabel's letter on the way across
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>Flavia was sitting in the car with her wet handkerchief
+clasped in her folded hands, her veils
+drawn across the hushed beauty of her face. As
+Gerard came up, she bent to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie," she breathed. "Corrie, to do this!
+I am proud and glad and humbled. How could
+he, how could he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has more courage than I," Gerard gravely
+acknowledged. "I could not have done it. A
+superb folly, unjust to himself and us. He might
+safely have confided in his father or me and have
+trusted Isabel to our care."</p>
+
+<p>"Allan, she had his promise to tell no one and
+she held him to it. She was ill and hysterical with
+terrified shame; Isabel never could endure to be
+found at fault even in little things. She was not
+bad or wicked, but just a coward."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She found strength enough to watch Corrie
+under torture week after week," he retorted, his
+golden-brown eyes hardening to agate. "If I had
+been killed under my car, Flavia, do you realize
+that Rupert would have brought your brother
+face to face with the electric chair? And Corrie
+would have shut his lips and endured it all. Don't
+ask me to pity Isabel Rose&mdash;I've lived this year
+with her victim."</p>
+
+<p>Trembling under the control forced on herself,
+Flavia slipped her hand into his.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Allan, I know. Yet she did suffer to
+see his suffering. In her letter, she says that
+Corrie came to her at dawn, the last morning
+we were all at home, and called her out into the
+empty hall to beseech her for permission to tell
+you. He had not been to bed that night, at all.
+She never afterward forgot his desperate, worn
+face and that memory finally drove her to confession.
+But she refused him. He did break
+down then, and flashed out at her that he must
+and would tell you the truth, when he left her.
+Of course he did not do so. Allan, she declares
+that he then told you, that she knows it because
+you wrote to her that evening about your accident
+and said you would take care of Corrie whatever
+happened."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your letter to me. She had been insane with
+dread all day, believing Corrie would fulfil his
+threat to tell you his innocence, and when Rupert
+came she saw only that idea confirmed. She knew
+of no relations between you and me. She thought
+only of herself."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard looked at her, having no words; presently
+he sat down on the edge of the car at her
+feet, and they continued silent, hand in hand.
+Mr. Rose had found a camp-chair in the shadow
+of a wall, and sat watching the race in grim
+quiescence.</p>
+
+<p>When the last hour of the contest was reached,
+it was noted that the Mercury car had suddenly
+slackened its pace. The difference in speed was
+not great; the car was running faultlessly, but
+keeping a slower gait. The men in the Mercury
+camp clustered together, waiting and discussing.</p>
+
+<p>The car came around on the next lap with the
+condition hardly improved. Rupert was neither
+watching behind nor busied with his usual duties,
+but sat erect in his seat with one arm around
+Corrie's shoulders, apparently talking in the
+driver's ear, head bent to head. Neither glanced
+toward the row of repair pits or the grand-stand,
+as they passed between and on out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+view. Gerard's brows contracted sharply; he
+uttered an excuse to Flavia and went front.</p>
+
+<p>"Morton's giving out, too," the manager of
+the next camp imparted confidentially, joining him.
+"The road-bed is rotten, the men say. Ten feet
+of it caved in at one turn. Too bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose had no sleep last night," Gerard briefly
+excused his driver.</p>
+
+<p>"God, how I've ground it into the boy," Corrie's
+father had said; and Gerard could have echoed
+the cry, looking back at what he had meant for
+kindness.</p>
+
+<p>The moments dragged, the next scant quarter-hour
+stretched long. But at last the Mercury's
+vibrant voice rolled down the white road, approaching.
+Up to her camp the car sped, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Before the halt was effected, Rupert had
+snatched off the driver's suffocating mask, leaning
+over him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oil, gas," he demanded generally. "Jump
+for those tanks, <i>quick</i>. Here, Rose&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His white, fatigue-drawn face bared to the fresh
+wind, Corrie tried to speak, but instead let his
+head fall forward on his arm as it rested upon the
+steering-wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose, you low-down quitter, you punk chauffeuse!"
+Rupert stormed at him. "You going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+to chuck up a won race? You mollycoddle&mdash;&mdash;Water,
+you fellows&mdash;can't you even wait on a
+real man? Here, Rose, you ain't anything but a
+fake!"</p>
+
+<p>He carefully splashed the water over the boyish
+forehead, streaks of grime trickling over them
+both.</p>
+
+<p>"Fill the tanks," Corrie gasped, lying passive
+under the rough treatment. "I'm ready to go
+on&mdash;tell me when."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard was beside the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie," he began.</p>
+
+<p>Rupert unexpectedly flamed out at him across
+the prostrate figure:</p>
+
+<p>"Let him alone! He ain't a Sandow and the
+driving's hell. He's going on, I tell you. Here,
+Rose, get some class into you, what?"</p>
+
+<p>But Gerard had a better tonic than cold water
+or stinging abuse. He silenced the mechanician
+with a glance and laid his hand on Corrie's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, your cousin has told us the truth," he
+said. "We know, now, who caused the wreck of
+my car last year."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie started so violently as to overturn the
+jug in Rupert's hand and send its contents over
+them both, his avid blue eyes flashed wide to
+Gerard.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Isabel&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isabel has told us that your companion threw
+the wrench that struck me, and why you bore the
+charge. You stand cleared."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie slowly drew himself erect in his seat,
+brushing the water from his eyes and pushing
+back his wet clusters of fair hair. It was not so
+much color as vital life that flowed into his face,
+mechanically he reached for his mask.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," he answered. "I can drive, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Tanks full," shouted a score of voices.</p>
+
+<p>Men scattered from around the car's wheels in
+expectation of the start, Gerard stepped back.
+But Corrie turned in his seat and held out his
+hand to the speechless Rupert.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard&mdash;now do it," he required.</p>
+
+<p>Still dumb, the mechanician dragged off his
+glove and gave for the race's finish the hand-clasp
+that he had denied for its start.</p>
+
+<p>The Mercury sprang from her camp with a
+roar of unloosed power and speed-lust. Car and
+driver splendid mates, they fled in pulsating vigor
+down their white path where the sun was shining.</p>
+
+<p>During the rest of the hour, people stood up
+in seats and automobiles, watching the Mercury
+Titan. Not before had they witnessed driving
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+like that, never again could the driver himself
+equal that inspired flight.</p>
+
+<p>Just sixty-nine seconds ahead of his nearest
+rival, Corrie Rose brought his car across the line.
+As he halted the Mercury before the judges, the
+people burst out over the course and overwhelmed
+the victors. Music, clicking cameras, cheers and
+congratulations&mdash;the current of gayety swirled
+around the winning racer. The first to grasp
+Corrie's hand was the official starter who had sent
+him out six hours before, the second was the driver
+of the barely-defeated Marathon. After that,
+there was no record possible.</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before Corrie and Rupert
+could be rescued from the enthusiastic press of
+admirers. When at last the Mercury came over
+to its own camp, Gerard was first able to bring
+Flavia to her brother.</p>
+
+<p>Stiff, weary and dishevelled, Corrie descended
+from his car, tripping impatiently over the
+flowers someone had placed in it. There was a
+perfunctory quality in the tenderness with which
+he kissed Flavia, as there had been a restive haste
+in his acceptance of his present ovation. Now, he
+turned his candid eyes full to Gerard's, baring his
+inmost need to the one who always understood.</p>
+
+<p>"I want my father," said Corrie Rose.</p>
+
+<div class="figtag">
+  <a id="image_001"></a>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i001.jpg" alt="Celebrating Victory"
+title="THE PEOPLE BURST OUT OVER THE COURSE AND OVERWHELMED THE VICTORS" />
+<p class="caption">THE PEOPLE BURST OUT OVER THE COURSE AND OVERWHELMED THE VICTORS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Very lovingly Gerard put his arm around the
+slim shoulders and drew his master-driver to a
+tent behind the repair pit, there left him to enter
+alone and went back to Flavia.</p>
+
+<p>"I put twelve ham sandwiches and my will in
+the locker, there," he found Rupert sweetly explaining
+to the young girl. "I guessed I'd have
+use for one or the other by this time. And I
+guess I guessed right. Oh, no&mdash;I'll be able to
+take my regular nourishment just the same, when
+we get back; this won't count. I," he sent Gerard
+a glance of saturnine intelligence, "I've got myself
+all tired out here lately trying to keep on
+disliking Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Allan, have you thought that we are going
+home?" Flavia asked, lifting her happy face to
+her lover, as he stood over her. "<i>Home</i>; papa
+and Corrie, and you and I, who were so far
+apart."</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought that you would put on that
+lace frock you wore the last evening I saw you
+there, only this time you will come where I can
+touch you. Shall I tell you what you looked like
+that night? You were a golden rose in a sheath
+of snow, quite out of reach. And you played your
+dainty music so calmly and smoothly, while I was
+on fire and seeing rose-color as I listened to your
+father's stories. I was like poor Cyrano de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+Bergerac: I had gazed so long at your sun-bright
+little head that when I looked away my dazzled
+eyes still saw gold."</p>
+
+<p>Her red mouth dimpled into soft mischief and
+daring.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you what <i>I</i> saw while I was playing,
+Allan? I watched you under my eyelashes&mdash;this way&mdash;and
+I wondered whether anyone else
+ever looked quite so nice even from behind, and,
+and what it would be like to touch your crinkly
+hair with one's finger."</p>
+
+<p>"Do it now!"</p>
+
+<p>She declined with an eloquent gesture. Around
+their enclosure the vast crowds were streaming
+back to New York, the course was filled from edge
+to edge with a solid procession of homing automobiles
+of every type and age. Amid noise and congestion
+and merriment, Long Island's guests were
+trouping out.</p>
+
+<p>But comparative quietness had descended upon
+the row of pits when, half an hour later, Mr. Rose
+and Corrie strolled casually up to join the other
+two members of the party.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how long you propose to stay
+here," observed the senior, tolerantly. "Lenoir
+is waiting with the limousine, and it strikes us
+it's about time to start for home."</p>
+
+<p>"Chilly wind blowing, too," Corrie suggested,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+his hands in the pockets of his long gray motor-coat.
+"Fancy Lenoir lugging this old coat of
+mine around in the car, Other Fellow, until now.
+It's a wonder the butterflies haven't eaten it&mdash;moths,
+I mean."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard and Flavia exchanged a glance of infinitely
+tender comprehension of these two.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to show you all something, first,"
+Gerard detained them. "We don't want to take
+any worries home that we can leave here. Give
+me that ball of tape you put in your pocket this
+morning, Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>Astonished, Corrie obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Rupert!" Gerard sent his clear voice
+across to where that black-eyed mechanician leaned
+against the Mercury Titan, a hundred feet away.
+"Catch!"</p>
+
+<p>Rupert promptly turned. The improvised ball
+in his fingers, Gerard slowly raised both arms
+above his head in the old graceful gesture, his
+brilliant amber eyes smiling at his companions,
+then launched the sphere straight to its goal.</p>
+
+<p>It was not Flavia who found overtaxed nerves
+give way.</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard! <i>Gerard!</i>" Corrie's cry rang out; he
+sank down on a camp-chair and covered his face.</p>
+
+<p>Alarmed and remorseful, Gerard sprang to him.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Corrie&mdash;don't take it like that! It is all
+right; I've been fighting for this ten months
+under a French surgeon's orders."</p>
+
+<p>"You never told me. Oh, Gerard, Gerard!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not want to tell you until I was sure
+the cure was real and permanent. And I was not
+sure until I met the surgeon in New York, yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"You could have told me last night. I might
+have been killed to-day and <i>never</i> have known."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard exchanged with Mr. Rose a glance of
+very sad understanding, a mutual acknowledgment
+of mutual error.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have driven the Mercury to-day
+against your father's wish, if you had known that
+I should be able to drive my own car next year?
+I think not. If you were to be taken from me and
+this life, I wanted you to take with you the
+memory of this race instead of the humiliation of
+a withdrawal. And I believed that I was dealing
+with an unsteadied boy who needed the sharp tonic
+of work and danger&mdash;ah, Corrie, forgive me!&mdash;instead
+of the strongest man in endurance I ever
+knew. But I would tell no one else until I did
+you, although," he turned to the radiant girl,
+"although it was hard not to hold out both hands
+to Flavia."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She put her hands in both his, then, and felt
+them close on hers for all time.</p>
+
+<p>"Rupert knew," Corrie presently divined, as
+the unsurprised mechanician lounged toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Rupert knew," Gerard confirmed. "He
+helped me go through the treatment each day.
+One reason I did not tell you what we were doing,
+was that the process was not very pleasant, and it
+used to leave me rather upset and sick for a while&mdash;you
+caught me too soon after it that morning
+you signed the contracts. Don't wince; <i>you</i> had
+nothing to do with my smash."</p>
+
+<p>"But I blamed myself, always!" Corrie stood
+up, thrusting his hands into his pockets and
+squaring his shoulders with the sturdy responsibility
+so easily read now. "I had no business
+to take Isabel there, and I put the mischief into
+her head by pitching bolts at you. She couldn't
+tell it was in fun. I&mdash;I would rather have known
+you'd get well, Gerard, than have known I was
+cleared."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't it ever occur to you, Corrie, to blame
+<i>us</i>, when we were so ready to convict you and
+pass judgment?" countered Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>Checked, Corrie surveyed the three with the
+ingenuous astonishment of a new point of view.</p>
+
+<p>"Blame you people?" he marvelled. "Why,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+when I thought what a low brute you had every
+right to believe I was, I used to feel like thanking
+you for staying in the same room with me. I&mdash;Well,
+I guess it's time to go home, isn't it? I'll
+leave you to start."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave us?" exclaimed Flavia.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll make a line for that limousine right
+now, Corwin B.," pronounced Mr. Rose, with the
+familiar easy mastery that was a caress.</p>
+
+<p>His son laughingly shook his fair head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks, sir. I'm going to drive the
+Mercury Titan home and put it in the garage.
+Unless," he looked over his shoulder, "unless
+Rupert is afraid to trust himself to ride with a
+punk chauffeuse and a no-class fake?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't real nervous to-day," drawled the
+mechanician graciously. "Nor I ain't supposing
+but what you're entitled to a chauffeur's license,
+Rose."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>XVII</h2>
+<h3>THE END OF THE ROAD</h3>
+
+<p>In the golden afternoon sunlight, when tree-shadows
+stretched long and velvet-soft across the
+lawns and terraces of Mr. Rose's park, amid all
+October's blending fragrances and mellow tints,
+Corrie Rose came home. After all, it was Jack
+Rupert who put the Mercury Titan in the garage,
+opposite the house Corrie; yielding his seat to
+his mechanician.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'll let you take her around; I
+want to go in with my people," the driver explained.
+"You might as well get established
+here, you know, since you are going to stay some
+time. I," it was so long since anyone had seen
+that teasing mischief sparkling in Corrie's unclouded
+eyes, "I have grown so used to your
+gentle, winning ways that I don't know how to
+get along without you, Rupert."</p>
+
+<p>Rupert settled himself in the great machine, regarding
+his companion with dry intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got more respect for your morals than I
+had, Rose, and less for your sense," he issued
+final judgment above the clamor of the motor,
+before sending the car away.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Right again," Corrie agreed. He turned and
+looked up at the house.</p>
+
+<p>The three from the limousine were waiting for
+him upon the columned veranda. Weary, stiff
+and aching from long exertion, soiled with the
+dust of course and road, Corrie, victor of that
+day and of many days, climbed the broad rose-colored
+steps to them. There was nothing adequate
+to say, had they been a demonstrative family;
+as it was, no one considered speech. But at the
+open door Corrie stopped, turning his bright, clear
+glance to his father. And Thomas Rose closed
+his hand on his son's shoulder, so that they crossed
+the threshold together.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard detained Flavia a pace behind.</p>
+
+<p>"When I see you in the lace gown, I am going
+to kiss you," he stated firmly. "I do not care
+how many people are present or where it is. So
+you had better come down early to the fountain
+arcade, where I have pictured you more often than
+you will ever know. Will you, flower-lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she doubted. "If I think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Heartsease for thought," said Gerard, and
+kissed her dimpling mouth.</p>
+
+<p>On the stairs a few minutes later, Corrie overtook
+his sister and caught her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I need a bath and some fresh rags and&mdash;well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+everything," he laughed. "I'm not fit to touch&mdash;do
+you mind?"</p>
+
+<p>She clasped her arms around his neck, nestling
+her soft cheek against the rough, grimy cloth of
+his driving-suit.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you! Oh, my dear, my dear, if mamma
+had lived, this year could never have happened!
+Not to you, nor to me."</p>
+
+<p>He looked into her upturned face, realizing
+with her the difference that might have been
+wrought by a mother's clairvoyant tenderness and
+the link of a wife's understanding between her
+husband and her children. No, without this lack
+in the household the year's deception could not
+have endured. If the chain of Roses had not
+once been broken, it could not have come so near
+this later destruction.</p>
+
+<p>"Flavia, you know I feel how good they have
+all been to me? You know what nonsense it was
+for Allan&mdash;he tells me I can't call my own brother
+'Gerard'&mdash;what nonsense it was for him to suggest
+that I ever could blame anyone but myself
+for what I had to stand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you feel it so, Corrie."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, I want to say there was only you, Other
+Fellow, who <i>never</i> hurt or made it harder."</p>
+
+<p>"Even&mdash;Allan?"</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think there never was a man so generous
+as Allan&mdash;but, only you. I," he drew a breath of
+inexpressible content, "I see a bully good life
+ahead, but I don't see any woman in it, unless I
+find one like you. And from what I overheard
+Allan saying, just now when I passed you both
+at the alcove, he's secured the only perfect angel-girl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand
+across his lips.</p>
+
+<p>But it was that evening, in the glowing richness
+and repose of the dining-room in the pink marble
+villa, now reinvested with the dignity of a home,
+that the core of the late situation was touched.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Allan Gerard was intent upon the
+study of Flavia's young beauty as she sat near him
+in the lace gown, this time with his ring flaunting
+conquest on her fragile hand. Mr. Rose was leaning
+back and idly watching the ice dissolve in his
+glass, when Corrie broke the pause, resting his
+arms on the table and lifting his gay, mirthful
+face to the man behind his chair:</p>
+
+<p>"Take away those oysters, Perkins! I want my
+soup right off, and a lot of it. I'm about
+starved&mdash;&mdash;" He stopped, himself struck by the
+words.</p>
+
+<p>The evoked recollections of that last dinner to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>gether
+were too much. Mr. Rose carefully put the
+glass down, his strong jaw setting. Flavia's large
+startled eyes flashed wet as they went to her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrie, Corrie, I can understand how you
+began," escaped Gerard impulsively. "But how
+could you carry it on month after month?"</p>
+
+<p>The ruddy color ran up to Corrie's forehead,
+he looked down at the table, sobered.</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't take me long to see I made an awful
+bungle of things," he confessed, half-shy and
+hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw
+what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given
+my word. I guess you'll understand a lot more
+than I can say; as Allan will understand, now,
+why I couldn't help knocking down that tramp who
+wanted money because I belonged in prison and
+wasn't there. It was all too much for me to
+think out! But&mdash;isn't there something said about
+a fellow who puts his hand to the plough not
+taking it off? I used to say that over to myself,
+when&mdash;well, at night, for instance. I might have
+been a chump, but it seemed up to me to keep on
+with the work I had started, and&mdash;and not to
+flinch."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, if you had only spared yourself what
+you could," Flavia grieved. "You could have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+said it was an accident, at least; that you never
+meant to hurt Allan."</p>
+
+<p>Corrie's violet-blue eyes laughed out of their
+eclipse and sought his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, Other Fellow! No tricks for mine;
+I had to tell just the truth or shut up. No, sir,
+whatever he <i>looked</i> like, Corrie Rose had to plough
+a straight furrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Straight furrows lead home," said Allan
+Gerard, not sententiously, but musingly.</p>
+
+<p>He also looked toward Mr. Rose, and the senior
+nodded slow agreement.</p>
+
+<p>"They do, Gerard. And we get more, sometimes,
+than we've any right to expect from anything
+we give. Where we spent this summer,
+Flavia and I liked the people. What we did for
+them didn't cost us much; we were not looking
+for any returns. But the news of it got out, somehow,
+and was cabled to New York days before
+we arrived here. One of the journals got the
+story and worked up a Sunday article about what
+an American millionaire had done for Val de Rosas,
+and interviewed a certain Luis C&aacute;rdenas and his
+wife, Elvira, whom Flavia had brought together&mdash;it
+seems they are happy and prospering well, my
+girl&mdash;and printed the whole thing along with a
+photograph of Corrie in his racing clothes, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+my son. New York papers go everywhere. The
+Southerner whom Isabel was in love with brought
+that article about her family to her, as an excuse
+for an early call, the morning he asked her to
+marry him. She says, herself, it was the picture
+of Corrie in the motor dress she last had seen him
+wear on the day of the accident, that broke her
+up so, and when her lover proposed she told him
+the whole truth. If I hadn't paid the taxes for
+Val de Rosas, Corrie would have been bearing a
+false charge yet."</p>
+
+<p>The silence held many thoughts; a silence broken
+by Corrie himself.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow we'll write a jolly note to Isabel,"
+he affirmed contentedly. "She doesn't need to
+worry on her honeymoon, poor kid; she has
+squared up. There doesn't seem to be any need
+for anyone to worry, ever, while they're trying to
+keep straight, since the scheme is a Square Deal,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>The two older men exchanged a glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess some of us need more than a square
+deal, Corwin B.," his father pronounced. "But
+it's all right; we get that, too."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap" style="font-size: larger">The End.</span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="adheadline">MYSTERY AND ACTION A'PLENTY</p>
+
+<h1>IN HER OWN RIGHT</h1>
+
+<p class="center">By JOHN REED SCOTT</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Author of "The Impostor," "The Colonel of the Red Huzzars,"
+"The Woman in Question," "The Princess Dehra," etc.</i></p>
+
+<p class="advert">Three colored illustrations<br />
+By CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD<br />
+12 mo. Decorated Cloth, $1.25 net.</p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">In</span> this new novel Mr. Scott returns to modern
+times, where he is as much at home as when writing
+of imaginary kingdoms or the days of powder and
+patches. Mr. Scott's last novel, "The Impostor,"
+had Annapolis in 1776 as its <i>locale</i>, but he shows his
+versatility by centering the important events of this
+romance in and around Annapolis of today.</p>
+
+<p>There are mystery and action a-plenty, and a
+charming love interest adds greatly to an already
+brilliant and exciting narrative.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>CRITICAL OPINIONS</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"A brisk and cleanly tale."&mdash;<i>Smart Set.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A sparkling, appealing novel of today."&mdash;<i>Portland Oregonian.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Enjoys the exceptional merit of being a stirring treasure tale
+kept within the bounds of likelihood."&mdash;<i>San Francisco Chronicle.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A charming and captivating romance filled with action from
+the opening to the close, so fascinating is the story wrought."&mdash;<i>Pittsburgh
+Post.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Just such a dashing tale of love and adventure as habitual
+fiction readers have learned to expect from Mr. Scott. A well
+told tale with relieving touches of dry humor and a climax unusual
+and strong."&mdash;<i>Chicago Record Herald.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="adheadline">By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ</p>
+
+<h2>Dawn of the Morning</h2>
+
+<p class="advert">
+Illustrated in color by ANNA WHELAN BETTS.<br />
+Decorated cloth. 12mo. $1.25 net.
+</p>
+
+<p>Like her most successful stories, "Marcia Schuyler" and
+"Phoebe Deane," Mrs. Lutz's new novel is set in New York State
+about 1826&mdash;quaint old days of poke bonnets and full skirts.</p>
+
+<p>It is a refreshingly sweet and charming story and the author
+has created in Dawn, a gentle appealing heroine, whose tangled
+romance only serves to make more happy the beautiful ending when
+all the threads of Dawn's life are straightened out.</p>
+
+<h2>Phoebe Deane</h2>
+
+<p class="advert">
+Frontispiece in color and five illustrations from paintings by
+E.L. HENRY, N.A. 12mo. Cloth, with medallion, $1.50.
+</p>
+
+<p>Few present-day books are so thoroughly wholesome, fresh and
+charming as this quiet, old-fashioned romance, as refreshingly
+sweet as the name of its heroine.</p>
+
+<p>Phoebe Deane, a motherless girl, meets the trials of a life of
+dependence, and an unwelcome suitor, with a brave, sweet spirit.
+In spite of deceit and treachery, her lover at last comes to her
+rescue, and her happiness is assured.</p>
+
+<h2>Marcia Schuyler</h2>
+
+<p class="advert">
+Frontispiece in color by ANNA WHELAN BETTS, and six illustrations
+from paintings by E.L. HENRY, N.A. Fifth edition. 12mo.
+Cloth, with medallion, $1.50.
+</p>
+
+<p>The story opens upon the wedding preparations for the marriage
+of winsome, wilful Kate to strong and good David. Complications
+arise by which David marries her younger sister Marcia
+instead and it is only after a period of trials and heartaches that
+Marcia wins her husband's love when he comes to understand her
+worthiness and Kate's heartless frivolity and duplicity. The <i>Chicago
+Tribune</i> pronounces Marcia "One of the most lovable heroines that
+ever lived her life in the pages of a romance."</p>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center u"><i>A NOVEL OF THE REAL WEST</i></p>
+
+<h1>ME&mdash;SMITH</h1>
+
+<p class="center">By CAROLINE LOCKHART<br />
+With five illustrations by Gayle Hoskins</p>
+
+<p class="advert">12mo. Cloth, $1.20 net.</p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Miss Lockhart</span> is a true daughter of the West,
+her father being a large ranch-owner and she has
+had much experience in the saddle and among the people
+who figure in her novel.</p>
+
+<p>"Smith" is one type of Western
+"Bad Man," an unusually powerful and appealing character
+who grips and holds the reader through all his
+deeds, whether good or bad.</p>
+
+<p>It is a story with red
+blood in it. There is the cry of the coyote, the deadly
+thirst for revenge as it exists in the wronged Indian toward
+the white man, the thrill of the gaming table, and
+the gentleness of pure, true love. To the very end the
+tense dramatism of the tale is maintained without relaxation.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Gripping, vigorous story."&mdash;<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p>"This is a real novel, a big novel."&mdash;<i>Indianapolis News.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Not since the publication of 'The Virginian' has so powerful a
+cowboy story been told."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Public Ledger.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A remarkable book in its strength of portrayal and its directness
+of development. It cannot be read without being remembered."&mdash;<i>The
+World To-Day.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="adheadline">By ELIZABETH DEJEANS</p>
+
+<h2>The Winning Chance</h2>
+
+<p class="advert"><i>Frontispiece in color by Gayle P. Hoskins.<br />
+12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.50.</i></p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">We</span> have no hesitancy in pronouncing this powerful story
+one of the most impressive studies of our highly nervous
+American life that has been published in a long while.
+It is written with enormous vitality and emotional energy. The
+grip it takes on one intensifies as the story proceeds.</p>
+
+<h2>The Heart of Desire</h2>
+
+<p class="advert"><i>Illustrations in colors by The Kinneys.<br />
+12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.50.</i></p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">A remarkable</span> novel, full of vital force, which gives us
+a glimpse into the innermost sanctuary of a woman's soul&mdash;a
+revelation of the truth that to a woman there may be
+a greater thing than the love of a man&mdash;the story pictured
+against a wonderful Southern California background.</p>
+
+<h2>The Far Triumph</h2>
+
+<p class="advert"><i>Illustrated in color by Martin Justice.<br />
+12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.25 net.</i></p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Here</span> is a romance, strong and appealing, one which will
+please all classes of readers. From the opening of the
+story until the last word of the last chapter Mrs. Dejeans'
+great novel of modern American life will hold the reader's unflagging
+interest. Living, breathing people move before us,
+and the author touches on some phases of society of momentous
+interest to women&mdash;and to men.</p>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="adheadline">By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT</p>
+
+<h2>She Buildeth Her House</h2>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: larger">"The Strongest American Novel"<br />
+<i>Chicago Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Seldom</span> has the author of a first great novel so brilliantly
+transcended his initial success. A man and a woman inspiringly
+fitted for each other sweep into the zone of mutual
+attraction at the opening of the story. Destiny demands that
+each overcomes certain formidable destructible forces before
+either is tempered and refined for the glorious Union of Two to
+form One.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">
+With colored frontispiece, by Martin Justice.<br />
+Decorated cloth, net $1.25</p>
+
+<h2>Routledge Rides Alone</h2>
+
+<p style="font-size: larger">"A gripping story. The terrible intensity
+of the writer holds one chained to
+the book."&mdash;<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Mr.</span> Comfort has drawn upon two practically new story
+places in the world of fiction to furnish the scenes for his
+narrative&mdash;India and Manchuria at the time of the Russo-Japanese
+War. While the novel is distinguished by its clear and
+vigorous war scenes, the fine and sweet romance of the love of
+the hero, Routledge&mdash;a brave, strange, and talented American&mdash;for
+the "most beautiful woman in London" rivals these in
+interest.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">
+With colored frontispiece by Martin Justice.<br />
+12mo. Cloth, with inlay in color $1.50.
+</p>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1 style="font-size: 300%">PHRYNETTE</h1>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: larger">BY<br />
+MARTHE TROLY-CURTIN</p>
+
+<p class="advert">
+<i>With a frontispiece by FRANK DESCH<br />
+12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net</i></p>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Phrynette</span> is seventeen, extremely clever and
+naive, and attractive in every way. The death
+of her French father in Paris leaves her an orphan,
+and she goes to London to live with an aunt of Scotch
+descent. Her impressions of the people, the happenings
+and the places she becomes familiar with, peculiarities
+of customs and every little thing of interest are
+all touched upon in a charming and original manner,
+while in places there is irresistible humor. Throughout
+there is a good solid love story, and the ending is
+all that is to be desired.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"A very charming novel."&mdash;<i>San Francisco Argonaut.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Original, clever and extremely well-written."&mdash;<i>Pittsburgh Dispatch.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Refreshingly original and full of wholesome mirth. To say that the book is
+delightful reading is understating the fact."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Public Ledger.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="adheadline">ROMANCES by DAVID POTTER</p>
+
+<h2>The Lady of the Spur</h2>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> scenes of this delightful romance are set in the south-western
+part of New Jersey, during the years 1820-30.
+An unusual situation develops when Tom Bell, a quondam
+gentleman highwayman, returns to take up the offices of the
+long-lost heir, Henry Morvan. Troubles thicken about him and
+along with them the romance develops. Through it all rides
+"The Lady of the Spur" with a briskness, charm, and mystery
+about her that give an unusual zest to the book from its very
+first page.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">
+Third edition. Colored frontispiece by Clarence F. Underwood.
+12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</p>
+
+<h2>I Fasten a Bracelet</h2>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Why</span> should a young well-bred girl be under a vow of
+obedience to a man after she had broken her engagement
+to him? This is the mysterious situation that is presented
+in this big breezy out-of-doors romance. When Craig Schuyler,
+after several years' absence, returns home, and without any
+apparent reason fastens on Nell Sutphen an iron bracelet. A sequence
+of thrilling events is started which grip the imagination
+powerfully, and seems to "get under the skin." There is a vein
+of humor throughout, which relieves the story of grimness.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">
+Frontispiece in color by Martin Justice.<br />
+12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net.</p>
+
+<h2>An Accidental Honeymoon</h2>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">A sparkling</span> and breezy romance of modern times, the
+scenes laid in Maryland. The plot is refreshingly novel
+and delightfully handled. The heroine is one of the
+"fetchingest" little persons in the realms of fiction. The other
+characters are also excellently drawn, each standing out clear and
+distinct, even the minor ones. The dialogue of the story is remarkably
+good, and through it all runs a vein of delightful humor.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">
+Eight illustrations in color by George W. Gage.<br />
+Marginal decorations on each page.<br />
+12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.35 net.</p>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="adheadline">By CAROLYN WELLS</p>
+
+<h2 style="font-size: 300%">THE GOLD BAG</h2>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">"The</span> Gold Bag" is so unlike the usual products of Miss
+Wells' pen that one wonders if she possesses a dual personality
+or is it merely extraordinary versatility, for she
+can certainly write detective stories just as well as she can write
+nonsense verse. The story is told in the first person by a modest
+young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to ferret out
+the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man.
+Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points
+to a woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead
+man's niece with whom the detective promptly falls in love,
+though she is already engaged to her uncle's secretary, an
+alliance which the dead man insisted must be discontinued, otherwise
+he would disinherit the girl. The story is well told and the
+interest is cleverly aroused and sustained.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">Second edition. With a colored frontispiece. 12 mo.
+Decorated cloth, $1.20 net.
+</p>
+
+<h2 style="font-size: 300%">THE CLUE</h2>
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">This</span> is a detective story, and no better or more absorbing
+one has appeared in a long time. The book opens with the
+violent death of a young heiress&mdash;apparently a suicide.
+But a shrewd young physician waxes suspicious, and finally convinces
+the wooden-headed coroner that the girl has been murdered.
+The finger of suspicion points at various people in turn,
+but each of them proves his innocence. Finally Fleming Stone,
+the detective who figured in a previous detective story by this
+author, is called in to match his wits against those of a particularly
+astute villain. Needless to say that in the end right
+triumphs.</p>
+
+<p class="advert">With a colored frontispiece. 12 mo.
+Decorated cloth, $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="ralign lippincott">
+<span class="lalign">J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</span>
+PUBLISHERS<br />PHILADELPHIA</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="trnote">
+<p><b>Transcriber's Note</b></p>
+
+<p>
+The frontispiece was moved to the relevant location (<a href="#image_001">Page 293</a>).<br />
+<br />
+Hyphenation has been made consistent.<br />
+<br />
+Quotation marks were added or removed to standardize usage.<br />
+<br />
+Spelling was changed on possible typographical errors
+(crysanthemum, boquet, Pittsburg, circumstancial, and villian.)
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE CAR BEHIND***</p>
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@@ -0,0 +1,8407 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, From the Car Behind, by Eleanor M. Ingram,
+Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: From the Car Behind
+
+
+Author: Eleanor M. Ingram
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 27, 2008  [eBook #27337]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE CAR BEHIND***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Katie Ward, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 27337-h.htm or 27337-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/3/27337/27337-h/27337-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/3/27337/27337-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Hyphenation has been made consistent.
+
+      Quotation marks were added or removed to standardize usage.
+
+      Text in italics is enclosed between underscores (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed between equal signs was in bold face in the
+      original text (=bold=).
+
+      Spelling was changed on possible typographical errors
+      (crysanthemum, boquet, Pittsburg, circumstancial, and villian.)
+
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE CAR BEHIND
+
+Second Edition
+
+[Illustration: THE PEOPLE BURST OUT OVER THE COURSE AND OVERWHELMED THE
+VICTORS _Page 293_]
+
+FROM THE CAR BEHIND
+
+by
+
+ELEANOR M. INGRAM
+
+Author of
+"The Flying Mercury," "The Game or the Candle," Etc.
+
+With Illustrations in Color by James Montgomery Flagg
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia & London
+J. B. Lippincott Company
+1912
+
+Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Company
+Copyright, 1912, by J. B. Lippincott Company
+
+Published, February, 1912
+Published, February 15, 1912
+Second Printing February 20, 1912
+
+Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company
+At the Washington Square Press
+Philadelphia, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+                      To My Dear
+                         and
+                   Gracious Mother
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                  PAGE
+    I. The Kid Amateur                                       11
+   II. Corrie and his Other Fellow                           25
+  III. The Household of Roses                                42
+   IV. Isabel                                                73
+    V. The Vase of Al-Mansor                                 91
+   VI. Wreck                                                117
+  VII. "The Greatest of These"                              137
+ VIII. Aftermath                                            152
+   IX. The House at the Turn                                162
+    X. Sentence of Error                                    171
+   XI. Gerard's Man                                         188
+  XII. The Making Good                                      201
+ XIII. The Titan's Driver                                   212
+  XIV. Val de Rosas                                         233
+   XV. The Strength of Ten                                  250
+  XVI. The White Road of Honor                              267
+ XVII. The End of the Road                                  300
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                               PAGE
+  The People Burst Out Over the Course and Overwhelmed
+    the Victors                                      _Frontispiece_
+
+  Giddy, She Willingly Suffered His Support, then
+    Drew Back, Her Color Returning Vividly                       14
+
+  "Wipe It Off," She Requested Resignedly, "Wipe
+    It Off and Never Tell"                                       78
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE KID AMATEUR
+
+
+Gerard paused on the steps of the cement plateau overlooking the
+racetrack, his eyebrows lifting in the wave of humor glinting across his
+face like sunlight over quiet water.
+
+"What?" he wondered. "Who----"
+
+The grinning mechanician who had just come across from the row of
+training-camps opposite supplied the information.
+
+"Oh, that's Rose's rose. Ain't he awful tweet?" he mocked.
+
+Gerard continued to smile, but his clear amber eyes grew keenly
+appraising as they followed the flight of the rose-colored racing car
+around the circular track.
+
+"He can drive," he gave laconic verdict.
+
+"Sure," assented the mechanician. "But he'll be the last rose of summer,
+all right, when the race comes off. He'll not last twenty-four hours--a
+kid amateur. If you ain't coming over, I'll lead myself back to my
+job."
+
+"You never can tell," warned Gerard, tolerantly. "No, I'm not
+coming over, Rupert; run along."
+
+He moved over to one of the grand-stand seats, as he spoke, and sat
+down, leaning on the rail with an easy movement of his supple figure.
+That was the first characteristic strangers usually noted in him: an
+exquisite Hellenic grace of strength and faultless proportion. He was a
+man's beauty, as distinguished from a beauty-man; other men were given
+to admiring him extravagantly and unresentfully. Unresentfully, because
+of his utter practicality and matter-of-fact atmosphere.
+
+The afternoon sunshine glittered goldenly across the huge, green field
+and the mile track circling it, where four racing cars sped in practice
+contest. Two of them were painted gray, one was dingy-white; the fourth
+shone in delicate pink enamel touched here and there with silver-gilt.
+Its driver and mechanician were clad in pink also, adding the completing
+stroke to an effect suggesting the circus rather than the race track.
+There was much excuse for the laughter of the camps, and that reflection
+of it lying in Gerard's eyes.
+
+Yet, the rose-colored machine was well driven. More than once the
+watcher nodded in quick approval of a skilful turn or deft manoeuvre.
+Once he rose and changed his position to see more distinctly, and it
+was then that he first noticed the girl.
+
+She was so beautifully and expensively gowned as to draw even masculine
+notice of the fact, the veil that fell from her silk hood to the hem of
+her cloak would alone have purchased the motor costume of the average
+woman. Against this filmy drapery her intent face showed as a study in
+concentration; her dark-blue eyes wide behind their black lashes, her
+soft lips apart, she too was watching the pink racer. But there was no
+laughter in her expression, instead there was the most deep and earnest
+tenderness, a blending of the childish and the maternal that made Gerard
+catch his breath and glance enviously at the driver of the gaudy car.
+
+The afternoon was almost ended; as Gerard looked, the pink machine
+finished its last circuit and plunged through the paddock entrance, to
+come to a halt before its own tent in the "white city" of training
+camps. Simultaneously the girl in the upper rows of seats arose,
+catching up her swirl of pale silk and lace garments and hurrying
+precipitately down the stairway aisle. So great was her haste that,
+coming suddenly to the last step, one small, high-heeled suede shoe
+slipped from the iron edge and flung her violently against a column of
+the stand. Gerard reached her just in time to prevent further fall.
+
+"Stand still," he cautioned, quietly steady. "There is a second flight
+of stairs. You are not hurt, I hope?"
+
+Giddy, for a moment she willingly suffered his support, then drew back
+on the narrow landing, her color returning vividly.
+
+"No," she answered. "I am not hurt. I thank you very much."
+
+Thick waves of fair hair lay across her forehead above the delicate dark
+line of her brows, her candid regard met his with the dignity of utter
+naturalness and a young confidence in the goodness of all men. The
+impression Gerard received was original; he fancied that her home life
+must have been singularly happy and innocent, and that he should like to
+know her father.
+
+"You will let me take you down the rest of the way, at least," he
+offered, accepting the situation as simply as she had done.
+
+She glanced down the stairs with a slight shiver, still shaken and
+unnerved.
+
+"You are very good. My car is beyond the corner, there. I--I am in haste
+to reach it."
+
+[Illustration: GIDDY, SHE WILLINGLY SUFFERED HIS SUPPORT, THEN DREW
+BACK, HER COLOR RETURNING VIVIDLY]
+
+That had been obvious. Yet, as she laid her gloved hand on Gerard's arm,
+she lingered to look again in the direction of the training-camps.
+
+"The cars will not go out again to-day?" she inferred,
+half-questioningly.
+
+"No, I think not. It is already late. This way?"
+
+"Please; to the rear of the club-house."
+
+They descended to the lower floor and crossed a strip of sandy ground to
+where a large foreign-built touring car waited, empty save for the
+chauffeur.
+
+"I am running away from my brother," the young girl explained; then,
+with a playfulness tinged with pathos, "He is practicing out there. And
+it vexes him if I watch him or say I am afraid for him. He tells me to
+stay home and forget it. But sometimes I cannot. To-day I could not.
+Thanks to you, I shall escape before he finds me."
+
+The "kid amateur's" sister, of course, Gerard thought, as he put her in
+the car.
+
+"Do you always do as he says?" he queried whimsically. "I have no
+sister, but I did not understand that was the rule."
+
+She turned to him her soft, completely feminine face, and gleamed into
+laughter.
+
+"I am the only passive member of a strong-willed family," she told him.
+"I am always doing what some one bids. Thank you, and good-by."
+
+The margin of safe escape was not great. As Gerard stepped back on the
+cement promenade, the pink machine shot across and came to a halt near
+the exit, its driver turning in his seat.
+
+"Any one going to town?" he called, his imperious young voice ringing
+across the open spaces.
+
+"No," came the discouraging monosyllable from the official stand.
+
+"No one?"
+
+"No."
+
+The driver slowly sent his car forward, temper in every crisp movement,
+his gaze travelling over the empty tiers of seats, to fall at last upon
+Gerard and there rest. With a jerk he jammed down the brake and leaned
+from the machine. Thick fair hair lay across his boyish forehead above
+level dark brows, his candid dark-blue eyes went direct to their goal:
+the metal badge fastened to Gerard's lapel and just visible under the
+edge of his gray overcoat.
+
+"You're wearing a chauffeur's license," he challenged.
+
+"I surely am. Want to engage a man?" was the grave response.
+
+The boy's arch glance swept the other's face, so definitely stamped
+with the habit of mastery.
+
+"If I did I'd ask you to recommend one," he retorted mirthfully. "I'm
+not as much mixed as I sounded; I wasn't thinking of hiring you. But I
+did want to ask if you would ride into the city with me. My mechanician
+is busy over there, I can't find any one else to go with me, and I've
+got to get my car down to the Renard shop to-night."
+
+"Now I wonder," Gerard mused aloud, "why you want any one with you."
+
+"Because I won't be eighteen for a month," he gave prompt explanation.
+"Under the latest law freak turned out at Albany, I'm too young to drive
+a motor vehicle safely on the public roads unless I have a licensed
+chauffeur alongside of me. Oh, of course you'd laugh!"
+
+"I was only recalling what I've just been watching you do on the track,"
+apologized Gerard, steadying his countenance. "And speculating upon how
+the average chauffeur would like to try your feats. I shall appreciate
+the honor of riding into town with Mr. Rose and his rose."
+
+The driver colored and laughed together, as his guest took the seat
+beside him.
+
+"They're always ragging me--I mean the professional racers and motor
+men," he avowed, in a burst of resentful confidence. "They called me
+kid amateur, and rosebud, and girlie, until I just had my car painted
+pink and bought these pink suits and told them to go ahead getting all
+the fun they could. I'll get my turn to-morrow night." He twisted his
+car through the curved gateway, viciously expert.
+
+"You are planning to win?"
+
+There was no trace of mockery in the level intonation of the inquiry,
+yet Rose flushed again.
+
+"I want to, and I mean to try," he answered frankly and soberly. "Of
+course one can't count on that sort of thing. I've got a splendid French
+machine here. But Allan Gerard is going to race; I'm afraid of him. Why,
+he hasn't even been out to practice! He says he knows the track, they
+tell me, and he'll not come down until a couple of hours before the
+start. That kind of talk _rattles_ me--I wish he'd act like other people
+and not as if he just meant to drop into the motordrome and win another
+cup."
+
+"I don't believe Gerard intends to pose as confident," deprecated his
+companion. "You see, he has his automobile factory to manage as well as
+his racing work; I rather fancy that he didn't come out to practice
+because he was busy."
+
+"Oh, I suppose so. It just gets on my nerves; I shouldn't wonder if
+they were a bit raw from so much chaffing by the professional pilots.
+We're the quickest tempered family that ever happened, anyhow. I'll go
+off the handle, I know I will, if those grinning drivers get to gibing
+at me to-morrow night----" he broke off, slamming savagely into a lower
+gear as he caught a mounted policeman's eye and endeavored to choke his
+racing car's speed down to a reasonable approach to the legal limit.
+
+When the desired result was somewhat attained, Gerard spoke with quiet
+seriousness.
+
+"I've seen considerable motor racing, and I've been watching you this
+afternoon. With some really steady training and practice you could
+undoubtedly become one of our few fine drivers. You have the gift."
+
+Rose caught his breath, his blue eyes flashed to meet the other man's
+with dazzled and dazzling ardor.
+
+"But--you must not 'go off the handle.' Never. You must keep your nerve
+or quit the track."
+
+"It isn't nerve, it's temper," amended Rose honestly.
+
+Gerard's firm lip bent amusedly, his bronze-brown eyes glinted a fun as
+purely boyish as could the other's.
+
+"That's quite different," he conceded. "Temper doesn't interfere with
+driving; on the contrary, some of the best drivers and most amiable men
+I know are very demons when they are racing."
+
+"Gerard isn't. They say he is the quietest ever. Of course he's almost
+twenty-eight and used to it all."
+
+The gentleman in question carefully unfastened his glove.
+
+"Gerard seems to worry you," he commented.
+
+"He does. I don't know just why, but he does."
+
+"Well, don't let him. This is where you leave your machine?"
+
+"Yes. I can't offer to take you wherever you are going, because I
+couldn't get back alone. I'm awfully obliged to you for coming in with
+me."
+
+"Thanks for the ride." Gerard stepped out and offered his hand with a
+glance deliberately friendly. "Good-by; good luck for to-morrow and next
+day."
+
+Rose dragged off his gauntlet and eagerly bent to give the clasp.
+
+"Wait--you're not going like that?" he protested. "I'd like to see you
+again. You haven't told me _your_ name."
+
+"We will see each other again. That's a safe prediction, I assure you."
+He withdrew his hand, laughing a denial of explanation as he retreated.
+"I will tell you my name next time, if you ask me."
+
+Already half a dozen people had collected around the pink racing car.
+Others were flocking from every direction, the group forming with a
+suddenness truly New Yorkese. Indifferent to all, Rose sprang out of his
+seat and ran through the curious men in pursuit of his late companion.
+
+"Wait," he urged, overtaking him. "I want to ask--did you mean that?
+About my driving well, some day? I know I'll never get a chance to do
+it, but do you mean that I _could_?"
+
+"I meant," confirmed Gerard, "just what I said. I usually do. Good-by."
+
+The boy remained perfectly still in the midst of the crowd, standing in
+his rose-colored costume and looking after the straight, slender figure
+swinging down the street. When Gerard glanced back in turning the
+corner, Rose was still watching him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was some forty-five hours later that Gerard's prediction was
+verified, in the glare-streaked darkness of the Beach racetrack amid the
+medley of sounds from excited crowds, roaring cars, and noisily busy
+training camps. Under the swinging electric light before the hospital
+tent, the two drivers came face to face.
+
+"Nothing wrong, I hope?" Gerard greeted, keen eyes sweeping the other.
+
+A sparkle of animation lit Rose's exhaustion-drawn face to boyishness.
+
+"I'm not hurt. I want to tell you that if I'd known who you were,
+yesterday, I'd never have asked you to ride with me," he answered,
+warmly impulsive.
+
+"You'd have let me walk?"
+
+"I'd have got into the mechanician's seat and let you _drive_. Do you
+suppose I'd have kept the wheel with you in the car? But what you said
+about my driving made it so no one could rattle me, Mr. Gerard; I am not
+going out of the race because of that, anyhow."
+
+"Going out of the race? Why, you're running in third place!"
+
+Rose shook his head, his mouth set, holding out two blistered hands and
+linen-wound arms.
+
+"I've given out," he acknowledged bitterly. "There'll be no finish for
+my car. I can't hold my wheel without an hour to rest and get these into
+shape. Kid amateur, all right."
+
+"Where's your alternate driver?"
+
+"He slipped on a greasy bit of grass, ten minutes ago, and sprained his
+ankle. We're out of it, with third place ours and a perfect car to run."
+
+Gerard looked down the row of illuminated tents to where the pink car
+stood, palpitating in an aura of its own light, and brought his eyes
+back to the other man.
+
+"My machine went out of the race, two hours ago, with a broken
+crankshaft. If you like, I'll be your alternate," he offered.
+
+Incredulous, breathless, Rose stared at him.
+
+"You--you mean----"
+
+"I will drive your car until you are ready to take it again for the
+finish. I've nothing else to do, to-night."
+
+It was a time and a scene where over-tense nerves not infrequently
+snapped. But if Gerard was not surprised to see it, Rose certainly was
+both amazed and humiliated to feel his own eyes suddenly stinging like a
+girl's.
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he stammered fervently.
+
+"I'll give you the chance," promised Gerard, tactfully gay. "Now hurry
+up your men with the car while I find my mechanician."
+
+The comrade aid had been given to Rose, without the least relation to
+Rose's sister. But nevertheless Gerard directed a curious look toward
+the teeming grand-stand, as he turned to make ready. Was she there, he
+wondered, the flower-like girl with the name of a flower, who had rested
+in his arms just so long as a blossom might flutter against one in
+passing? Would her gaze follow the pink racer, still?
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CORRIE AND HIS OTHER FELLOW
+
+
+The touring car rolled slowly through the October leaves rustling and
+swirling down the road in jovial wind-eddies, came up to a knoll beside
+the field, and stopped. The driver turned in his seat to face the two
+occupants of the tonneau, pushing his goggles up above the line of his
+fair hair.
+
+"Look," he urged eagerly. "Look at the pitcher of our home team. There,
+just crossing the diamond--it's a new inning."
+
+"It's not the first baseball game you've brought us out to see, Corrie,"
+observed Mr. Thomas Rose, setting his own goggles on his cap above the
+line of his reddish-gray hair. "Is it, my girl?"
+
+His daughter laughed, shaking her small head in its crimson hood and
+glancing roguishly at her brother.
+
+"Nor the twenty-first, papa," she amplified.
+
+"Well, but I haven't brought you to see the game, but the pitcher," the
+boy protested. "He's a new one; you never saw him before. Look."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I want you to."
+
+Flavia Rose obediently turned her gaze toward the players, and upon the
+indicated man it halted, arrested.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, and sat still.
+
+The men were in their places, alert in poised expectation, the attention
+of the whole field concentrating upon the central figure of the pitcher
+at whom the young girl also looked. A slim, straight statue he stood
+during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a
+gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon sun struck across his
+wind-ruffled brown hair and smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the
+catcher and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement and turn of his
+whole body. The white ball shot across, swerving almost at the plate,
+and crashed into the catcher's mitt.
+
+"He's got speed!" Mr. Rose approved loudly, standing up in the car.
+"That's pitching! Who's your friend, Corwin B.?"
+
+His son did not answer. The ball was back in the pitcher's hands; again
+he was lifting his arms in the pose his physical beauty made classic.
+There was repeated the quick nod, the abruptly swift movement, and the
+ball sped across, dropping oddly.
+
+"Strike two!" was called.
+
+Amid the applause and shouts of encouragement, Flavia laid her small,
+urgent hand on her brother's sleeve.
+
+"Corrie, who is he? Tell us, please."
+
+He moved to see her more directly.
+
+"Do you remember the Beach twenty-four-hour race, last summer, where I
+finished third? Do you remember how I told you about the big driver,
+Allan Gerard, who drove my machine for two hours until I could hold the
+wheel again myself?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Strike three--you're out!" rang the umpire's announcement; again the
+joyous shouts interrupted speech.
+
+"Well, then, that's who."
+
+"That's Gerard, playing ball?" interrogated Mr. Rose, incredulous. "What
+for? Lost his racing job?"
+
+Laughing, Corrie shook his head.
+
+"No, sir! Gerard is a member of the Mercury automobile company and has
+their western factory and all that end of the business in his hands. He
+races the Mercury car because he loves the work and because no one else
+can do it so well. No; practice for the Cup race opens to-morrow, and
+he's here on Long Island for that. But the pitcher of our home team put
+his arm out of business yesterday, and Gerard offered to pitch for this
+game. He knows everybody here--he always knows everybody everywhere,
+he's that kind. And I want to ask him to dinner," he concluded
+irrelevantly.
+
+Mr. Rose scanned the field for a flying ball, as a sharp crack announced
+the first hit.
+
+"Staying out here, or going in to the city each day?" he inquired.
+
+"He's staying in Jamaica, sir."
+
+"Then you'd best ask him to stop at your house until the race comes off,
+or he'll wreck his machine from weakness brought on by starvation,"
+pronounced Mr. Rose, dryly. "One dinner won't carry him through weeks. I
+know those hotels, myself."
+
+Corrie gasped, his face swept by delighted awe.
+
+"Really? Oh, I'd give anything to have Gerard, _Gerard_, like that! Do
+you think he'll come?"
+
+"If he had dinner at his hotel last night, and breakfast and lunch
+to-day, he'll come," his father assured. "Now be quiet and let me watch
+the game; it must be near ending."
+
+"Almost, but----"
+
+"Never mind the _but_, Corwin B. Keep cool."
+
+But Corrie could not keep cool. When his father's attention was engaged
+he slipped down from his seat and went around to Flavia's side of the
+car.
+
+"Do you think he would come?" he asked, for her ears alone. "Don't you
+want him, too? Why are you so serious--what _do_ you think?"
+
+Their clear violet-blue eyes met in the intimate household love and
+understanding of all their lives. Flavia dropped a caressing arm around
+her brother's shoulders, gently drawing him to face the field.
+
+"Really look," she bade.
+
+Puzzled, he obeyed. Gerard was still occupying the centre of the
+diamond, holding the ball aloft while his meditative gaze apparently
+dwelt on the batsman. There was scarcely a perceptible turn of his brown
+head, yet as the two in the car watched, the impromptu pitcher's glance
+flashed from behind his uplifted arm and he whirled in a half-circle to
+hurl the unexpected ball straight across the diamond to where a careless
+enemy had ventured from second base. Too late the startled runner saw;
+the sudden attack won.
+
+"You're out!" pealed the quick decision. The game was closed. With the
+gay uproar of local triumph Mr. Rose mingled his approving applause,
+still standing upright in the car to view the scene.
+
+"Well, of what are you thinking?" Corrie repeated. "He's splendid, I
+know that."
+
+"I am thinking of Isabel," Flavia answered quietly, "and of you. If you
+take Mr. Gerard home, she will see a great deal of him."
+
+Astonished, he regarded her. After a moment he again looked toward the
+man opposite, his expression sober.
+
+"It's like you to think of me," he acknowledged, with slow gratitude.
+"But that's all right. If any one else can get her, I'd better know it
+now. Of course he'll want her, she's just the kind of girl he'd like,
+such a sport herself about cars and things. If she likes him better than
+me, why I'll have to stand it, that's all."
+
+"Then, I shall be very glad to have Mr. Gerard stay with us, dear; don't
+you and I always like the same things?"
+
+"We sure do, Other Fellow?"
+
+The childhood "play name" brought their cordial glances together, as Mr.
+Rose dropped into his seat.
+
+"Game's over, Corwin B.; better run get your friend," he notified,
+cheerily imperious. "Hurry along."
+
+Half-smiling, half-anxious, Corrie lingered on the verge of compliance.
+
+"I--I feel a chill at the idea," he avowed. "I believe, after all, I'm
+shy of Gerard!"
+
+"Now what's the matter?" Mr. Rose ejaculated, staring after his son.
+"Shy; and I've been trying ever since he was born--without
+succeeding--to teach him that there were one or two people on earth
+bigger than he is."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Isn't it so, then?"
+
+She laughed with him, mutinously unanswering.
+
+Whatever diffidence Corrie had felt promptly vanished when Gerard turned
+from the group of players and met him. Flushed with vigorous exercise
+and recent conquest, his smiling eyes warming to recognition as they
+fell upon the breathless young motorist, there certainly was nothing
+intimidating in the late pitcher's aspect.
+
+"I'm Corrie Rose--you haven't forgotten? Come meet my father and sister,
+won't you?" was Corrie's eager greeting.
+
+It was not at all the dignified self-introduction and invitation he had
+planned as he ran across the field, but Gerard had the gift of drawing
+sincerity to meet his own, like to like.
+
+"You haven't forgotten me," countered the other, giving his hand. "And I
+should be delighted to meet your father and Miss Rose, if I were fit.
+Perhaps you'll give me another chance."
+
+"Fit? Why, we've been watching you play ball! A fellow don't play ball
+in a frock coat. We want you to come home to dinner, now, and stay with
+us over the race. You know I'm practising for it, too. Don't say no," as
+Gerard moved. "We _want_ you."
+
+The impulsive, italicized speech was very compelling.
+
+"Thank you; I'll come over to your car, anyway," Gerard accepted.
+"But----What is it, Rupert?"
+
+"I guess you'd call it a raincoat," was the drawled reply. "I'd feel bad
+to find you'd brought out your pajamas, for there ain't anything to do
+except wear it, now."
+
+"I'm not cold."
+
+The mechanician nodded a brief return to Corrie's laughing salute, and
+directed his sardonic black eyes to Gerard's right arm, which the
+rolled-back sleeve left bare to the elbow.
+
+"I ain't specially timid," he submitted. "If rheumatism is part of the
+racing equipment you like to have with you, I'll just hurry home and
+make my will before we start."
+
+With an impatient shrug Gerard slipped into the garment.
+
+"Thanks; you're worse than a wife. Rose, you know Jack Rupert, who's
+sheer nerve when we're racing and sheer nerves when we're not."
+
+"I surely do," Corrie warmly confirmed. "You rode with Mr. Gerard at the
+Beach when he drove my car for me. I'm not likely to forget _that_."
+
+The small, malignly intelligent mechanician contemplated him, unsmiling,
+although far from unfriendly.
+
+"I ride with Gerard," he acquiesced.
+
+And only Gerard himself knew the history of service in the face of death
+comprehended in the simple statement.
+
+Thomas Rose, repeatedly millionaire and genially absolute dictator in
+his circle of affairs, was not easy to gainsay. And he chose to assume
+prompt possession of Gerard, almost before the introduction was over.
+
+"Get right in," he commanded. "Never mind anything, get in; and we'll
+talk about keeping you after we've had dinner. We'll stop at your hotel
+for your things, if you want them."
+
+"You're very good," Gerard began, and stopped, encountering Flavia's
+eyes. Neither had spoken of their former meeting, indeed they had been
+given no opportunity for speech, yet the acute recollection was a bond
+between them.
+
+"We do not wish to be insistent, Mr. Gerard," she said now, in her
+fresh, soft tones. "But we should be very glad to have you."
+
+Gerard continued to look at her, gravely attentive as she herself. She
+was as exquisitely dressed as when he had caught her in his arms on the
+stairs of the Beach grand-stand, the fragile hand she laid on the car
+door carried the vivid flash of jewels. Somehow he divined that her
+father exacted this, that in his pride of self-made millionaire he would
+insist upon extravagance as other men might upon economy. And she would
+yield. He remembered her playful speech at their first meeting: "I am
+the only passive member of a strong-willed family." His impression was
+of her most feminine softness that was not in the least weak.
+
+"Thank you," he answered. "I should have liked above all things to be
+your guest. But it happens that I have brought my mechanician with me
+and that I cannot desert him at the hotel. It does not matter at all
+about relative social position; we are down here together. Moreover, I
+have a ninety Mercury racing machine to look after, and I should be a
+most unrestful visitor, up at dawn and out until dark."
+
+"If that's all," decided Mr. Rose, "this is a seven-passenger car and an
+architect said my house had ninety-five rooms. There's standing room in
+the garage, I guess, for a car or two. Corrie, turn loose your horn."
+
+Corrie promptly put his finger on the button of the electric signal, and
+a raucous wail shattered the sunset hush.
+
+"That's your man, looking this way? I like your sticking to him, Gerard.
+Here he comes. We're all fixed, then; get in."
+
+Gerard got in, beside Flavia, who laughingly drew her velvet skirts to
+give him place.
+
+"I think this bears a perilous resemblance to a kidnapping," she
+doubted. "Is it quite safe, I wonder? Shall you summon rescue when we
+reach a populated place?"
+
+"If kidnapping means being taken against one's will, I haven't any
+case," he returned as seriously. "I don't believe I could be dislodged
+from here, now, if you tried."
+
+"I had not contemplated the attempt--yet."
+
+"Please do not! I look like a tramp, I know, but I will be exceedingly
+good."
+
+"Not immoderately good; we are a frivolous family," she deprecated.
+
+They looked at each other, and their eyes laughed together.
+
+Radiant, Corrie was already behind the steering-wheel, an impatient hand
+poised to release the brake.
+
+"Beside me, Rupert," he blithely invited, when the mechanician came up.
+
+Rupert looked at Gerard, received his gesture of corroboration, and
+lifting his cap to Flavia, took the designated seat without comment.
+
+"Don't you care where you're going?" presently demanded Corrie, moving
+up a speed. He respected Allan Gerard's little mechanician almost as
+much as he did Allan Gerard, knowing his reputation in racing circles;
+the glance he gave to accompany the query was an invitation to
+friendship.
+
+Rupert braced one small tan shoe against the floor, as the car wrenched
+itself out of a tenacious sand rut.
+
+"I ain't worrying," he kindly assured. "Any place that ain't New York is
+off the map, anyhow."
+
+"I thought you belonged out west with Mr. Gerard."
+
+"I guess I belong to the Mercury racer. But I'm officially chief tester
+at the eastern factory, up the Hudson, except when there's a race on.
+Since Darling French got married, I've raced with Gerard. Were you
+aiming to collect that horseshoe with a nail in it, ahead there on the
+course, or will it be an accident?"
+
+"It's going to be an escape," smiled the driver, swerving deftly. "Tell
+me about the first part of the ball game, won't you? I missed it, going
+after my father and sister."
+
+"Who, me? I ain't qualified. The curves I'm used to judging belong to a
+different game. I guess, if you listen to what's being said behind us,
+you'll get the better record. I'm enjoying the novelty of the automobile
+ride, myself."
+
+"You must be," Corrie agreed ironically. "You get so little of it. They
+are not talking _real_ ball."
+
+But he settled back to listen. In fact, it was the recent game that was
+being discussed in the tonneau, with Mr. Rose as chief speaker and
+Flavia as auditor. The party was of enchanting congeniality.
+
+They drove first to the hotel where Gerard had been stopping.
+
+It was quite six o'clock when the touring car rolled through Mr. Rose's
+lawns and landscape-garden scenery, to come to a stop before the large,
+pink stone house of many columns. Mr. Rose had a passion for columns.
+Across the rug-strewn veranda a girl advanced to meet the arriving
+motorists; an auburn-haired, high-colored girl who wore a tweed ulster
+over her light evening gown.
+
+"I thought you were never coming," she reproached, imperiously
+aggrieved. "I hate waiting. And I want uncle to send Lenoir after my
+runabout----"
+
+The sentence broke as she saw the man beside Flavia, her gray eyes
+widened in astonished interest.
+
+"My niece Isabel Rose, Mr. Gerard," presented Mr. Rose. "And now you
+have met all of us. Come on, Corwin B."
+
+Isabel Rose gave her hand to the guest. She had the slightly hard beauty
+of nineteen years and exuberant health; contrasted with Flavia, there
+was almost a boyishness in her air of assurance and athletic vigor. But
+in the studied coquetry of her glance at Gerard, the instant desire to
+allure in response to the allure of this man's good looks, she showed
+femininity of a type that her cousin never would understand.
+
+"I should not have minded waiting," she declared, in her high-pitched,
+clear-cut speech, "if I had known something pleasant was going to
+happen."
+
+"If that means me, Miss Rose----" Gerard laughingly doubted.
+
+"I don't see anyone else who happens; the rest of them are just always
+here," she confirmed, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+He regarded her with the gay indulgence one shows an agreeable child.
+"Then, all thanks for the welcome. I shall try to live up to it, if you
+will not expect too much."
+
+"Oh, but I shall!"
+
+"Then perhaps I had better retreat at once?"
+
+"You might try, first. Don't you think so, Flavia?"
+
+"I think we might go in," Flavia smilingly suggested from the threshold.
+"We could assume Mr. Gerard's safety so far."
+
+"Come on, Corwin B.," his father summoned again.
+
+But Corrie sat still in his place, leaning on his steering-wheel and
+gazing curiously at his cousin and Gerard. Nor did he follow the group
+into the house; instead, he took the car and Jack Rupert around to the
+garage.
+
+A little later, when Flavia Rose went upstairs to make ready for dinner,
+Isabel followed her, frankly inquisitive.
+
+"Is this Mr. Gerard the real Gerard, the Gerard who races cars?" the
+examination commenced, as soon as the cousins were alone.
+
+"He is Allan Gerard," Flavia stated. "Did you have a nice game, this
+afternoon?"
+
+The distraction was put aside.
+
+"Oh, pretty fair. I walked home across the links and left the runabout
+at the club. Did you ever meet Mr. Gerard before? You seem to know each
+other pretty well."
+
+Flavia's delicate color flushed over her face; for an instant she again
+felt Gerard's firm arm around her and encountered his concerned eyes
+bent upon her own, as they stood on the stairs of the grand-stand.
+Truthfulness was the atmosphere of the household, the truthfulness born
+of fearless affection and cordial sympathy of feeling, but now she used
+an evasion, almost for the first time in her life.
+
+"It is Corrie who knows Mr. Gerard, Isabel," she explained, a trifle
+slowly. "You remember that race when he helped Corrie, last summer?
+To-day Corrie saw him playing ball, and brought him to meet us."
+
+"Oh! Yes, I remember the race, of course; I was there. But I did not
+know Allan Gerard was--well, _looked_ like that. How long will he be
+here?"
+
+"Papa and Corrie asked him to stay until the Cup race is over."
+
+There was a pause. Isabel walked over to one of the long mirrors and
+studied her own vigorously handsome image, then turned her head and
+regarded Flavia with the perfect complacency and mischievous malice of a
+young kitten.
+
+"Good sport," she anticipated.
+
+Flavia carefully laid her brush upon the dressing table and proceeded to
+gather into a coil the shimmering mass of her fair hair. Suddenly she
+was afraid, quiveringly afraid of herself, of Gerard and the next two
+weeks, but most afraid of showing any change in expression to Isabel's
+sharp scrutiny.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE HOUSEHOLD OF ROSES
+
+
+"If there is one thing meaner than another, it's _rain_," Corrie
+announced generally. "I'm going out. Won't you come, Gerard?"
+
+"If rain is the meanest thing there is, it shows real sense to go out in
+it," Isabel commented, from the window-seat opposite. "That is just like
+you, Corrie Rose. When I ask you to take me out on a perfectly fair day,
+you won't do it."
+
+"I?" stunned. "I ever refused----"
+
+"Yes. Yesterday, when I asked you to take me just once around the race
+course, while the cars were out practising. You know you would not. If
+it is safe for you, it is safe for me. But never mind; your old pink car
+won't win, anyhow. He hasn't a chance with the professional drivers, has
+he, Mr. Gerard?"
+
+"A chance?" Gerard gravely echoed. "Why, several of our best drivers are
+thinking of withdrawing, since he is entered, because they feel it's no
+use trying to win if he is racing."
+
+"Oh, you're making fun! But I mean it; _I_ could race that car he is so
+vain of, with my own little runabout machine."
+
+Corrie dragged a mandolin from beneath his chair and tinkled the opening
+chords of a popular melody.
+
+    "Get on your little girl's racer,
+    And I'll lead you for a chaser,
+    Down the good old Long Island course.
+    And before you're half through it,
+    Your poor car will rue it,
+    And you'll trade in the pieces for a horse."
+
+The provoking improvisation ended abruptly, as Isabel's well-aimed
+sofa-pillow struck the singer.
+
+"Do you call that a ladylike retort?" Corrie queried, freeing himself
+from the silken missile. "Tell her it isn't, Flavia."
+
+"I am afraid," Flavia excused herself. "There are more cushions on that
+window-seat."
+
+"It was a soft answer, at least," Gerard laughed. "And a good shot."
+
+"Oh, I taught her to pitch, myself. Now I'm sorry," deplored her cousin.
+
+"Too late," Isabel returned complacently. "I called that a cushion
+carom, Corrie. And my car would not fall to pieces. Flavia, he is
+feeding candy to Firdousi."
+
+Flavia looked over with the warm brightening of expression Allan Gerard
+had learned to watch for when she regarded her brother, and which never
+failed to stir in him the half-wistful envy of the first day when he had
+seen her so gazing at the driver of the pink racing car.
+
+"If Corrie can teach a Persian kitten to eat candy, he probably can
+teach it to digest candy," she offered serene reply. "Besides, he loves
+Firdousi, as much as I do."
+
+"I only gave him some fruit-paste to see his jaws work," the culprit
+defended. "He needs exercise. And so do I."
+
+"Not that kind, yours work all the time. It is only an hour since
+breakfast and you have talked ever since," corrected his cousin.
+
+"I haven't!"
+
+"You have."
+
+Corrie ran his fingers through his heavy fair hair, carefully set the
+purring kitten on the floor, and stood up.
+
+"All right, if you say so," he submitted gracefully. "What you say, I
+stand for."
+
+The argument was pure sport, of course. But with that last playful
+sentence, Corrie suddenly turned his dark-blue eyes upon Isabel with an
+expression not playful, as if himself struck by some deeper force in the
+words.
+
+"What you say, I stand for," he repeated, and paused.
+
+Flavia and Gerard both looked at him. All the fresh ardor of first love,
+all the impulsive faith of eighteen and its entire devotion invested
+Corrie Rose and illumined the shining regard in which he enveloped his
+cousin. There was in him a quality that lifted the moment above mere
+sentimentality, a young strength and straightforward earnestness at once
+dignified and pathetic with the pathos of all transient things that must
+go down before the battery of the years.
+
+It would have been difficult to encounter a more enchanting family life
+than that into which Allan Gerard had been drawn. The Rose household was
+as redolent of simple fragrance as a household of roses, in spite of its
+costly luxury, its retinue of servants and lavish expenditure. Thomas
+Rose's wealth had been made so long since, before the birth of the
+younger generation, that to one and all it was merely the natural
+condition of affairs, not in the least affecting them personally. Money
+was very nearly non-existent to them, since they never were obliged to
+consider its lack or abundance. They spent as they desired, precisely as
+they ate when hungry or drank according to thirst, without either stint
+or excess. It was Arcadian, it was improbable, but it was so. And the
+guard-wall that encircled their gilded Arcadia was a strong mutual
+affection not to be overthrown from without. Only by internal treason
+could that domain fall.
+
+It was not in one day that Gerard had come to understand this in its
+fullness; he had learned bit by bit. For there was nothing at all
+angelic about the gay family. But now he first realized, as he watched
+Corrie, that Isabel Rose was placed here by circumstance and not by
+fittedness. She was too earthen a vessel, however handsome and
+wholesome, to contain that fine sun-shot essence distilled from the
+fountain of youth which her cousin poured out for her taking. Gerard
+knew it, as he saw her matter-of-fact acceptance of the gaze that should
+have moved even a woman who did not love Corrie.
+
+Yet, they would probably marry one another, he reflected. There was
+nothing to interfere, if she consented. He felt an elder brother's
+outrush of impatient protection for the boy; involuntarily he turned to
+Flavia with a movement of regretful irritation at the folly of it all, a
+folly he divined that she also recognized.
+
+Flavia met his glance, and read its impatience and regret. How she
+applied it was a reflection less of her own mind than of Isabel's; she
+fancied Gerard jealous of this open wooing of the other girl, and mutely
+asking her own intervention.
+
+That intervention was not easy to give. In spite of herself, the days
+with Allan Gerard had affected her so far. Stooping, she lifted Firdousi
+to her lap, gaining a moment before breaking the silence that had fallen
+upon the group.
+
+"Where are you going to take Mr. Gerard, Corrie?" she inquired. "Are not
+the possibilities storm-limited?"
+
+"He isn't going to take him anywhere," Isabel calmly interpolated. "They
+are going to stay in and amuse us. At least, that is what I say, if he
+is going to stand for it. He said he would, but it's some large order."
+
+Corrie threw back his head, all seriousness vanishing before his
+laughter.
+
+"Just you let father catch you slinging Boweryese like that, Miss Rose,"
+he begged, moving aside to stuff a handful of candy into either
+coat-pocket. "He loves to hear girls talk slang. But it _is_ some classy
+order, all right, if you come to think of it; I guess I won't commence
+to-day. I'm going over to show the _Dear Me_ to Jack Rupert, Flavia; he
+thinks he can tell me why her engine misses."
+
+"In the rain, dear?" his sister wondered.
+
+"'Snips and snails and gasoline tales, are what little boys are made
+of,'" Isabel quoted derisive _Mother Goose_. "He won't melt; let him
+go. Mr. Gerard, you do not want to go out in a sloppy motor boat, do
+you?"
+
+"If you will forgive my bad taste, I believe I shall go with Corrie,"
+Gerard deprecated, rising. He looked again at Flavia, but she offered no
+suggestion that he stay.
+
+"That's the idea," approved the gentleman in question. "I'll ring for
+our raincoats."
+
+There was a period of silence in the many-windowed, octagonal library,
+after the two young girls were left alone. Flavia continued to play with
+the drowsy kitten. Isabel, chin in hand, gazed across the rain-drenched
+window-panes, her full lips bent discontentedly. The first diversion was
+effected by the smart slap of a maple-leaf flattened against the glass
+by a gust of wind, directly across the watcher's line of vision.
+
+"P.P.C.," interpreted Flavia, surveying the large pale-golden leaf, as
+it adhered to the wet pane opposite her cousin.
+
+"Now, what may that mean?" Isabel demanded.
+
+"_Pour prendre conge_, of course. Those are the farewell cards of
+departing summer. See her coat-of-arms on it: a gold-and-crimson
+sunset?"
+
+Isabel eyed her companion with scornful superiority.
+
+"You had better talk sense," she counselled. "That is a good stiff
+north wind blowing, and Corrie is just as reckless with his motor boat
+as he is with his car. He and Mr. Gerard are likely to be
+half-drowned--and I am glad of it."
+
+"Isa!"
+
+"I am glad. It serves them right for leaving me at home and going off
+with that mechanic. I know why Corrie did it, too; he didn't want us to
+be together all day. He is jealous of Mr. Gerard because he likes me."
+
+"Corrie does?"
+
+Isabel launched a glance of malicious comprehension over her shoulder,
+smilingly meaningly.
+
+"Oh, Corrie! Of course! But I meant Mr. Gerard. Anyone can see how
+Corrie hates to have him with me."
+
+Flavia adjusted the blue-satin bow upon Firdousi's neck, saying nothing
+for a moment. She did not intend to put the question hovering at her
+lips, yet suddenly the indiscreet words escaped her:
+
+"Then, you think Mr. Gerard is--interested in you?"
+
+"Did you ever know a man to come here without being interested in me,
+Flavia Rose?"
+
+The superb arrogance was a trifle too much to escape retort, even from
+the considerate Flavia.
+
+"Well, there was Mr. Stone," she recalled, with intention.
+
+Isabel colored richly, her handsome light-gray eyes hardened. The recent
+episode of Mr. Ethan Stone had not been one of her triumphs in
+flirtation.
+
+"He was almost as old as uncle," she exclaimed sharply. "He would have
+died of fright at the things Mr. Gerard and Corrie and I like to do,
+anyway, if he had stayed here. He was all nerves. So are you, for that
+matter. You are worried over Corrie now, you know you are."
+
+Flavia never quarrelled; she had an abhorrence of scenes. But that did
+not imply a lack of capacity for anger. She rose, a straight, slim
+figure in her blue morning-frock, the kitten in her arms.
+
+"If I were with him, I should not be worried," she stated with dignity.
+"I am never afraid when I am there to share what happens. I think I will
+go upstairs."
+
+And she went, leaving the other girl to devise her own amusements.
+
+In her own room, Flavia pushed aside the window-curtains to look out. In
+all the dripping landscape she saw no trace of her brother or their
+guest; the guest, half of whose visit was now past. The next day would
+be Sunday; one of the two weeks she had unreasoningly dreaded was gone,
+already. Was she glad, or sorry? She did not know. But she continued to
+look from the window; there was indeed a strong north wind blowing, and
+Corrie, if not reckless, certainly used the least margin of safety.
+
+It was impossible to be more safe from drowning than Corrie was at
+that time. He was in fact on land as dry as the weather permitted,
+engaged in operating a small ciderpress for the benefit of himself
+and Gerard, at a certain old-fashioned farm where he was--as he
+himself explained--persona very grata indeed.
+
+"They are used to me," he supplemented. "Wonderful what people can get
+used to, isn't it?"
+
+"It surely is," Gerard agreed, from his seat on an overturned barrel. He
+contemplated interestedly the picture Corrie presented with his sleeves
+rolled to the elbow, his coat off and his bright hair flecked with
+ruby-hued drops of the flying liquid. "See here, Corrie, what are you
+planning to do with yourself?"
+
+"Do? Meet Rupert and try out the _Dear Me_, of course. Why?"
+
+"I didn't mean that way. College? Business?"
+
+"Oh! Would you pitch over that tin-cup, please? Why, I am all through
+college."
+
+"Through it! Before you are nineteen?"
+
+"Jes' so. Like to see the pretty blue-ribboned papers that prove it?" He
+sat down on the press, drying his face with his handkerchief. "You see,
+my father had tutors to lavish all their wisdom and attention on little
+Corwin B. Rose, and I never had to wait while the rest of a class
+ploughed along, so I got through the usual junk and was ready for
+college at fifteen plus. So I entered at New York, where I could drive
+back and forth from home each day, and finished up the college business.
+It was a nuisance and I wanted to get it over, so I hustled a bit. The
+classical course, you know, not the professional. I graduated last
+Spring, just before I met you at the twenty-four-hour race. You look
+surprised."
+
+"I should not have thought it of you."
+
+"You didn't suppose I could work?" The mischievous blue eyes laughed at
+him. "I can, when I have to. And studying doesn't hit me very hard,
+although I'd rather be out-doors."
+
+"Not that, exactly. You do not look it," Gerard said slowly. He could
+not explain the effects he had seen left by college life with unlimited
+money at command, or how he was moved by their utter absence here.
+
+Corrie gave way to open mirth.
+
+"What a compliment! My word! Fancy! Well, I can't help my face. Anyway,
+you think I look as if I could drive a car, so I'm satisfied. Do you
+know," his expression sobered as he leaned forward, fixing earnest eyes
+on his companion's, "I would rather be you, do what you are doing, than
+be or do anything else in the world. Of course, I shan't get the
+chance--probably I couldn't do the work if I did--but I should _love_
+it."
+
+Gerard actually colored before that ardent admiration, taken unaware.
+
+"Corrie Rose, you are given to the folly of hero-worship; and heroes are
+few," he accused sternly.
+
+"I don't know about that, Mr. Gerard."
+
+"I do. But, Corrie----"
+
+"Present."
+
+Gerard stood up, reaching for his raincoat.
+
+"Beware of heroine-worship, it is _the_ folly. When you find the real
+woman, get on your knees, where you belong, before a grace of God, but
+don't build shrines to an imitation."
+
+Astonished, Corrie paused, upright beside the ciderpress, then smiled
+with a blending of pride and serious exaltation.
+
+"No danger of that! I--that can never happen to me," he assured
+quietly. "I am safe-guarded from imitations, win or lose. I believe, if
+I am given to hero-worship, that I'm pretty good at picking the right
+subjects for it. Had enough cider?"
+
+"Too much, probably. If I am ill to-morrow, I shall tell Rupert that you
+poisoned me. Are you going around to pay the lord proprietors of the
+place for what we have consumed?"
+
+"Who, me? If I did, Mrs. Goodwin might box my ears for the impertinence;
+she has boxed them before. I grew up around here, remember. The first
+acquaintance I made with this house was when I shied an apple at the
+family tabby as it sat sunning itself on the well-curb, and bowled it
+in. Naturally, I hadn't meant to hit it; the beast stepped forward just
+as I fired. I nearly fell in, myself, trying to get it out, but the well
+was deep and I couldn't raise a meow or a whisker. It was a fine
+November Sunday, I remember, and while I was busy the family drove into
+the yard, home from church. I bolted. No one saw me go, but by and by I
+began to remember all the yarns I ever had heard about people getting
+typhoid fever from polluted well-water, and to imagine that entire
+household dying on my hands. Remorse with a capital R! I felt like
+Cesare Borgia and Madame de Brinvilliers and the Veiled Mokanna all
+rolled into one. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I sneaked into
+Flavia's room at two o'clock in the morning, for counsel."
+
+"She gave it?"
+
+"She gave it. You can always count on Flavia. I can see her now, sitting
+up in bed with her hair braided in two big yellow plaits and her
+troubled kiddie countenance turned to me.
+
+"'You will have to tell either papa or those people,' she decided, wise
+as a toy owl. 'And if you tell them, _they_ will surely tell papa, so
+perhaps you would rather tell him yourself. But I am sorry, dear
+darling.'
+
+"So I 'fessed up, after breakfast."
+
+"What happened?" Gerard questioned.
+
+"We drove over to the farm together, and father went in for a private
+interview with old man Goodwin. After which he, father, escorted me
+around to the well and informed me that I was to drink a cup of that
+water. Phew, I would rather have drunk hemlock! I wasn't much given to
+begging off when I got into trouble, but I tried that time, all right.
+
+"'It's what you've left these folks to drink,' said he, standing with
+his hands in his pockets, looking at me. 'It would have been a lot more
+pleasant for you to swallow if you had owned up two days ago; just keep
+that as a reminder never to put off a thing you ought to do. Take your
+medicine, Corwin B.'
+
+"I took it. But it almost killed me." He shook his blond head
+disgustedly. "I told him I would probably die of typhoid, or something
+worse. He said we would chance it."
+
+"Still, it was a chance, Corrie."
+
+Corrie calmly fastened the last button of his raincoat.
+
+"No, I guess not. You see, old Goodwin had told father that they pulled
+pussy out of the well ten minutes after I ran away, the first day. She
+was clinging to the bucket, pretty wet, but healthy and merry. Father
+told me the truth, before dinner-time; I didn't seem to care for
+luncheon, that day. Have you got a pencil? I've lost my fountain-pen
+again; that's the third I've bought this month."
+
+Gerard produced the pencil.
+
+"It was a rough joke on you, though," he commented. "Didn't you resent
+it?"
+
+Corrie lifted his bright clear glance from his task of tearing a blank
+leaf from his notebook.
+
+"Hadn't I earned it?" he asked. "Keep the lines straight, Gerard; my
+father never punished me in anger, nor unless I could first admit I
+deserved it and we could shake hands on it afterward. Of course, that
+sort of thing ended five years ago--there never was much of it--but
+there couldn't be closer friends than we have been, right through. We
+have kept each other's respect, we couldn't get along without it; and we
+expect a good deal of each other, too. I just don't want you to
+misunderstand."
+
+He scribbled his signature across the bit of paper, and secured the
+legend to the ciderpress.
+
+"There; now the Goodwins will know who has been here. Ready?"
+
+"Ready," Gerard assented.
+
+The rain had ceased; the vigorous broom of the north wind was sweeping
+the broken storm-clouds across a gray sky. The drive to the yacht club
+was accomplished pleasantly and quickly.
+
+"I told Rupert to meet us here at noon," Corrie observed, when they
+stopped at the pier. "And I had lunch for three sent over, this morning.
+What a deserted old hole the club is in October! Hello, what----"
+
+From beneath the tarpaulin cover of a long, polished motor boat moored
+in the wall-locked artificial harbor, a frowsy head had projected, to be
+instantly withdrawn into shelter at sight of the two young men. The
+genus of that head was unmistakable, the action significant. Both
+arrivals halted involuntarily.
+
+"Club steward?" inquired Gerard, with irony.
+
+"Tramp!" flared his companion, recovering breath after the first shock
+of amazement at the audacity of the intruder. "A dirty, lazy hobo in my
+boat! Lying on my cushions, mauling my things, running my engine for all
+I know. Oh!"
+
+"Hold on," Gerard advised. "Better investigate."
+
+But Corrie was already at the edge of the pier.
+
+"Come out of there!" he shouted imperiously. "Come out, I say, or I'll
+come aboard and throw you out. What do you mean by it? Come out, I tell
+you."
+
+The head slowly emerged, a red head in need of combing; its owner rested
+his arms on the gleaming mahogany deck and turned a sullen, unshaven
+face on his challenger.
+
+"Stand me a quarter, an' I'll beat it," he invited raucously.
+
+"A quarter! You'll beat it without a cent and do it quick, or go to
+jail. That is my boat, do you hear? Come out. What are you doing there?
+Stealing?"
+
+"Sleepin', if you want to know."
+
+"I've got a right to know. Are you going to take your filthy self off my
+cushions, or am I going to throw you off?"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, _me_. Who do you think?"
+
+The man measured his young antagonist with unhurried scrutiny, yawned,
+and ostentatiously settled himself in a position of greater comfort.
+
+"You can't do it," he sneered. "Send a man."
+
+The _Dear Me_ was not anchored, but moored to the pier by a pulley and
+tackle. Before the diverted Gerard guessed his purpose, Corrie had
+hauled in the boat's bow by the running line attached and swung himself
+raging into the craft below. There was a choked oath, a sound of rending
+canvas, then the clatter and thud of combat in close quarters.
+
+It was over before Gerard could do more than haul the reeling,
+water-drenched boat again within reach. A great splash, a cry changing
+to a smothered gurgle, announced a threat fulfilled.
+
+"I don't want any help," panted Corrie, standing erect and dishevelled,
+fiery blue eyes on his floundering enemy. "He's had enough, I fancy.
+Here, the water is only five feet deep, you chump! Not that way! Throw
+me an oar, Gerard--he'd drown himself in a saucer. Here, catch hold,
+you. What's the matter with you?"
+
+"You pitched him into pretty cold water," Gerard reproached, between
+amusement and pity. "Got him? Look out! You'll capsize!"
+
+Corrie had him, by the collar, and brought him to the pier, a streaming,
+shivering wreck.
+
+"Man's size, am I?" demanded the victor. "Here, what are you shaking
+like that for? You'll kill yourself, man."
+
+The captive looked at him, speechless, shuddering miserably in the
+boisterous rush of wind that wrapped his wet garments about him like a
+sheath of ice.
+
+"You silly idiot," Corrie snapped impatiently. "Why didn't you do as I
+told you? Open the basement door, won't you, Gerard, while I bring him?
+We'll be sure to find a fire there. Are you going to come quietly, yes?"
+
+The victim followed tamely to the lower part of the building, where
+Corrie threw open a furnace-door and installed him in the red glow of
+heat.
+
+"Take off your clothes," he commanded. "Trying to get pneumonia, are
+you, so I will feel like a brute? Oh, I'll give you something to wear;
+I've got a lot of old duds in my locker here. What are you laughing at,
+Allan Gerard?"
+
+"The responsible man's burden. Never mind me, go on with your rescue."
+
+"I should like to throw something at you."
+
+"Haven't you got enough on your hands?"
+
+The raillery struck some note in the man's pride. He looked from Gerard
+to Corrie, who was bringing an armful of assorted clothing, with a
+reawakening defiance not so much evil as primitive.
+
+"You couldn't have put it over me so easy," he announced sombrely, "if
+I'd had the feed I bet you got this morning."
+
+The garments escaped Corrie's grasp.
+
+"Feed? You're hungry?"
+
+"What you think I was sleepin' in your dinky boat for, if I had the
+price of anythin'? It had a blanket in it an' was better than the open,
+that's why."
+
+"Why didn't you say so," Corrie stormed at him hotly. "Get into those
+clothes and come upstairs. Or, no; I'll bring it down, stay there."
+
+It was an elaborate lunch-hamper that presently was brought in and set
+down.
+
+"Eat it," was the concise direction. "That vacuum-bottle is full of hot
+coffee; drink it. For Heaven's sake stop shivering--_why_ couldn't you
+speak? Rupert is coming, Gerard. I heard the motor-horn down the road."
+
+Gerard discreetly had turned his back to the scene, reading a
+last-season bulletin of yacht racing that was fixed to the wall at the
+end of the room.
+
+"You want to start?" he interpreted, as Corrie joined him.
+
+"Well--I hope you won't mind, but I don't see how we can. I have got to
+stay here until that chattering, shaking----"
+
+"'Brimstone pig,'" supplied Gerard, with a recollection of the
+unforgettable _Mrs. Smallweed_.
+
+"Thanks. Until he finishes and can leave, for the steward will put him
+out if he finds him here alone."
+
+"That cannot be long."
+
+"No, but," he hesitated, engagingly confused. "But we are miles from a
+restaurant, you know, and I had to feed him somehow, and there wasn't
+anything except our luncheon that I had sent over for the trip. So I
+suppose we had better drive home and get some eats there. It is a shabby
+way to treat you, all right, after bringing you out."
+
+Gerard dropped his hand on the other's shoulder, his laughing eyes very
+kind.
+
+"Corrie Rose, how many times a year do you throw your offenders
+overboard, and give them your own lunch to make up for it?" he
+challenged.
+
+There was no lack of perception in Corrie; he recognized both the
+innuendo and its truth.
+
+"About every day," he confessed. "My temper slips. Everyone expects it
+of me, so it's all right. At least, it has been all right; I guess I've
+got to stop."
+
+"Corrie, you did not believe me in earnest?"
+
+"No, it isn't that." He shook his head as if to shake off a vexing
+thought. "I--it makes me feel like a brute to think I've been knocking
+out a half-starved man and throwing him into that water because he
+crawled under an old blanket in my boat for shelter. Why didn't I
+question him decently? I must put on the brake, or I'll spoil something
+without intending it."
+
+Gerard opened his lips to deny the danger and recall the provocation
+received, but for some reason he did not analyze, closed them without
+speaking. The two stood together in silence for many moments, looking
+out at the gray-green expanse of tumbling water.
+
+"I'll be goin'," the hoarse voice of the involuntary guest said, behind
+them. "Obliged for your feed."
+
+There was a tentative quality in the statement, an attempt to carry off
+easily a situation capable of unpleasant developments, a studied
+ignoring of his captor's possible right to detain him. But Corrie swung
+around with a face of open sunniness that shamed suspicion, his hands in
+the pockets of his long overcoat.
+
+"Good enough! Did you find what you liked, or rather, like what you
+found?" he responded.
+
+The hard face relaxed into a reluctant humor, the man looked again to
+assure himself of the inquirer's seriousness.
+
+"The best ever," he essayed social graciousness. "I ain't left much.
+Your little caramels were fine."
+
+"Caramels? Who on earth put in caramels? Armand must have lost his mind!
+What kind of caramels?"
+
+"Wrapped in tin paper, they were, in a little tin box."
+
+"Wrapped----Holy cats, Gerard, he has eaten the concentrated bouillon
+squares! They were not to eat, man; they were to be dissolved in a cup
+of boiling water, to drink."
+
+"They tasted all right. I guess they'll go. I'll be movin'."
+
+"Go? Well, I hope so; you must have enough concentrated beef in you to
+nourish an army. You are going, you say. Where to?"
+
+"The big town."
+
+"What are you going to do when you get there?"
+
+The man's dissipation-dulled eyes searched the candid face of the
+questioner scarcely ten years his junior, then he looked to Gerard with
+a confused and reluctant unease, as he might have looked had Corrie been
+a young girl whose innocence he feared to offend.
+
+"Aw, lots of things," he evaded, with a short, embarrassed laugh. "You
+don't want to hear me talk, mister. I'll get there, now I'm fed up."
+
+"Do you want me to find work for you around here? I can."
+
+"My jobs are a different kind, mister. I couldn't stay in yours."
+
+Corrie brought his hand from his pocket.
+
+"All right, as you like. Take this for good luck and we'll call
+ourselves even. Square, is it?"
+
+The man took the bill awkwardly, his embarrassment deepened.
+
+"You're square, sure," he signified.
+
+As his slouching, bulky figure went out the door opposite, it crossed
+the small erect form of Jack Rupert, who entered.
+
+"Us for home," Corrie greeted the arrival. "It is too bad to have
+brought you over for nothing, Rupert, but--what's the matter?"
+
+The mechanician's countenance was a study in disgust, as he contemplated
+one of his polished tan boots, a high-heeled, ornate affair of the
+latest design labelled "smart." Off the race course and outside of
+hours, Rupert had one passion: clothes.
+
+"I ain't registering any complaints if the rest are satisfied," he
+acidly returned. "But stepping in a puddle of wringing rags that the
+town board of health ought to condemn for making a noisy demonstration
+ain't what I look forward to all day as a treat. As for going home, I'm
+ready, myself. The trip we're missing will keep awhile this weather. The
+water is mussed bad and the only time I ever was car-sick was on the
+boat to Savannah."
+
+"Did he spoil his pretty shoes?" Corrie teased, speculatively eyeing the
+heap of wet, unsavory clothing. "Never mind, Briggs shall make them good
+as new with his Transcendant Tan for Tasteful Tootsies; you haven't seen
+that darky of mine shine boots. I don't know what to do with those
+clothes, Gerard, so I think I won't do anything. Let's go home before we
+starve. Rupert, don't you approve of charity?"
+
+"I ain't fitted to say; nobody ever showed me any. I always got exactly
+what I worked for, measure evened off and loose-packed. If I sneaked
+into somebody's boat-garage without an invitation, I wouldn't get a bath
+and breakfast and a greenback; I'd get ten dollars or ten days from the
+first judge in the stand. And so would you."
+
+Corrie paused, struck.
+
+"I? Why?"
+
+"You. Why? What's the answer? I don't know, but I know the type. You
+keep your score-card and watch it happen; you'll find you get just what
+you enter for. Nothing more _and_ nothing less."
+
+"'Nothing more _and_ nothing less,'" Corrie repeated, unconsciously
+exact. "Well," his dancing smile flashed out, "we don't want any more
+than that, do we? I'll be content with the life I earn."
+
+"It's a good thing, for that's all we'll get," was the terse reply.
+"When some folks start to kick a brick wall, luck drops a feather pillow
+between. Other people stub their toes. I ain't crying bad luck, because
+I never had any; I'm just saying we'll stub our toes, if we kick the
+wall. We don't have to kick it."
+
+"Rupert is a philosopher," Gerard observed, not mockingly or in
+ridicule, but as one stating a fact.
+
+His mechanician nodded coolly.
+
+"Calling names don't count. I've raced long enough to know a type of car
+when I see it, and I've lived long enough to tell a type of man. The way
+their heads set does it, maybe. Did you know the ladies were upstairs?"
+
+"The ladies?" echoed Gerard, surprised. "They came with you?"
+
+"Not precisely, I guess I came with them. Miss Rose saw me starting and
+said she was coming over with her own little machine to see the launch
+off, if she could get her cousin to come, and they'd bring me. So she
+drove me over. I ain't used to that."
+
+"Ladies?"
+
+"Ladies' driving. My life's insured, so it was all right, though."
+
+"Bully for Isabel!" Corrie approved, pensiveness cast aside. "Come up to
+them, Gerard. I hear her tooting for us with the horn."
+
+From the little scarlet runabout--the largest motor vehicle Mr. Rose
+would allow his vigorous niece--Isabel and Flavia had descended.
+
+"We came to see what you were doing," Isabel welcomed the group who
+issued from the club-house. "I don't suppose Flavia would have come if
+she hadn't been wondering whether Corrie was drowning himself. Go ahead
+and start; don't wait on our account. But you had better eat your lunch
+first, if you haven't already, for you will have no time to eat in the
+boat on that sea."
+
+"We haven't any lunch," Corrie cheerfully declared. "I gave it to a
+tramp after I threw him overboard. You're just in time to take us home
+for luncheon and save our lives."
+
+"You look as if you had been fighting," Isabel criticized, with a
+scornful survey of his attire. "You are all splashed with dirty water,
+your cravat is pulled crooked and your coat is torn. We saw your tramp;
+he passed us a few moments ago and we recognized your blue flannel suit
+with the _Dear Me's_ insignia on the lapel. Mr. Rupert guessed what you
+had been doing, when he saw the boat all in disorder and the pier all
+wet. The man's hairy, dirty face looked horrid above your clothes."
+
+"A contrast to my beauty, not so? Fix my cravat, please, ma'am; I can't
+see the thing. But his face wasn't dirty, for I washed it."
+
+"Why should I fix your wet cravat? Hold my gloves, then. Where is your
+scarf-pin? Stolen by your tramp, I suppose."
+
+Gerard had joined Flavia, but neither yet had spoken, watching the
+cousins. They had not the fluent familiarity of intercourse possessed by
+the two who looked and acted very like a pair of handsome boys.
+Moreover, Gerard distrusted himself, fearing to say too much, too soon.
+He was approaching Flavia carefully and delicately as a man striving to
+close his hand on some frail, elusive creature whose capture he scarcely
+dares hope possible. And she gave him no help. Her frank gentleness and
+impersonal cordiality gave neither encouragement nor discouragement, no
+foothold smooth or rough.
+
+The actual position he had never even conceived; the fact that she was
+completely unconscious of his desire to woo her. He had no way of
+knowing that it was his attitude toward Isabel she considered in all his
+words and acts, remembering her cousin's confident appropriation of the
+guest. It was of Isabel that she spoke now, while Gerard hesitated for
+the right word to offer the girl beside him.
+
+"The roads were very wet and slippery," she remarked. "If Isabel were
+not a good driver, I think we would have found ourselves in a ditch.
+Indeed," her soft mouth dimpled into a smile, "once I thought we were in
+one. One wheel _was_. But we wiggled out again. Mr. Rupert wanted to put
+the chains on the wheels, but she said we did not need them."
+
+The thought of Isabel over-ruling the judgment of his racing mechanician
+unsteadied Gerard's gravity.
+
+"A coarse masculine hand is needed on the wheel, to-day," he confirmed,
+with ulterior intention. "I believe we had better divide our party
+differently, on the way back. Let me drive one car and Corrie or Rupert
+the other. I'll promise not to take any ditches, if you consent."
+
+"Great scheme," Corrie called, overhearing. "I'll take the red near-car
+home, Isabel."
+
+"No, indeed," Isabel vetoed decidedly. "Mr. Gerard is going to take me
+home and I shall learn a lot from watching him drive. You can take
+Flavia in your roadster; Mr. Rupert will ride in the rumble seat."
+
+Being a gentleman, Gerard compelled his expression to evidence pleasant
+acquiescence. But he was not soothed by the unclouded smile Flavia sent
+her designated escort.
+
+"Corrie doesn't mind taking me, do you, dear?" she covered her brother's
+chagrin.
+
+"I surely don't, Other Fellow," he heartily corroborated, coming across
+to his sister, although the change in his transparent face betrayed his
+discomfiture at the slight. "You and I have had many a good spin. In you
+go! Come up behind, Rupert; there is more room here than on the other
+machine."
+
+"I think Mr. Rupert would rather ride with us, anyhow," Flavia declared,
+her laughing eyes questioning the mechanician. "I fancied, once or twice
+on the way over, that he would have preferred to have you or Mr. Gerard
+driving."
+
+"I ain't making any scornful denials," admitted Rupert, as he stepped in
+front to crank the motor for Corrie. "I've always looked forward to
+being killed in a larger machine, myself."
+
+Isabel did not at once enter her own car.
+
+"I can't fasten this glove without taking off the other, and then I
+can't fasten the other without taking off this," she complained. "I
+really believe----"
+
+So, the last the three in the departing roadster saw of the two on the
+pier, Allan Gerard was engaged in buttoning Isabel's glove, while her
+wind-blown veils fluttered across his shoulders and her flushed,
+provocative face bent over the task beside his.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+ISABEL
+
+
+Isabel, in the clinging knitted coat that displayed every attractive
+line of her athletic figure, her cheeks reddened by triumph and the salt
+wind, her gray eyes lifted in challenging coquetry, was a sufficiently
+pleasant sight to dispel mere vexation. And Gerard had no right to feel
+more than annoyance at a disappointment of which she supposedly knew
+nothing.
+
+"I ran away with you because I didn't want to ride home with Corrie,"
+she confided, when the last button-hole was achieved. "You don't
+mind--much?"
+
+"I am overwhelmed by the honor," Gerard assured. He was neither surly
+enough to refuse the light play to which she invited him, nor anchorite
+enough to be insensible to the flattery of being sought. "But how did
+Prince Corrie offend his sovereign lady?"
+
+"Oh, that would be telling! You know, we are _not_ engaged."
+
+"Not yet?"
+
+"Not at all. And the last time we were out alone together, he--he asked
+me to see if the oil was running through that little cup on the dash."
+
+"And then?"
+
+They were in the car now, Gerard behind the steering-wheel. Isabel
+leaned down to touch her fingers to the dash, turning her vivid-hued,
+consciously alluring face across her shoulder to the companion so close
+beside her, the auburn curls tumbled about her forehead and her mouth
+tempting as a small scarlet fruit.
+
+"And then, we were like this when--guess what Corrie did?"
+
+It was not in the least difficult to guess what the enamoured Corrie had
+done. But Gerard shook his head, schooling his mirthful eyes.
+
+"I could not, possibly, Miss Rose. I am very dull."
+
+"Well, what would _you_ have done?"
+
+"I? I should have shut both eyes and recalled St. Francis' rules of
+deportment."
+
+Isabel straightened herself, leaning back and folding her hands in her
+lap.
+
+"That's what Corrie did not do," she stated. "So I will not ride with
+him. It was bad taste."
+
+"I imagine Corrie found the taste most pleasant."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Have I guessed wrong?"
+
+"You said that you were dull, Mr. Gerard."
+
+"Then the guess is wrong. Poor Corrie!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
+
+"You think a great deal about Corrie."
+
+"Yes. We are friends," Gerard quietly answered.
+
+She was clever enough to recognize the bar he set to flirtation with the
+woman loved by the man he gave that name, and she regarded the obstacle
+as a challenge. She was not sufficiently old or fine to realize that
+such bars are not crossed by such men. If Gerard had loved her or
+believed she might love him, he must have left his friend's house; as
+Corrie would have left Gerard's in like case. As a matter of fact,
+Gerard was perfectly aware of the immunity of both parties and that
+Isabel was merely seeking temporary diversion--experimenting with the
+possibilities of her own heady youth.
+
+A forking of the road supplied a new subject for discussion.
+
+"Turn to the left," Isabel directed, sitting erect.
+
+Surprised, Gerard checked the machine.
+
+"We did not come that way, Miss Rose."
+
+"Of course not; you came by the long route, past the Goodwin farm. This
+is a better road."
+
+"Better?"
+
+She followed his gaze down the vista of slippery, rut-grooved mud, and
+colored.
+
+"A shorter road, then," she amended petulantly. "I am sure I don't
+care--go the long way if you wish. The storm is blowing back again, but
+I can stand the rain."
+
+Gerard hastily turned into the wretched travesty of a road.
+
+"I beg your pardon; I only wondered if you were quite certain of the
+route," he apologized.
+
+There ensued a period of silence. The little car slipped and wallowed
+through sliding mud and yellow puddles.
+
+"I hope you do not drive here, yourself," Gerard observed.
+
+"Do you think I should be afraid?"
+
+"I think you might have serious trouble. There is a deep ditch on either
+side, while the road is both narrow and slippery."
+
+"I can drive anywhere. Ask Corrie."
+
+"I suspect he is a biassed judge. But I should not have believed he
+would let you drive here."
+
+"He----I never did except in dry weather. I knew _you_ would not mind
+any road and could drive in anything, so it did not matter."
+
+"Please consider the compliment more than appreciated, mademoiselle,"
+Gerard smiled. "There is going to be a splash when we strike that
+puddle ahead; had you not better draw in your frock?"
+
+She caught her white serge skirts around her and shrank nearer to her
+companion with a gurgle of dismayed laughter.
+
+"Let me get in the middle. Uh, what a muddy swamp! Oh--my face!"
+
+In fact, the water had splashed as the car struck the pool where a
+rain-swollen brook had overflowed the road. As Gerard turned to the
+girl, she lifted a face sprinkled with drops which she strove to remove
+with her handkerchief.
+
+"Is it off?" she questioned. "Please look carefully. _All_ off?"
+
+He was obliged to scrutinize the handsome countenance offered for
+inspection at close range.
+
+"A trifle of mud, still," he admitted.
+
+"Where? Here?"
+
+"No--more to the left. Beneath the eye--the other eye."
+
+"This place?"
+
+"Not quite."
+
+It was incredible, the length of time that small spot evaded Isabel's
+questing handkerchief, and the futility of Gerard's directions. He was
+obliged to halt the car, at last.
+
+"A little higher--not so much. There! No, not so low."
+
+With a gesture of mock despair, she gave him the fragrant square of
+linen.
+
+"Wipe it off," she requested resignedly. "I can't motor all over Long
+Island with a dirty face. There is no one in sight for miles; wipe it
+off and never tell."
+
+"I am very clumsy," he demurred.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped."
+
+Gerard might have echoed the exclamation. But he accepted the
+handkerchief and deftly, if with inward embarrassment, removed the stain
+from the ruddy cheek presented.
+
+"It can't be off, Mr. Gerard?"
+
+"Pardon, it is gone."
+
+"You hardly touched it," doubtingly.
+
+"If you could see----" he began in defense of his work.
+
+"Look once more."
+
+He obeyed, impersonally and coolly.
+
+"Nothing, indeed," he asserted.
+
+She glanced up at him through her long lashes, and flung herself back in
+her seat.
+
+"Thank you. Shall we go on?"
+
+[Illustration: "WIPE IT OFF," SHE REQUESTED RESIGNEDLY, "WIPE IT OFF AND
+NEVER TELL"]
+
+The operation and the drive that preceded it had occupied considerable
+time. It was an hour since the party had separated at the yacht club's
+pier. The brief interval of comparative clearness had given place to
+dark skies across which the capricious wind herded masses of gray cloud.
+And presently several drops of rain fell and trickled down the
+wind-shield of the car.
+
+"Hurry," Isabel urged, sitting up with renewed animation. "It is going
+to pour."
+
+"The little machine isn't capable of much hurrying on this road," Gerard
+regretted. "She hasn't any speed, of course. How far have we left to
+go?"
+
+"A long way, seven or eight miles. We haven't passed the country club,
+yet."
+
+"But Corrie drove over in an hour!"
+
+"With his big car, yes," she retorted. "Perhaps this was not the best
+way, after all. But it would take longer to go back, now, than to keep
+on."
+
+This was obvious. There was nothing to do except force the skidding,
+panting automobile to maintain its best gait.
+
+They were destined to lose that race. As they came opposite a low brick
+building set amidst rolling green slopes and stretches of flag-dotted
+turf, the storm overtook them.
+
+"Up the driveway," Isabel cried. "We can just make it. This is the
+country club--we'll 'phone home where we are staying."
+
+Gerard sent the car up the wide gravelled path. An attendant was waiting
+to receive them, another assumed charge of the automobile, and Isabel's
+escort found himself standing beside her on the veranda with rather
+confused ideas of how the affair had been accomplished.
+
+"Koma says there is no one else here," she informed him. "We have all
+the place to ourselves. How it rains!"
+
+It certainly was raining, raining violently and steadily, a gray
+downpour from a gray sky. She paused to look before continuing.
+
+"I'll 'phone to Flavia, first of all. I can see we are going to have a
+long wait. Koma will get us the best luncheon he knows how. Aren't you
+hungry? I am. Come in."
+
+Gerard uttered some reply. He was profoundly vexed at his situation,
+without being able to blame himself for it or to fix any actual fault
+upon Isabel. She had already turned away to enter the hall, and
+presently he heard the tinkle of the telephone bell, followed by her
+high-pitched voice.
+
+"One one seven? Martin, I want Miss Rose. Yes, it is I. Oh!----We're at
+the country club, Corrie. No, we didn't get lost; we just chose that
+road.... Not a bit, it was good sport. We're having luncheon together,
+here, and then I suppose we will play billiards until the rain stops.
+Tell Flavia not to worry; we'll get home by dinner-time, and we're
+enjoying ourselves.... Not wet, just splashed. Mr. Gerard spoiled a
+handkerchief drying me, that's all the damage. Good-by."
+
+She reappeared on the threshold, complacently satisfied. She had removed
+her hood and veils, shaken her ruddy hair into becoming disorder, and
+knew herself at her best.
+
+"You are enjoying yourself, aren't you?" she demanded.
+
+"Certainly," Gerard responded, without enthusiasm.
+
+"Why not come in, then? Which do you like most to commence a
+luncheon----Blue Points or little clams? Corrie and I quarrel over that
+every time we are out together. He is as obstinate as, as--Corrie!"
+
+"Clams," said he, at a venture. He had a vague recollection of seeing
+Corrie dismiss oysters with scorn, and he felt viciously contrary.
+
+"Why, so do I," agreed Isabel winningly. "Let us order some."
+
+One cannot be disagreeable to a young girl under one's care, who also
+is in a sense one's hostess. The luncheon was sufficiently gay. The rain
+fell incessantly, beating against the diamond-paned windows, gurgling
+down eaves and gutter-ways.
+
+"We should have sailed home in the _Dear Me_," Isabel declared. "I am
+sure there is enough water on the roads. Why did we not think of it?"
+
+She detached a chrysanthemum petal from the vase of blossoms central on
+the table, and dropped it into her finger-bowl, watching the agitation
+of a diminutive scarlet-and-black beetle perched upon the sinking leaf.
+
+"An execution?" Gerard inquired.
+
+She raised her eyes, pouting prettily, and nodded.
+
+"I hate those bugs," she explained. "Ugly animals! We put them in and
+wager a box of bon-bons on how long they last. If it is still alive at
+the end of five minutes, I lose. If it is drowned, I win."
+
+"Does Corrie play that game with you?"
+
+"N'no. Corrie doesn't like it. He will step off of a sidewalk into the
+mud to avoid treading on a cricket. Do you suppose I never play with any
+one except my cousin? Will you try this wager? _You're_ not silly?"
+
+"I will, if I may. If that lady-bug is alive five minutes from now, I
+win? No other conditions?"
+
+"None," gleefully. "Take your watch. You'll lose, he's weakening now."
+
+Gerard leaned across, lifted the struggling beetle upon his finger-tip,
+and restored it to the safe refuge of the chrysanthemum bouquet.
+
+"I believe he will live some time," he soberly predicted.
+
+The girl stared, frowned, and laughed.
+
+"No fair! No fair! That's not the game, Mr. Gerard."
+
+"No? Then I will send the bon-bons."
+
+"Chocolates."
+
+"They shall be chocolates."
+
+"And I may put back the nasty beetle?"
+
+"On no account; I have ransomed him."
+
+"Oh, very well," she shrugged, rising. "I'll take refuge in billiards
+for the next game. Corrie taught me to play, but I can beat him, now."
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't watch his game when his opponent is his cousin."
+
+"Why, what else should he watch?" she wondered, arching her brows a
+trifle too innocently.
+
+"I cannot imagine, if you do not know," Gerard dryly responded, and held
+open the door for her to pass out.
+
+In the billiard room, Isabel rolled her sleeves above her elbows as a
+preliminary measure.
+
+"I haven't had that off for a year," she confided, indicating a flexible
+platinum and turquoise bracelet encircling her firm, sun-browned arm.
+
+"You are fond of it?" her companion inferred. "It is a beautiful bit of
+work, indeed."
+
+"I like it well enough. That isn't the reason, though. You see, it
+locks, and after Corrie put it on my arm he kept the key. He says he
+will give it to me on my wedding day. But it isn't worth that."
+
+"Worth----?" he questioned.
+
+"Getting married. Will you play me even?"
+
+"Pray fix any odds you choose, Miss Rose. How many points does Corrie
+usually give you?"
+
+This time Isabel's stare of surprise was genuine.
+
+"I meant, how many points should I allow _you_," she corrected
+arrogantly.
+
+"Oh, pardon me!" he submitted. "Suppose, in that case, we play for an
+even score."
+
+The storm did not abate. The wind drove the rain before it in glistening
+gray sheets, the steady drumming of the downpour accompanied the click
+of meeting ivory balls and the occasional speech of the players. After a
+time, a deep-belled Mission clock in the hall struck four.
+
+A sharp, incredulous cry from the girl rang out, after an interval of
+silence in the room.
+
+"Why--why, you've won!"
+
+"So I have," acknowledged her antagonist. "Shall I apologize?"
+
+Isabel started to speak, and checked herself. She had been chiefly
+intent upon her own accomplishment, and Gerard's playing was of a
+deceptive leisureliness and tranquillity.
+
+"How many did you make in that last run?" she asked, finally.
+
+"Only seventeen."
+
+"You can't do it again."
+
+"One never can tell."
+
+"Play," she defied.
+
+Gerard glanced hopelessly at the streaming windows.
+
+"It is growing late," he demurred.
+
+"Not late, yet. Besides, we can't go out in that weather with an open
+automobile. They know at home where we are."
+
+They did; that was precisely the core of Gerard's exasperation and
+unrest. What impressions would this tete-a-tete afternoon convey to
+Corrie? And what would Flavia think of her guest's guardianship of her
+cousin? He picked up his cue with enforced resignation.
+
+The clock had struck the half-hour, when a long blast from an electric
+horn pierced through the clamor of the storm.
+
+"Another motor-party caught out," Isabel hazarded, her tone decidedly
+cross. She was losing again, and she did not like the experience. "Your
+play. You seem to find it more amusing to look out the window."
+
+Gerard was spared reply. The billiard-room door was pushed open by the
+Japanese steward and a figure in gleaming rain-proof attire appeared on
+the threshold--the figure of a chauffeur, cap in hand.
+
+"Lenoir!" Isabel exclaimed.
+
+The chauffeur saluted.
+
+"Mr. Rose sent the limousine to convey mademoiselle and Mr. Gerard," he
+informed them, in his precise, Parisian-flavored English.
+
+"My uncle is home?"
+
+"I had just driven Mr. Rose home from the city, mademoiselle, before he
+telephoned to the garage that I should come here."
+
+She tossed her cue upon the table, recklessly scattering the balls, and
+turned toward the door.
+
+"Bring our wraps, Koma," she bade. "We had better go."
+
+Gerard contemplated Lenoir with marked kindness.
+
+"It's a bad day to be out," he commented, in following Isabel from the
+room, and passed into the chauffeur's hand a gratuity out of all
+proportion to the occasion.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Lenoir, demurely.
+
+The drive home was short and uninteresting. On the veranda of the Rose
+villa Corrie was waiting to meet the returning two, upon the limousine's
+arrival.
+
+"Well, of all the slow traveling I ever saw, this is the limit," he
+greeted them derisively; "From noon until five o'clock! Fancy!"
+
+"Never mind our driving; we have had a fine time," Isabel retorted, with
+pettish tartness.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, no doubt. I wouldn't have interrupted, myself. It was
+father who did it, when he came in. He said you'd want some dinner
+to-night."
+
+He smiled at Gerard as cordially as ever, but there was a wistfulness
+underlying his expression that inspired the older man with a hearty
+desire to shake Isabel Rose. She could watch her young lover's emotions
+with the same diverted interest with which she had watched the struggles
+of the tiny black-and-scarlet beetle drowning in her finger-bowl.
+
+"I wish you had been with us, Corrie," was all Gerard found to say.
+
+Through the parted curtains, the library presented such a graceful
+interior study as certain French artists have delighted in drawing. In
+the octagonal, book-lined room of rich hues and soft lights, Flavia and
+her father were seated together; busied in pleasant comradeship at the
+table whose polished surface was littered with letters, books of
+household accounts, and all those dainty metal and crystal trinkets the
+jeweller conceives necessary to the writer. Evidently they had found
+refreshment desirable, for a diminutive tea-table still stood near
+Flavia, while a pushed-back chair beneath which a young Great Dane hound
+lay asleep indicated that Corrie had been one of the group.
+
+"Back, are you?" Mr. Rose called cheerily, to the two in the hall,
+leaning back in his chair to view them more easily. "When I heard where
+you were marooned, I guessed it was about time for a rescue. You
+children oughtn't to try roundabout country roads with a storm blowing
+up."
+
+"Mr. Gerard wanted to go that way," Isabel alleged, with perfect
+assurance. "I told him to do as he chose."
+
+That distortion of facts was too much to be endured, with Corrie
+listening and Flavia a witness. Gerard's chivalry momentarily lapsed
+and he struck back with all the effectiveness of superior experience.
+
+"Yes, certainly," he confirmed, carefully distinct. "I naturally wanted
+to get Miss Rose safely at home as soon as possible, and since she said
+that road was the shortest route, I took it, of course."
+
+"The _shortest_?" Corrie echoed, astounded. "The----"
+
+He broke the speech in time, hastily discreet. Isabel crimsoned hotly;
+the glance she darted at her late escort was not dovelike. It was Flavia
+who brought relief to the situation, as usual.
+
+"These Long Island roads are outrageously misleading," she offered light
+suggestion, rising with a smiling gesture of excuse to her father. "Isa
+and I often lose our way when we drive out together. Don't you want to
+change your damp things, dear?"
+
+"Yes," assented her cousin, sullenly. "It's time to make ready for
+dinner, anyhow."
+
+Corrie held aside the curtain for the girls to pass out. His blue eyes
+were dancing in pure mischief and relief. All the household understood
+Isabel's propensity for flirtation--and its utter lack of significance.
+If she had detained Gerard, not Gerard her, her lover-cousin had no
+ground for especial apprehension.
+
+"Punk weather," he commented, coming back.
+
+"Dullest I ever experienced," supplemented his guest decidedly.
+
+Mr. Rose set a paper-weight on the letter open before him, and lit a
+cigar.
+
+"We were discussing the buying of another automobile, Gerard, when you
+came in," he imparted. "Come sit down for half an hour before we
+dress--we not needing so long as the ladies for it--and give us your
+advice on the choice."
+
+"And I'll give you one of my monogram cigarettes," volunteered Corrie,
+slipping a hand affectionately through Gerard's arm. "Oh, no--I don't
+smoke them, but I like to carry them. And when you want something extra
+fine, you ask Corwin B. Rose for one of his smokes. Let's sit here,
+together."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE VASE OF AL-MANSOR
+
+
+On the threshold of his father's model garage Corrie stopped, surveying
+the scene presented in the centre of the huge, lofty stone room, bare
+except for the five automobiles ranged around and their countless
+appurtenances disposed upon walls and shelves.
+
+"Excuse me, but when did you two last wash?" he jeered.
+
+The two men beside the Mercury racing car looked up at the figure in the
+sunny doorway.
+
+"I don't care to try to prove that I ever did," returned Gerard. "The
+evidence is against me. But Rupert had his beauty bath this morning, all
+right. You're looking rather disarranged, yourself; perhaps the course
+was a trifle dusty."
+
+They laughed silently across at one another. The trim garments of all
+three men were gray with dust and oil, their faces were streaked and
+spotted with the caked road-soil. There was little difference in color
+between Gerard's brown ripples of hair, Corrie's blonde locks and the
+black head of the mechanician who bent over the motor.
+
+"If this is practice work, _what_ is the race going to be like?"
+speculated Corrie, dragging off his gauntlets. The recent
+speed-exhilaration was still heavily upon him; as with his sister, the
+darker shading of brows and lashes always gave his fair-tinted face a
+warm vividness of expression. "The course is in fierce shape, already. I
+say--why did you especially warn me that the road wouldn't be fit for
+fast going until to-morrow, then get out in your own machine and break
+all practice records for the fastest lap? Trying to keep me out of your
+way, or to break your neck and Rupert's?"
+
+"The first, certainly," Gerard asserted. "Really, I didn't mean to do
+any speeding to-day, Corrie, but when I saw the white road ahead,
+I--think something slipped."
+
+"You're a cheerful hypocrite, all right. Here, catch, baseballist!"
+
+Gerard retreated a step and deftly caught the dripping missile as it
+hurtled across the garage.
+
+"You ought to wring out your league sponges," he reproved. "Thanks; I
+was wondering how I could take this face into the house, unless I got
+Rupert to turn the hose on me. You see, I might meet some one."
+
+"You'd meet Flavia," Corrie declared, busying himself with his own
+ablutions. "She's out there in the flowing arbor, sewing some gimcrack
+thing and pretending she hasn't been worrying because I was out on the
+course. She comes downstairs every morning to see me start--you know
+that--and then sits around all day watching until I come in again. None
+of that for Isabel; she's a sport."
+
+Gerard shook the water from his thick hair and finished the perfunctory
+toilet without replying. But as he passed Rupert, he dropped a light
+hand on the mechanician's shoulder.
+
+"When you marry, Jack Rupert, will the girl be a sport?" he questioned.
+
+"My wedding cards ain't paining me bad just now."
+
+"Well, but suppose the case."
+
+The black eyes lifted for a moment from the task in hand.
+
+"I guess I'd be sport enough for one house," Rupert impassively
+pronounced. "I hate a crowd."
+
+Gerard nodded to the boy across the garage, his face gleaming into
+mirth.
+
+"Coals to Newcastle," he signified. "Everyone doesn't like to live
+shop."
+
+There was the splashing thud of an overturned bucket. As Gerard passed
+out the door, Corrie overtook him.
+
+"Gerard," he panted, "Gerard, you said that purposely! You meant to tell
+me that--that Isabel--that you----"
+
+Gerard regarded him quietly, a little smile curving his lips.
+
+"You meant to tell me that I needn't worry about you and Isabel; that
+you've seen I want her, and you won't cut in? You meant that?"
+
+The smile crept to Gerard's eyes, but he remained mute. With a quick
+breath Corrie grasped his companion's hand and squeezed it ardently.
+
+"You're _big_, Allan Gerard. And kind. For I've been watching, these ten
+days, and you could get her if you tried."
+
+He turned back into the building before contradiction was possible.
+After a moment, Gerard went on down the path between the althea bushes.
+
+The "flowing arbor" of Corrie's description was a decorative masterpiece
+of Mr. Rose's own design; a large, pink marble fountain, surrounded by a
+pink-columned arcade strewn with rugs and cushions. Whatever its
+architectural faults, it was a fairy-tale place of gurgling water and
+soft shadows, shot through with the tints of silver spray, rosy stone
+and deep green turf. Flavia was seated here, in the summer-warm
+sunshine of early October that had succeeded the storms of the previous
+week, a long strip of varicolored embroidery lying across her lap and
+the overfed Persian kitten nestling against her light gown.
+
+"Corrie is home," Gerard announced, pausing in one of the arched
+openings. "But I suppose you saw him come in, from here."
+
+The young girl lifted to him the frank welcome of her glance and smile,
+with their pathetic shade of hostess dignity.
+
+"I saw you both come in," she confirmed. "One sees a great deal from
+this watch-tower. But it is good of you to tell me; you know how glad I
+am when he is back. Will you not rest before you go into the house?
+Corrie always comes here first; to gather strength, he says, to climb
+the terrace steps."
+
+"I am not fit," he deprecated. "I would soil your purple with my dust
+and poison, your Venetian atmosphere with gasoline fumes."
+
+"Corrie does it."
+
+"Corrie is privileged. The first time I ever saw you, you were watching
+Corrie. You made me feel that I lived in a barn."
+
+"A----"
+
+"A blank, impersonal, vacant set of rooms. A house where, if I were
+brought in on a shutter, there would be no one except the undertaker to
+pull down the shades."
+
+Flavia winced, shocked out of her calm.
+
+"Please do not! I--please do not say those things."
+
+"There, you see. I do not even know how to talk to you properly. It
+doesn't worry me to think about just dying and I forgot that other
+people dislike the subject. Now, it was living that made me envy Corrie
+and feel melancholy."
+
+Flavia drew the silk thread with slow accuracy. Her pulses were
+commencing to beat heavy strokes, she dared not raise her troubled eyes
+to the dominant, self-possessed man opposite. There was a pause.
+
+"In novels," Gerard mused, "when a man sees the woman who locks the
+wheels of his fancy, he drops everything else and follows her until he
+gets--his answer. But in real life we're pretty stupid; we let
+circumstances interfere, or we don't quite realize what has happened to
+us, we don't do the right thing, anyway. Sometimes we're lucky enough to
+get another chance. If we do----"
+
+The gush and ripple of the fountain, the rustle of the broad-leaved
+lilies as the changing breeze sent the spray pattering across them;
+filled pleasantly the lapses of his leisurely speech. Flavia was
+acutely conscious of his steady gaze upon her bent head, and the
+unhurried certainty with which he was moving toward his chosen goal.
+Only, what was that goal? She remembered Isabel's sureness of her own
+attraction, Isabel's deliberate monopoly of Gerard's attention whenever
+possible during the last ten days, and Corrie's assertion that his
+cousin was "just the kind of girl Gerard would like." Yet, he was saying
+this to her, Flavia. And suddenly she was almost sure of what she never
+had dared imagine.
+
+She had no thought that Gerard might be hesitating in uncertain humility
+before the delicate maidenhood that invested her like a fine atmosphere
+forbidding approach. She was not even dimly aware that her averted face
+controlled to soft impassivity, the intent gaze on her work which veiled
+her eyes beneath their heavy lashes, the regular movement of her slender
+fingers as she sewed, conveyed an impression of unmoved serenity that
+might have quelled a vainer man than Allan Gerard. Yet it was so, and he
+temporized; not knowing that for her there were three people in the
+arcade, the third Isabel, and not daring to continue his broken
+sentence.
+
+"I have been wondering if you ever translated your name," he remarked,
+when silence verged on embarrassment. "I have wondered many times if it
+were just chance that called you so."
+
+"My Mother was Flavia Corwin; I am named for her. What does it mean?"
+she answered, surprised.
+
+Just for an instant she looked at him, and in the one encounter of
+glances innocently undid all her reserve had built up. Gerard's color
+ran up under his clear skin like a girl's, brilliant-eyed, he took a
+step into the arcade.
+
+"It's too late in the season to tell you out here," he demurred. "I'll
+send you the translation this evening, if I may. There's something else
+I'd like to tell you, but I've got to find some civilized clothing,
+first. Essex lost his head for approaching the Queen in his
+riding-dress, and I'm risking more. I----"
+
+"Hurry up, you two!" hailed Corrie's injured voice, the ring of his step
+sounded in the stone arcade. "It's six o'clock now. Come on in."
+
+"I'll come," Gerard answered the summons, again his warm, sparkling gaze
+caught and held Flavia's as, startled, she raised her head. "I was
+telling Miss Rose that I must get rid of this road dust. But I wasn't
+thinking of eating, then."
+
+Scarlet rushed over Flavia's face and neck. As Corrie took gay
+possession of Gerard and bore him off, she sank back in her chair,
+winding her fingers hard into the embroidery. Not the omnivorous
+Isabel's, this! There was nothing to fear, ever again. She had the
+perfect certainty that Gerard would complete that purpose of his the
+next time they met. And they would meet in an hour. Suddenly she caught
+up the drowsy kitten and hid her face against the soft living toy.
+
+They did meet in an hour, but it was on the way to dinner, and the
+exuberant Corrie held the reins of conversation.
+
+"I've discharged Dean," was his first announcement. "Take those oysters
+away from in front of me, Perkins; I want my soup right now and a lot of
+it--about a gallon. Never mind anyone else; I haven't had anything but
+sandwiches since breakfast."
+
+"Discharged your mechanician one day before the race?" marvelled Gerard.
+"What will you do?"
+
+"Oh, I'm going out to the garage after dinner to hire him over again.
+He's used to it. Now, I suppose that if you fired Jack Rupert, you'd
+never see him again."
+
+"I certainly would not."
+
+"Well, that's the difference. I'm afraid of Rupert, myself. Dean hasn't
+any dignity."
+
+"Neither have you," observed Isabel bitingly. "You're worse than Dean. I
+saw you kick Frederick the Great all across the veranda yesterday, then
+lead him around the kitchen and feed him porterhouse steak."
+
+"That was remorse," Mr. Rose suggested, coolly amused. He looked across
+at Gerard, as at the only other grown person present. "You'd best take a
+porterhouse steak to Dean when you go, Corwin B. It's a fine temper
+you've got."
+
+"All right, sir, if you say it. I guess Dean would eat a porterhouse, if
+he isn't a Great Dane puppy. But I saw a man to-day in a temper that
+makes anything I ever did read like a chapter from Patient Griselda."
+
+"He must have been a lunatic," Isabel kindly inferred.
+
+Her cousin put his elbows on the table and contemplated her with mock
+reproach; looking rather nearer his sixteenth year than his nineteenth
+in this mood of effervescent gayety. Ever since his interview with
+Gerard, in the garage that afternoon, his high spirits had been
+unquenchable.
+
+"You're cross, Isabel," he stated frankly. "Where did you get the
+grouch? That's a stunning purple frock you've got on."
+
+"It isn't, it's mauve," corrected Isabel, but she smiled and smoothed a
+chiffon ruffle. "Who was your man, then, Corrie?"
+
+"He was the French driver of the Bluette car, and he came into the
+judges' stand to make a complaint against another fellow who wouldn't
+give him the road. Kept getting in front, you know, whenever the Bluette
+wanted to pass, and cutting it off so it had to fall behind. He was in a
+French calm, all right, and I don't wonder. But I don't believe anyone
+could really carry it through, could they, Gerard?"
+
+Gerard roused himself from his study of Flavia, as she sat in her
+ivory-tinted lace gown at the foot of the table, her small head bent
+under its weight of gleaming fair hair. The massively handsome room,
+with its rich hues of gilded leather, mellow Eastern rugs and hangings,
+carved wood and glinting metal, enchanted him as a background for her
+dainty youth as if he had never seen it there before or might again. It
+was difficult for him to look away.
+
+"Carry it through?" he repeated. "Of course, easily."
+
+"Not with some drivers! Not with me!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I wouldn't stand it. Because I'd drive through the car ahead if
+it tried to keep me back. Oh, I'd have them out of my way--you're
+_laughing_ at me, Allan Gerard!"
+
+Gerard was certainly laughing, and the others with him.
+
+"If I were Dean, I wouldn't wait to be fired, Corrie; I'd resign," he
+rallied. "Some day I'll challenge you to a game of auto tag, and show
+you that trick."
+
+"You can't; I'd get by," Corrie retorted, his violet-blue eyes afire
+with excitement.
+
+"Instead of you two fighting about that nonsense, you might take me
+around the course in one of your cars," Isabel remarked gloomily. "I've
+asked you often enough."
+
+"You'll not do that," Mr. Rose pronounced with decision. "It's not fit
+and I won't have it. And I'm tired of hearing you sulk at Corrie and
+Gerard because they've got the sense to say no. You'll keep out of the
+racing cars and off the race track, my girl. Flavia, if you don't make
+your brother stop eating nuts, he'll be ashamed to meet a squirrel in
+the woods."
+
+There was open mutiny in the glance Isabel darted at her uncle, but she
+said nothing. Mr. Rose was not contradicted in his own house by anyone.
+
+"Nuts agree with me, sir," Corrie protested, aggrieved. "Besides, I
+feel as if I had to celebrate somehow; I have had such a bully day." He
+leaned back in his chair, turning to Gerard his gaze of shining
+acknowledgment and measureless content. "I don't think I ever spent such
+an all-round good old day, just all right all through. I shall have to
+tie a gold medal on the calendar, or mark it with a white stone, or----"
+
+"Or drop a pearl in the vase of Al-Mansor," Gerard suggested. His own
+feelings were not very far removed from Corrie's, that night.
+
+"What is that?" Isabel questioned. "I never heard that story. What is
+the vase of Al-Mansor?"
+
+"A legend of the days of the caliphs. If you care about it, some day I
+will find a copy to send."
+
+"Some day! I want to hear it now."
+
+"Tell us, with all the trimmings," Corrie urged, "No sliding around the
+flowery parts and cutting scenes, but the full performance. Flavia loves
+that sort of thing, too; she and I grew up on the Arabian Nights and
+Byron and Irving. We dramatized 'The Fall of Granada,' for the toy
+theatre, but Bulwer was dead, so it didn't matter.
+
+"Perkins, up in my den you'll find a five-pound box of Turkish Delight,
+sent to-night from the candy shop; bring it here to help the Oriental
+atmosphere."
+
+Flavia looked up, and Gerard caught her eyes, no longer quite untroubled
+before his own.
+
+"What a set of comparisons to face," he deprecated. "Shall I dare it,
+Miss Rose?"
+
+"Would you leave us to suffer all the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity?"
+she wondered. "To dream all night of elusive pearls that disappear in
+their vase as Cleopatra's in her goblet of vinegar?"
+
+Mr. Rose took a cigar and a match, nodding humorously at his guest.
+
+"You're in for it," he signified. "Better get it over."
+
+"And no cutting," exacted Corrie, _sotto voce_.
+
+"Very well, then; pray imagine yourselves in the bazaar, and remember
+this isn't my fault," Gerard submitted. He paused, assembling his
+recollections. "On ascending the throne at Bagdad, in the full noon of
+the glory of the caliphs; it is told that Al-Mamoun, the son of
+Haroun-al-Raschid, the great-grandson of Al-Mansor, received from the
+former vizier a small golden vase.
+
+"'Lord of the East, newly-risen Sun of the true believers,' said the
+vizier, 'your great-grandfather of venerated memory caused to be made
+this vase, proposing to place therein a pearl for every day of perfect
+happiness he should pass. And when he received the vase from the
+goldsmith, he complained that the vase was too small. But, alas, the
+mighty Al-Mansor died without ever putting in a single pearl, for the
+day when the vase came home he learned that his loved sultana plotted
+against his life.
+
+"'After many years, in his turn came to rule your illustrious father,
+Haroun the Wise, and took the vase. He, the great king, who never
+travelled without a hundred scholars in his train, who built a school
+for poor children beside every mosque, he the magnificent in war and
+peace, in all his long reign enriched the vase by two pearls; the day of
+his coronation and the day of his death; the day before he saw Marida
+the Beautiful and the day he forgot her forever. Now, Commander of the
+Faithful, according to my charge I deliver the vase to you, with hope
+that your joys may exhaust the sea of pearls.'
+
+"Hearing, Al-Mamoun fell into profound musing.
+
+"'Vizier,' he said, 'I cannot mark the day I began to reign, who loved
+my father and take his place with tears, and the day of my death no man
+knows. But, by the favor of Allah, I will add one pearl to the vase
+while I live.'
+
+"The next morning many workmen came to the palace. Around the fairest
+part of the garden they reared a lofty wall, within its circle they
+placed everything which the king might desire. On the day appointed, in
+that spot assembled his favorite musicians, the scholars in whose
+conversation he most delighted, the captains whose faces reminded him of
+victories and the poets whose words fell like drops from the spring that
+bubbles before Allah's throne in Paradise. Only, because women had
+troubled the days of Al-Mansor and Haroun, no woman was admitted.
+
+"With pomp, music and rejoicing, Al-Mamoun moved at sunrise to the
+garden of delights that was to shelter him from the world for one day.
+But, as his foot touched the threshold, a great cry of lamentation went
+through the palace.
+
+"'What now?' demanded the king, halting.
+
+"A guard of the serail answered, his brow in the dust:
+
+"'Lord, the sultana has drowned herself in the Court of Fountains,
+because of grief that your day of perfect happiness could be passed
+without her.'
+
+"Then Al-Mamoun drew back his foot and returned to the palace, knowing
+that from him the golden vase would claim no pearls."
+
+"That is all?" Isabel asked expectantly.
+
+"What more could there be, mademoiselle?"
+
+"There might be a moral," Corrie suggested, leaning his folded arms on
+the table, his interested eyes fixed upon the story-teller.
+
+"When I read the Arabian Nights, I found out that Oriental tales have no
+morals," dryly observed Mr. Rose. "A man who had been brought up with
+the Blarney Stone for a teething-ring once sold me an unexpurgated
+edition de luxe, with illustrations, so I ought to know."
+
+"I never saw it, sir!"
+
+"No, Corwin B., you did not. You can if you want to, by coming down to
+my office, where it is still lying in the packing-box it came in. I
+don't think you want to. Gerard's story isn't there."
+
+"Its moral seems to be that women are a nuisance," Isabel commented, her
+manner injured.
+
+"That would not be a moral, it would be a falsehood," Gerard demurred.
+"No, I fancy the moral might be, do not challenge Fate to a duel. Are
+you considering our nonsense, Miss Rose?"
+
+"I was thinking of the story," Flavia amended. "I was wondering if the
+kings would not soon have filled the vase had they been content to mark
+each happy hour, and whether a wise treasurer of happiness would not
+find a vase filled with seed-pearls where they found a vase empty."
+
+"Exactly! You have found the secret, no doubt. Moral: do not ask too
+much."
+
+"A day too much?" marvelled Corrie. "Why, I expect a lifetime!" He flung
+back his head, looking around the smiling circle. "Well, why not? What's
+a lifetime, anyhow? Not half enough to get all the fun there is in
+living, as long as you do no harm by it. And who wants to do any harm
+when there is so much else to do? Not anyone in his right mind. Anyway,
+I've got to-day's pearl canned, and _it_ can't get away. And I can think
+of lots of others I've had, if I could go back for them."
+
+"Shall I guess the name of Al-Mansor's vase?" Flavia asked, as she rose.
+She was smiling, but her cheeks were flushed and her serious eyes
+caressed her brother. "It was Memory, I think. And, no, Corrie, the
+pearls put there cannot be lost."
+
+The extreme warmth of the day had continued into the evening. As Isabel
+followed Flavia across the hall, Corrie overtook his cousin, wound a
+scarf around her bare shoulders and lured her out on the veranda. She
+yielded not unwillingly, contrary to her recent custom of neglecting
+him, and they disappeared together. Any such latent project of Gerard's
+was prevented by Mr. Rose's mood for chat, a mood not usual for him.
+
+"You are not looking much like the driver I met on the way home,
+to-day," he informed his guest, surveying Gerard quizzically, when they
+were established in the drawing-room. "But I didn't recognize my own
+son, for that matter. He don't seem like mine, when he's out in those
+goblin clothes driving like Satan in a hurry. It's sensible enough for
+you, being in the automobile trade, but for him it's just fool play."
+
+"He does it a little too well to call it that," Gerard returned
+seriously.
+
+"Yes? Well, I've got money enough to pay for it--although it's the most
+expensive game he's found yet--or for anything else he fancies. I've
+told him to amuse himself for a while. He is too young to settle down to
+work, when there is no need for it. I never had any playing time, and I
+want to see him have his. And he has earned it, too; I suppose he told
+you he was through college?"
+
+"Yes, and amazed me."
+
+"He knew it had to be done, so he did it quickly and without any
+nonsense. It's an old theory that given liberty and money, a boy will go
+to ruin. I never believed it; I don't yet. And I never saw why I should
+make my son a different set of living rules from those I make for
+myself. Of course, I don't mean there was no law in the house; I don't
+think I spoiled Corrie. But I've left him pretty free, only bidding him
+keep straight. That I must have, and he knows it. He has got to keep
+straight."
+
+A sudden grate like metal on metal roughened the deliberate speech with
+a suggestion of grim inflexibility. Flavia lifted vaguely startled eyes
+to her father.
+
+"I don't believe you need to worry about that," reassured Gerard
+smiling. The echo of Corrie's fresh young tones was in their ears, as he
+disputed with his cousin, outside the windows at the end of the room.
+
+"I guess not. He's too much like his mother." Mr. Rose dropped his hand
+on Flavia's, as she sat in her low chair beside him. "And she was what
+they call an aristocrat, nowadays, but I called a lady when I married
+her. Old family, gentle breeding, the society end, and good looks like
+my little girl's that seem too fine to touch; she had all and everything
+except money. And I gave her that."
+
+Flavia leaned nearer to her father with the caressing confidence in
+mutual affection which marked all the household intercourse and pervaded
+the gorgeous pink villa like an actual fragrance of atmosphere.
+
+"I gave her that. She liked to spend it. Not," his keen eyes suddenly
+sprang challengingly to the other man's, "Not that she married me for
+money. Don't think it. My wife loved me. I guess I struck her family
+like a cyclone; I was self-made and used to my own way, at thirty, and
+not uglier than my neighbors. Mrs. Tom Rose was a happy woman, until she
+died, when Corrie was two years old and Flavia four." He rose bruskly
+and crossed the room. "You don't smoke, Gerard? I always spoil a cigar
+when I talk."
+
+"I don't unless there's something wrong," Gerard answered, tactfully
+casual. "A cigarette helps, then. But everything is very right, now. You
+know, these races are my holidays, although they are an important
+business feature, too. My factory affairs keep me hard at work most of
+the year. Then in the intervals I am designing and having constructed a
+genuine racing machine of my own, much more powerful than the ninety
+Mercury I'm driving now. I'm not an idle citizen, really."
+
+Flavia's head drooped lower. He was telling her father these things as
+part of that steady purpose whose object she felt herself; she knew it,
+clairvoyantly acute.
+
+"You get a lot out of living," commented Mr. Rose, coming back to his
+seat. "You enjoy it, I'm thinking."
+
+"Yes, I do," Gerard replied candidly. "Why not?"
+
+"You're right. Now, I want to tell you about a deal I put through in the
+Street, to-day."
+
+Flavia moved to the piano and began to touch the keys. She knew there
+would be only men's talk for a while, and from this place she could
+watch Gerard unseen. In all the previous days she had avoided this,
+refusing to take cognizance of the physical beauty upon which Isabel
+dilated, half-unconsciously defending herself from an undefined danger.
+She commenced to play pastel-toned bits of Nevin and Chaminade, her
+clear eyes delighting in free vision.
+
+Out on the veranda, Corrie was sustaining a defense of his own. Upright
+against a column, scarlet with determination, Isabel pursued the wilful
+desire she had voiced at the dinner-table.
+
+"That Frenchwoman was around the course with her husband, yesterday,"
+she urged. "Other women have done it before. Why won't you take me?"
+
+"You might get hurt. Father never would let you."
+
+"He needn't know, stupid. You don't want to, that's all. I'll ask Mr.
+Gerard; he'll like to take me."
+
+The poison had been drawn from that sting, but Corrie winced,
+nevertheless.
+
+"I _want_ you, Isabel. I love you."
+
+"You're a boy; I'm a year older than you."
+
+"Eleven months!"
+
+"Anyhow, I'm a woman. I do what I choose, while you're afraid to move
+for fear uncle will catch you. What would he do, ferule your little
+palms?"
+
+Furious, Corrie sprang across and dropped his hands on her shoulders
+with the freedom of their life-long intercourse.
+
+"I'd like to ferule yours," he gritted between his set teeth. "I'm as
+much a man as you are a woman. You haven't any _sense_. And there's no
+use of your dangling after Allan Gerard, for he don't want you--he said
+as much. I'm going in, and I won't take you around the course."
+
+Gasping, Isabel let him reach the French windows of the drawing-room
+before recovering herself. Then she rushed in pursuit, tripping
+impatiently over her long chiffon skirts.
+
+"Corrie--wait! Corrie!"
+
+He turned sullenly, secretly aghast at his own temerity. But Isabel laid
+her hand on his sleeve without anger.
+
+"You're more man than I thought," she breathed. "I always liked you
+better than anyone else, anyhow. Corrie, if you'd take me around the
+course, early in the morning when no one here knew, I believe you'd be
+almost grown up enough to--to--be engaged."
+
+"Isabel!" he cried, fire kindling in his face. "You would? You would?"
+
+"If I get my ride----"
+
+He seized her, boy-clumsily, and boy-like lavished his impetuous kisses.
+
+"You'll get anything," he promised, half-choked by excitement. "And
+everything. Oh, Isabel!"
+
+Flavia's delicate music flowed on and on. Before Mr. Rose had finished
+his discussion, Corrie and Isabel entered the room, and the evening
+ended without any possibility of Gerard's resuming the theme commenced
+in the fountain arcade.
+
+When the group separated for the night, Corrie detained his sister at
+the foot of the wide, gleaming stairs.
+
+"Don't rise early in the morning to give me my coffee, Other Fellow," he
+said. "I shan't be starting for the course at the usual time. I have
+been working pretty steadily and I need to rest for the race itself, day
+after to-morrow."
+
+She leaned across the bannister to him; the two young faces framed in
+young ripples of bright hair resembled each other very strongly in their
+twin moods of exaltation and radiant, half-incredulous happiness.
+
+"You do not feel unwell, dear? You have not driven too much?"
+
+"Not a bit. But I'm sleepy," he caught a frond of a tall Madeiran fern
+that was placed in its jardiniere on the step opposite him, winding the
+satin-green strip over his finger, "honestly, all in with sleepiness,
+and I'm going to sleep to-night as if it was the last quiet night's
+sleep I'd ever get. See you to-morrow, kid sister."
+
+"Good-night, dearest."
+
+So, since she was not to give Corrie his morning coffee, she would not
+give Gerard's to him or see him until his return from the race course.
+As a matter of course, it was not to be contemplated that she should
+rise at dawn for a tete-a-tete breakfast with the guest, at this period
+when all the fine elements that composed their relation hesitated at the
+point of crystallization. But she scarcely regretted the postponed
+interview. It would be better to meet each other differently, at more
+leisure. He would come again to the fountain arcade, where she watched
+for Corrie's return.
+
+When Flavia reached her own room, there stood on her dressing-table a
+long silver-paper and filigree box. Wondering, she raised the lid, to be
+met with a gust of exquisite perfume and confronted with a mass of frail
+yellow roses, lovely with the quaint, virginal beauty of suggestion that
+separates them from all their other-colored kin. Across the glistening
+petals lay a cover cut from a pocket dictionary, bearing written upon it
+one sentence: "Definition of the meaning of Flavia Rose."
+
+She laid her head beside the flowers, gold upon gold. She, also, the
+fancy came to her, had placed this day in the vase of Al-Mansor. But the
+day to come outshone it, as a rosy pearl one merely white.
+
+"To-morrow," she whispered to herself. "To-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+WRECK
+
+
+Gray, sluggish, slow in coming and sullen of aspect, a reluctant dawn
+succeeded the night. A wet mist clung everywhere in the windless
+atmosphere, muffling sound as well as light. There was not even a
+servant stirring in the Rose house, when Gerard descended the dark
+stairs and went out into the chill, damp park.
+
+In the garage one bright point shone out; under a swinging electric lamp
+Rupert was preparing his machine to go out, a solitary figure in the
+expanse of wavering shadows and dim bulks.
+
+"Where are Rose and his man?" Gerard questioned, as he came across the
+floor.
+
+His voice rolled startlingly loud in the lofty, echoing room. Moving to
+reply, the mechanician let fall a tool and the crash repeated itself
+sharply from every stone arch and angle.
+
+"Rose won't be out at the course till late; I guess our peaceful life
+ain't what he's used to, exactly. He 'phoned over last night to Dean,
+who's sleeping yet."
+
+Gerard nodded, eyeing the Mercury racer with affectionate attention.
+
+"All right, is she?" he asked.
+
+Rupert straightened himself and proceeded to close the hood.
+
+"I ain't supposing we'll need to be towed," he conceded sarcastically.
+"But I'll put in a rope, if you're worried bad, and take my copy of
+_Motor Repairing at a Glance_."
+
+"Do," Gerard urged. "I'd like to have it found on you, Rupert. Start her
+up, then, if you're ready."
+
+He crossed, with the last word, to the shelf where lay his racing mask
+and gauntlets. The melancholy drip from moist eaves and trees, the
+dreary half-light and heavy air had absolutely no depressing power upon
+his flawless nerves and vigor of life. By the open door he paused to
+look out, unconsciously clasping his hands behind his head with the
+leisurely grace and relaxation of one who found pleasure in mere
+movement.
+
+"There'll be a wet course," Rupert's muffled tones came from the
+opposite end of the room.
+
+"Well?" Gerard queried lazily. "What of it?"
+
+There was no answer. Instead sounded the click of moving throttle and
+spark, and the place burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted
+from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the vibrating car as it
+moved forward to its master's side.
+
+"I don't like this morning, and I don't like this course," stated
+Rupert, sombrely definite, through the roar and rattle of irregular
+reports from the cut-down motor. "But I guess I've got to stand for
+them. Anyhow, I couldn't have a classier Friday-the-thirteenth emotion
+equipment if I had been to a voodoo fortune teller who had a grudge
+against me. What are we waiting for?"
+
+Gerard lingered in taking his seat, his amazed eyes travelling over the
+small, discontented dark face of his companion.
+
+"Something's wrong, Rupert?"
+
+"I ain't saying so--yet."
+
+The driver's own expression shadowed slightly; he looked again and more
+searchingly at the other. In common with most men who had lived in the
+tense atmosphere of the most dangerous form of racing yet evolved, he
+had witnessed more than one case where a presentiment did not fail of
+fulfilment. Irrespective of whether catalogued as coincidence, occult
+foresight or absurdity, the facts did exist, occasionally to be read in
+the prosaic columns of a newspaper, more often lost except in camp
+annals. He knew, and Rupert knew, of a mechanician who suddenly refused
+absolutely to go out with the driver by whose side he had ridden
+countless miles, having no better reason than a disinclination for the
+trip. And they both had seen the substitute who took his place brought
+in dead, an hour later, after his car's wreck. A widely-known victor of
+many races, one of Gerard's close friends, had come to shake hands with
+him in a state of causeless nervousness that would have shamed a novice,
+just before starting on the ride from which he never returned. The price
+of debate is too high to argue with some things; Gerard temporized.
+
+"I don't want to take you out feeling like that. Give yourself a day
+off," he suggested. "I'll find one of the factory men to go out with me
+for the morning's practice."
+
+"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician acidly, and flung himself
+back in his narrow seat.
+
+The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding drives, plunged into the
+sandy Long Island road, and sped lurching toward the course.
+
+There was nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the
+Motor Parkway. Before the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted
+some of the cars, surrounded by their force of workers; in other camps
+the men stood, watch in hand, timing the machines already out.
+Reporters vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring group, two
+world-famous French and Italian drivers were pitching pennies for the
+last cigarettes from a box of special brand. Only the tiers of empty
+seats in the grand-stand and the absence of spectators in fields and
+parking-spaces distinguished this practice morning from the actual race.
+
+There was a general movement of greeting as the Mercury rolled in and
+Gerard sprang out at his own camp.
+
+"Where's your pink pet, Allan?" called a driver, from the starting line.
+"What's up--mornin' air too crude for millionaire kids?"
+
+"He _isn't_ up," was the blithe reply. "Never mind Rose, he's coming;
+tell me where you got your five-cylinder machine, Jack."
+
+"A late Rose, eh? Oh, I've got six cylinders here, all right, but I
+daren't run on all of them now for fear my speed would make the rest of
+you quit, discouraged. I'm goin' to make your yesterday's record look
+like a last year's timetable, this mornin'."
+
+"You look out that you don't break your neck. Rupert says it's a hoodoo
+day. We don't want you in the hospital twice this season."
+
+"Is Rupert sad?" questioned the big blonde pilot of the neighboring
+camp, leaning over the railing.
+
+"I ain't been so near it since I put my foot in a hole and sprained my
+ankle ten minutes before the start, when I was racing with Darling
+French at Philadelphia," admitted the mechanician. "It hurt me fierce."
+
+"Your ankle?"
+
+"No, seeing him start without me."
+
+"Say, Gerard, there's your pink Rambler," a distant voice signified.
+
+About to send his car forward, Gerard paused to glance over his
+shoulder, and caught the pink flash behind a row of mist-draped trees
+edging the cross-road. Sudden mischief curved his lips, his amber eyes
+laughed behind their goggles.
+
+"Tell Corrie Rose I'll give him that game of auto tag, if he happens
+along while I'm on a straight stretch," he called across to one of
+Corrie's men, by way of farewell.
+
+A little breeze stirred the mist, as the Mercury shot down the course;
+the gray light was brightening by slow gradations.
+
+There was small probability that Gerard's car and the rose-colored
+machine would soon find themselves together on the twelve-mile circuit,
+allowing for their difference in starting time. But as the Mercury
+turned into the straight stretch of back road, on the second time
+around, there sounded a sharp report, the car staggered perilously, and
+a tire tore itself loose from a rear wheel to hurtle, a vicious
+projectile of rubber and steel, far across the stubble fields. Reeling,
+but held to its course by the driver's trained hand, the Mercury
+slackened its flight and was brought to a stop. Rupert was already
+leaning over the back, dragging free a spare tire; Gerard slipped out of
+his seat.
+
+For experts the task was not long. A white car thundered past the
+workers, leaving a swirl of dust and flying pebbles, its mechanician
+turning to survey the halted Mercury. As Rupert swept the last tool into
+its place with precise swiftness, the throbbing of a second motor
+drifted to them, a pink streak darted around a distant curve.
+
+"It's Corrie," identified Gerard. "Get in, Rupert. If he wasn't forced
+by his money into the amateur ranks, that boy would make some of us work
+to keep our laurels, all right."
+
+The panther-agile figure swung into place beside him.
+
+"I ain't a market gardener," Rupert drawled, fitting one small foot in a
+strap support, as the car leaped forward. "But I guess those plants
+ain't apt to flourish in too rich soil."
+
+The Mercury did not gather speed too rapidly, rather it lingered until
+the pink car bore close down upon it.
+
+"How near?" suddenly demanded Gerard, above the noise of the motor.
+
+The mechanician reconnoitred.
+
+"Hundred feet," he made report.
+
+"Wave to him."
+
+Rupert raised his hand obediently. The Mercury sprang ahead under
+Gerard's touch, and with an answering roar the rose-colored machine sped
+in pursuit.
+
+There was no doubt that Corrie understood the play; nor that his car was
+easily capable of passing the sixty-mile an hour gait now held by the
+Mercury. But he was not allowed to pass. Each time he essayed it, the
+other racer swerved in front and cut off the road.
+
+It was as dangerous a game as could well be designed, had either driver
+been less skilled, but it was safe enough now. Gerard was laughing as he
+drove, when the first tiny missile rattled against his car.
+
+"He's pitching spare bolts," shouted Rupert, at his companion's ear,
+himself grimly amused. "Peevish, ain't he?"
+
+Gerard nodded, and crossed the narrow road with an unexpected turn that
+drew a baffled explosion from the checked car behind. A brass nut
+smacked the Mercury's gasoline tank. It was not difficult to imagine
+Corrie's excited tempest of defeat, to those who knew him.
+
+"The turn's ahead--we'll call it off there," Gerard answered mirthfully.
+"Give her some oil."
+
+The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile of straight road.
+Rupert was stooping to reach the oil pump when the pink car made its
+final attempt to pass and was again forced back, but across his
+outstretched arm he glanced up to Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying
+missile as it came.
+
+"_Duck!_" he shouted harshly, "Look out----"
+
+There was no time for action. As Gerard turned his head, the heavy steel
+wrench struck him below the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was
+too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel before the
+mechanician could snatch it from the inert grasp. With a lurch the
+speeding Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the road and, leaping a
+yard-high embankment, crashed through a row of trees to roll over and
+over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage over the
+farmhouse enclosure beyond.
+
+The light breeze of half an hour earlier had freshened and gained
+strength, the pale-gray sky was changing to delicate blue. When the
+horrified knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the nearby
+Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard to join the pale-faced farmer
+already there, the sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds,
+glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the still figure that lay
+beneath it, illumining the dishevelled, gasping mechanician who
+struggled dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to safety, fifty
+feet from the wreck.
+
+It is difficult for any group of men, however willing, to work without a
+leader. While the inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the verge
+of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing costume sprang up the bank,
+his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood
+where his teeth had bitten through.
+
+"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to
+be jacked up. Hurry up--do you want him to die under there? _Jump!_"
+
+His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor
+transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's
+brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such
+aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the
+semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.
+
+Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes
+later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed
+lithograph of _The Trial of John Knox_. A plush photograph album was
+jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove
+upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the
+flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with
+dull red here and there.
+
+"They stopped here yesterday for some water," sobbed the mistress of the
+house hysterically. "Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard at
+the little dark one, he was, and both of them making fun."
+
+The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first
+of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room,
+stripping off his coat while appraising with keen eyes the unconscious
+patient.
+
+"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely. "Here, I want a helper--you,
+Rose?"
+
+Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up and dragged himself
+erect. Gerard's face was no more drawn and colorless than his, but he
+answered to the call, as half an hour before he had answered the demand
+of the situation for a guide.
+
+"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I deserve it."
+
+Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest of the men were
+retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly
+thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and
+pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across the threshold.
+
+"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive? What?"
+
+"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve, Rose--gently! Clear out,
+you; the ambulance men will take care of you when they get here."
+
+Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the scene, and encountered Corrie.
+
+"You----" he snarled, choking, and whirled to face the witnesses,
+extending one slim shaking hand toward the workers beside the couch.
+"Here, I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing headlines for
+paper rags--print down that Allan Gerard was killed by that man. I'm
+saying it; Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he pitched a wrench
+that knocked him out. Go down to the course and you'll get the wrench to
+Missouri you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard and our car ran
+wild."
+
+The concentrated vehemence and force of the arraignment stupefied even
+the reportorial instinct. Dazed, the hearers stared from the
+mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale young driver who
+offered neither surprise nor defense, but went steadily on with his
+unsteadying task.
+
+"He wrecked us----" Rupert made a limping step forward. "Well? Did you
+guess I was reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you taking him
+out of here? Put _his_ mechanician through the third degree and get his
+story--who nailed you fast here? Why don't you _move_?"
+
+The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from Corrie's grasp. Livid
+with wrath, the surgeon stood up.
+
+"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you," he stormed. "Not a word;
+I don't care if Rose has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now.
+Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."
+
+He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert into the retiring group,
+and the door closed.
+
+Outside, the reporters became themselves. While ambulances dashed up,
+motor cycles, official cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around
+the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was hurried apart and his
+story coaxed from him in detail.
+
+The last automobile to come up, an hour after the accident, was a
+gilt-monogramed foreign limousine. From it descended a gentleman who,
+after a comprehensive glance over the disordered, crowded orchard,
+crossed straight to where Rupert sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite
+the shattered car.
+
+"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's shoulder. "Rupert,
+what's been happening here?"
+
+Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face, its grimness not lessened
+by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical
+exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard resolve.
+
+"Your son's finished Gerard, Mr. Rose," he stated, monotonously
+explicit. "He slipped his temper and fired a wrench at Gerard for not
+giving him the road. It hit him, and we ran wild without a driver till
+we struck here. Ask him--he's in there with what's left of Gerard--why
+he's sent Dean where he ain't to be found, if I'm lying."
+
+Mr. Rose released Rupert's shoulder, both men equally oblivious of the
+pain his grasp had inflicted on bruised flesh and muscle, and turned his
+gray face to the surrounding group in dumb quest of confirmation. Then,
+moving stiffly, he walked toward the house.
+
+There was an authority in his bearing that gained him unopposed
+entrance. In the hall, nauseating with the ominous odor of antiseptics,
+he was met by one of the doctors.
+
+"You can turn my house into a hospital," Mr. Rose said briefly. "I want
+Gerard taken there instead of to your places. You can have all the money
+you like."
+
+The man looked at the card presented, his professional impassivity
+flickering, but shook his head.
+
+"He would better not be moved at all, sir; at least, not to-day. He can
+be asked, if you wish."
+
+"He is conscious, then?"
+
+"Just about," he shrugged, reaching for the door. "Here, if you care to
+go in."
+
+The room was glaring with light, the lace curtains were dragged wide
+apart from the windows and the shades rolled high. Idle now in the
+presence of more skilled attendants, but recognized as one who had
+earned the right to be there, Corrie stood near the foot of the
+improvised bed, leaning against the wall with his fair head slightly
+bent. At the sound of the door he turned that way, as Mr. Rose stopped
+on the threshold.
+
+The snapping latch, or some more subtle influence, aroused someone else.
+Slowly Gerard's heavy lashes lifted, and he saw father and son looking
+at each other across the parlor strewn with the tragic litter of the
+last hour's work. There was nothing to interrupt the triple regard; it
+endured long, with steadfast intensity.
+
+In a corner two surgeons were holding a subdued consultation, a third
+was busied at the marble table, the attention of all fully engaged.
+
+"Put a pillow under my head, someone," suddenly bade the shadow of Allan
+Gerard's voice, across the hush. "And give me a cigarette."
+
+There was a startled flurry in the room. Familiar enough with the last
+request from his masculine patients, the man at the table took a case
+from his own pocket and, lighting one of the cigarettes, stooped over
+the bed.
+
+"Keep your grip on yourself," he approved brusquely. "But don't move."
+
+It was in his left hand that Gerard took the tiny narcotic, his right
+arm and shoulder were a mere bulk of splints and linen bandages.
+
+"Thanks," his difficult voice spoke again. "Now open that door and let
+everyone in--I want to talk to them."
+
+"Mr. Gerard!"
+
+His clear eyes, dark with suffering but absolutely collected, met the
+surgeon's.
+
+"I've got to talk to them, doctor, and I may be out of my head or in a
+box, to-morrow. Let them in--the reporters, I mean."
+
+The listeners gazed at each other, a shock ran through the group. Every
+man there knew Rupert's story of the accident, every man guessed that it
+was Gerard's own version that was to be given now. Someone offered Mr.
+Rose one of the horse-hair chairs, during the moment of rearrangement
+before the youngest of the doctors left the room. Only Corrie remained
+unmoved, not changing his position or looking at Gerard. There was a
+certain dignity of utter quiescence in his pose that comprehended
+neither defiance nor submission, but a strange, aloof patience.
+
+The representative reporters from the city journals filed in, avidly
+expectant. With them came two officials of the racing association, and a
+metallic-eyed man whose plain clothes were contradicted by the badge
+visible under his coat. There was silent orderliness; the grim
+significance of the room, the presence of the watchful surgeons, the
+central figure of the driver so well known to all of those who entered,
+were subduing to the least sensitive. Nor was the effect less hushing
+because of that other driver who attended in the background, the strong
+sunlight shining on his glistening pink garb and still face.
+
+Gerard let fall the hand holding the cigarette, when the company was
+complete, and slowly turned his brown head on the pillow to face them.
+
+"You newspaper men have been first-class to me for a good while; it's my
+chance to reciprocate now," he asserted. "Well, I'll give what copy I
+can. I know you want it, boys--you've often been after me for less."
+
+The familiar gayety rippled above his aching effort of speech, his will
+locked to composure each rebellious line of expression. No one stirred
+in the room.
+
+"I wish it were a better yarn. But when two tires blow out at the same
+time, while a car's turning----"
+
+This time, there was a general sigh of quick-drawn breath. Mr. Rose
+stood up.
+
+"When two tires let go, at ninety miles an hour, there's apt to be a
+wreck. I----" his lashes fell wearily. "I couldn't hold the machine to
+the road. The shock broke my control--there's no one to blame but
+me----" The cigarette crumpled in his clenching fingers, his straight
+brows knotted.
+
+"Gerard," burst forth the racing official, excitedly urgent in his
+suspense. "Your tires wrecked you? That's your last word? Gerard, if you
+can speak, do!"
+
+The amber eyes re-opened in answer, to meet the fixed gaze of the eager
+men who waited opposite.
+
+"Yes," gasped Gerard, casually definite. "What else? Corrie, leave me
+your smokes, they're a better brand----"
+
+If there had been any doubt left the witnesses, that comrade request
+beat it down. The surgeon flung out his hand in a sweeping gesture of
+dismissal, as he sprang toward his fainting patient. Gerard had
+finished.
+
+Mr. Rose went out with the other men. Some of his florid color had come
+back, he walked more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness. On
+the narrow porch the referee from the racing association held out his
+hand with frank congratulation.
+
+"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before they got any further, Mr.
+Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in
+the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country,
+crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank.
+They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up
+to-morrow sane as ever. Nice way your son took it."
+
+"Oh, Corwin B. is straight," declared Mr. Rose, proudly self-contained
+in his relief. "I guess there wasn't much need to worry about that part.
+I'll wait here and take him home with me, now; he's had about all of
+that room he ought to stand, fond of Gerard as he is."
+
+"He looked done up, yes. Well----"
+
+A long shout sounded down the course, a clamor of excited speech. A
+troup of men appeared, running toward the house in the wake of a
+chauffeur who held up some object that glittered in the sun.
+
+"I've got it!" the leader called ahead. "I've got it where he said,
+beside the road!"
+
+The thing in his hand was a small, heavy nickel wrench. The men on the
+porch and the men in the yard stared at each other, mute. After a moment
+Mr. Rose drew out his handkerchief, passed it across his forehead and
+lips, then went down to his limousine, got in and sank back against the
+cushions.
+
+"Home," he issued his order.
+
+"Mr. Corwin is not coming, sir?"
+
+"Home."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"THE GREATEST OF THESE"
+
+
+It was nearly two hours after the Mercury car had crashed into ruin
+under the aromatic apple-trees, before knowledge of the disaster came to
+Flavia. Breakfast was over, at least the breakfast of Mr. Rose and his
+daughter; no other member of the family had appeared. A maid reported
+that Isabel had ordered her horse and had departed on an early ride to
+the neighboring golf club, where she was engaged to play with an equally
+athletic college girl, that morning. There was nothing to disturb the
+customary pleasant routine or to suggest uneasiness. At the usual hour
+Mr. Rose left for the city; he was on his way to New York when he first
+caught the rumor that sent him instead to the farmhouse at Westbury.
+
+Flavia, roseate, softly irradiated, moving in an atmosphere of undefined
+expectation as difficult to breathe calmly as the rarefied air of a
+mountain-top, had held herself to the accomplishment of her daily
+charges. She was seated at her little white-and-gold desk in her
+white-and-gold study, setting the household affairs in order for the
+day with the dainty precision of all her methods, when Isabel came into
+the room and stopped upright and rigid, near the door.
+
+"You had better hear it now," the younger girl dully announced. "There
+has been an accident on the course."
+
+Flavia's hands flew over her heart, the room blackened.
+
+"Corrie----" she gasped.
+
+"No; Mr. Gerard. He is alive, that's all I know."
+
+The scent of the yellow roses Flavia had put in her hair dilated to a
+stifling heaviness that hindered breath; she covered her eyes with her
+small cold fingers, seeking the dark, mute under torture. He was
+alive--that niggard concession was made to Allan Gerard, whose rich
+fullness of vigor and dominant presence last night had seemed the one
+firm reality in a world of pleasant vagueness. Weak, conscious of
+nothing but what her inward vision showed, she lay in her chair;
+questioning no more, making no sign.
+
+Suddenly Isabel, the self-assured, evenly poised Isabel, was on the
+floor at her cousin's knees, burying her face in Flavia's pale-yellow
+dress and sobbing in frantic hysteria.
+
+"Flavia, Flavia, I can't bear it! I am afraid, I am afraid--if he should
+die----"
+
+Shocked back into strength, Flavia bent over her, soothing and caressing
+with soft touches and inarticulate phrases of affection.
+
+"Hush, dear, hush! Put your head here. Let me call Martha; you frighten
+me, Isabel!"
+
+The tempest did not last long. As abruptly as she had lost self-command,
+Isabel regained it. Rising to her feet, she swept back the disordered
+auburn curls from her flushed face and stood silent beside the desk, in
+a state approaching exhaustion. She was wearing a dark riding-habit
+soiled with dust and stained in several places with oil or grease, her
+high-laced boots were scratched and sand-covered. But Flavia was beyond
+notice of costume and saw only her cousin's sullen misery of expression.
+
+"Dear, you loved him," escaped her, in her double compassion for the
+woman whom Gerard had not chosen.
+
+Isabel's gray eyes were crossed by a spark.
+
+"No--I _hate_ him!" she flared viciously. "What did he do it for? He had
+no right. He, he----" She pressed her drenched handkerchief hard against
+her lips. "Corrie, poor Corrie----"
+
+Flavia shrank, commencing to tremble before a looming premonition of
+something still worse to be endured.
+
+"What of Corrie? Isabel, what?"
+
+"You will hear soon enough," she assured bitterly. "I've said all I can.
+No--don't ask me, don't follow me. They will tell you downstairs. I'm
+going."
+
+Downstairs, meant the servants. Flavia Rose was, above all things,
+maiden-proud; as Gerard's fiancee, as Gerard's wife, no cost of pain or
+humiliation would have kept her from him. But she was neither. She had
+only her own interpretation of his mirthful glances and graceful speech,
+only a few yellow roses to hint that he did not regard her as the most
+casual of friends. Suppose she had been mistaken, suppose he had meant
+only courtesy to a hostess whose youth exacted gallantry?
+
+Isabel had gone. Flavia turned her face to a diminutive mirror lying
+among the trifles on her desk. Could she go down to the curious servants
+so--pale, quivering and emotion-spent? Even as she looked into her own
+reflected eyes, the tears at last overflowed.
+
+It was half an hour later before Flavia, quiet, dignified and only
+betrayed by her absolute pallor, trusted herself to descend the stairs.
+
+The Rose house was too near the race course, too intimately concerned in
+the drama, for the information she sought not to be already rife gossip
+there. When Mr. Rose came home, near noon, he had little left to tell
+his daughter except Gerard's condition and his defense of Corrie.
+
+"Then Corrie did not hurt him," she grasped the exquisite relief.
+
+Mr. Rose shook his head, reluctantly discouraged and discouraging. He
+had not gone to the city during those intervening hours; he never, then
+or afterward, spoke of where he had been or what he had felt.
+
+"There was the wrench," he heavily reminded her. "And where has he sent
+Dean, who must have seen all that happened and could have given Gerard's
+mechanician the lie? I've not seen Corrie except across the room," the
+recollection of that ghastly room broke the speech. "We have got to wait
+until he comes home to answer."
+
+Flavia slipped her hand into his, nestling to him, and he put his arm
+about her. Both were remembering Corrie's brief, simoon-hot tempers, his
+hasty tongue and ready hand--and swift repentances. Had an occasion come
+when the repentance was too late, too vain! And what repentance! To the
+sister who knew with life-long knowledge the ardent, passionate Corrie,
+his young rigidity in honor and high pride, his tenacious affections,
+this menaced downfall was almost as appalling as his death. She thrust
+the possibility from her with revolted condemnation of herself for
+crediting this libel, this slander of her brother. What had he ever done
+to justify such a belief?
+
+"Papa, he could not!" she defended. "Corrie could not. Not, not
+_Corrie_!"
+
+"I hope not, my girl."
+
+Something in his tone, some quality she did not recognize, brought her
+gaze to his face with a fresh dread. What would it mean to Thomas Rose,
+if this were true of his son? And what would the change in Thomas Rose
+mean to Corrie?
+
+The early autumn dusk had fallen and the lamps were lit, when Corrie
+came home. The routine of the household had gone on through the long
+day; under the eye of convention, Flavia and Mr. Rose had dressed for
+dinner and now sat together in the drawing-room, each holding an unread
+book. But at the closing of the outer door both started erect, pretense
+forgotten.
+
+"Corrie!" his father summoned. Not Corwin B.; by a trick of usage the
+nickname had become formal, the formal name a playfulness not to be
+spoken now.
+
+Corrie came quietly between the velvet curtains. He still wore the pink
+racing costume, its hue in marked contrast to his worn young face. That
+one day had drawn white lines about his boyish mouth and set black
+circles under his blue eyes. As if feeling himself on trial, he stopped
+just within the room and stood with the quiescent endurance that he had
+shown in the farmhouse parlor and which sat so strangely upon him.
+
+"First--Gerard?" required Mr. Rose hardly. "You've been there?"
+
+"Yes, sir. They say he will live."
+
+"Live! What----"
+
+"They say he will never drive again."
+
+Flavia cried out faintly, grasping the arms of her chair, and there was
+a pause.
+
+"I've heard Rupert's story, and I've heard Gerard's," slowly pronounced
+Mr. Rose. "I haven't heard yours, yet. Nor I haven't learned that anyone
+has. What wrecked Gerard's car?"
+
+There was no answer. Corrie's breathing quickened slightly, but he
+neither moved nor spoke, nor lifted his eyes to the two who watched him.
+After moments, Mr. Rose put out his hand and pushed away a tinted
+electric lamp from which the light fell too strongly on his face.
+
+"Rupert isn't lying," he asserted. "He might be crazy. If he is, say
+so. I saw your nickel wrench picked up, myself, and a dozen people along
+the line saw you and Gerard racing just before the smash. Where is your
+mechanician, Dean? What has he got to say? It looks bad, your hiding
+him."
+
+"He was not with me," Corrie replied, his voice oddly smothered.
+
+"Not with you? Rupert talks of seeing him beside you in the car."
+
+"Rupert is mistaken. Dean was not yet out at the course and I started
+alone. Ask the men at my camp and the race officials; they will tell you
+that I took out my machine without a mechanician."
+
+"Then Rupert is crazy? Gerard told the truth? Speak out! Are you afraid
+or sulky?"
+
+This time the lash took effect. Corrie moved sharply and spoke.
+
+"I am not going to talk," he declared definitely. "Nor ought you to ask
+it of me, sir. If you don't know how I loved Allan Gerard, if you can't
+feel that I would rather have killed myself than hurt him and would have
+turned my car against a stone wall sooner than see to-day, there is no
+use of my saying it. I don't care what anyone thinks or says. I stood
+the worst that can come to me when I helped his surgeons to-day and
+heard him clear me----I'm going to my room; you needn't fear I'll run
+away."
+
+Mr. Rose was across the room before his son could leave it, gripping the
+satin-clad shoulder.
+
+"You'll keep what Gerard lied to give you," he promised with inexorable
+menace. "And that's what is left of your reputation. You'll neither run
+nor skulk in your room; you'll go dress for dinner and come down here
+and eat it. We'll have no scenes. The medicine you have got to take is
+nothing to the black dose Gerard has to swallow."
+
+"Papa!" Flavia appealed, unheard.
+
+"Yes, sir," Corrie answered simply.
+
+On the wide landing of the staircase Flavia overtook her brother. There
+was just one thing she could say to him, must and would always have to
+say whatever his faults or the rest of the world's condemnation.
+
+"I love you," she panted, clasping her little hands around his arm.
+"Corrie, it is hurting you so! I love you, let me come."
+
+Under the soft hall-lights he turned to her, blue eyes meeting blue
+eyes; then for the first time in their lives he took her in his arms
+with a man's touch and kissed her.
+
+"You stick close, Other Fellow," he said unsteadily. "I'm pretty
+lonesome; you're a help. But don't come now."
+
+Pretty lonesome. Yes, that expressed the atmosphere of aloofness, the
+air of being suddenly walled around and set apart, that now marked the
+impulsive and social Corrie. It was with him when he came down to the
+dreary dinner, an hour later.
+
+The one who failed to play out the wretched farce of customary life was
+Isabel. She kept her room, alleging illness, and did not appear to lend
+aid to the evening which the three spent in silent endurance of one
+another and their own thoughts. The very surroundings insisted on the
+image of Gerard; a book he had been reading lay open on the table, the
+music he preferred was waiting on the piano rack. At nine o'clock,
+unable to bear more, Flavia rose, hurriedly pleading fatigue. Corrie
+also rose with her to retire, or to escape.
+
+"Wait," his father bade, at his movement, laying down a newspaper. "You
+will not be out with your automobile, to-morrow."
+
+Corrie looked at him without rebellion or surprise, unflinching from the
+decision.
+
+"I shall never drive a racing car again, sir," was his quiet statement.
+
+And only Gerard could have gauged what that renunciation cost his
+fellow-driver.
+
+Gerard, at that hour, was not conscious of many things. The night that
+was long at the rose-colored villa, was longer yet in the little
+farmhouse. But when the first pale light of dawn made the parlor windows
+grow into glimmering squares of gray, the patient suddenly spoke out of
+what was rather stupor than sleep.
+
+"'And the greatest of these is charity?'" he said strongly and clearly.
+
+The nurse hurried to his side, but it was many moments before he again
+aroused and asked for Rupert.
+
+"Now, and alone," he insisted, when she demurred, urging rest.
+
+Even in his helplessness he was compelling. The nurse went in search of
+Rupert, who had kept vigil in the kitchen, scoffing at the suggestion of
+bed while that battle was being waged in the other room.
+
+Gerard turned his fever-burnished eyes upon his small mechanician's
+sullen face, when that visitor entered. Both men understood perfectly
+well the contest of wills about to ensue. Both were coolly determined
+and prepared with the fine weapon of mutual knowledge of one another.
+
+"There's a silver case on the table; get me a cigarette and light it,
+will you?" requested Gerard, in his low, unsure voice.
+
+Rupert complied. He had not altogether escaped, himself, with mere
+scratches; he limped as he came across to place the cigarette in the
+languid fingers.
+
+"I guess there ain't any special need to ask if it's hurting bad, when
+you're wanting these dopes," he drew grim inference. "Here."
+
+"It is, all the time. Thanks. I didn't bring you here to talk about
+that, when you should be asleep, though. Rupert, no more is to be said
+about Corrie Rose. There has been too much of that already, I can see."
+
+Rupert's black eyes hardened and narrowed to lines of glinting jet.
+
+"I've got the truth stripped down to running facts, carrying no
+trimmings, and I'm demonstrating it to everybody I meet," he imparted
+dryly. "And I mean to keep on. I know what you want, all right, and I
+ain't intending to do it. Let him stand for what is coming to him."
+
+Gerard lifted his cigarette, seeking the narcotic smoke. His superb
+vitality and undrained youth had turned upon him like traitorous
+servants upon a fallen master, denying him surcease in unconsciousness
+and holding him as a sensitive instrument for pain to run its gamut
+upon.
+
+"Why?" he queried.
+
+"Because I want to see him get his. You don't? I do. I guess my say
+goes, this time. I ain't enjoying being sore wherever I ain't worse, but
+I'd go out and take another smash like we had to-day to see him wearing
+zebra clothes in a jail. Missing that, I'll make that pink millionaire
+palace red-hot and get him ruled off every race course in the country."
+
+"Rupert----"
+
+The mechanician's gesture cut off protest.
+
+"There ain't any use! I mean it."
+
+"You liked Corrie----"
+
+"I ain't noticing it, now. When you were behind the steering-wheel, your
+say so was what happened--if you'd said to light the gasoline tank, I'd
+have struck a match. That's business. This ain't. Rose stands for what
+he did, for I'm free to put it through."
+
+"Very true; I am helpless," Gerard acquiesced, his white lips
+compressed, and averted his head on the pillow.
+
+Checked, Rupert stared at the other with many shifting expressions
+twitching his own angry dark face.
+
+"Do you know what the doctors say?" he demanded, at last. "Are you
+knowing, when you ask me to let Rose off, what he's done to you?"
+
+"Yes," was the laconic answer.
+
+There was no retort to that all-sufficient brevity. None was attempted.
+
+The windows had gradually paled from gray to white, streaks of gold
+caught and reflected in the glass panes as the sun drew up above the
+horizon. All night the air had been filled with a steady murmur and dull
+flow of sound, unobserved because of its very continuity. Now, across
+the hush of the sick room unexpectedly crashed a roar of rapid
+explosions, growing thunderous as it approached nearer; cheers of joyous
+excitement pealed from many throats. Gerard started, his eyes blazing
+wide.
+
+"The race," flung the mechanician bitterly. "It's on."
+
+Gerard slowly raised his left arm and dropped it across his face as
+those who yesterday were his mates rushed past the house. With the
+movement a spot of crimson sprang into view against the linen swathing
+his shoulder, enlarging ominously, but even the alarmed Rupert knew
+this was no time to summon doctor or nurse, whatever the physical cost.
+
+"Don't you think?" Gerard presently asked, quite gently and naturally,
+"that I've got enough to stand, Rupert?"
+
+The sound that broke from the vanquished mechanician was less cry than
+curse.
+
+"I'll shut up!" he cast his submission before the victor. "I ain't going
+to lie--I'd choke--but I'll hold my tongue. Don't ask more or I'll take
+back that. You've got me down; I'll shut up."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AFTERMATH
+
+
+The newspapers were mercifully brief upon the subject of the unsupported
+accusation brought against Corrie Rose, although diffuse enough in
+accounts of the much-known Gerard's disaster. The driver's own
+explanation of his accident was accepted; his attitude towards the young
+amateur fixed the attitude of the public. Moreover, Jack Rupert was
+stricken suddenly dumb; no reportorial blandishments could obtain from
+him, on the second day, so much as an admission of the charges made by
+him on the day previous. Rupert surrendered like a gentleman: he laid
+down all his weapons. Dean's appearance at his usual duties and
+explanation of his absence from the pink car quashed the last rumor, for
+the finding of a wrench beside a motor course meant nothing, considered
+alone.
+
+The first things for which Mr. Rose looked each morning were the daily
+papers. After which, he invariably shot a glance of blended relief and
+smarting humiliation into the wide, earnest eyes of Flavia, as she sat
+opposite him behind the gold coffee-service, and addressed himself to
+his breakfast. He never looked towards his son at that moment, nor did
+Corrie ever break the ensuing silence. The change that had fallen upon
+Allan Gerard's life was scarcely more absolute and strange than that
+which had come upon the Rose household of innocent ostentation and
+intimate gayety.
+
+But the greatest outward alteration was in Isabel. Flavia and Mr. Rose
+maintained the usual calm routine of events at home and abroad, Corrie
+rigidly obeyed his father's command to live so as to provoke no comment.
+But Isabel's boasted, perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control.
+She moped all day in her own room, rejecting Flavia's companionship, and
+fled from Corrie with unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as the
+days passed, but rather grew worse in condition.
+
+It was in the sixth week after the accident whose echoes threatened to
+linger so long, that Isabel entered her cousin's study, one afternoon.
+
+"Flavia, I am going away," she abruptly announced. "Mrs. Alexander has
+asked me to go South with Caroline and her, you know. Uncle says I may
+do as I like, and I am going. I can't bear it here," her full lip
+quivered.
+
+Flavia turned from the window by which she had been standing, catching
+and crushing a fold of the drapery in her small fingers as she faced the
+other girl.
+
+"You mean that you cannot bear Corrie," she retorted, in swift reproach.
+"You treat him--_how_ you treat him! You hardly speak to him, you hardly
+look at him. Oh, you are cruel, you will not see how he suffers for one
+moment's fault."
+
+Isabel grasped a chair-back, commencing to tremble.
+
+"I can't bear to stay," she repeated hysterically. "Don't talk to me
+about Corrie."
+
+"I never will again," Flavia assured, pale with extreme anger. "Yet you
+might remember that he loves you; a little kindness from you would help
+him so much. Do you know where he spent yesterday? He was out in his
+motor boat; out in November with a north gale blowing, alone in that
+speed-boat that is half under water all the time. You do not care, you
+have no pity."
+
+"I----"
+
+Flavia imposed silence with a gesture, herself quite unconscious of how
+overwhelming was this contrast to her usual gentleness.
+
+"He has done wrong--you have nothing to give him but more punishment.
+Yes, go away, that is best. But he would have been kinder to you,
+Isabel."
+
+Isabel let go of the chair, her gray eyes dilating unnaturally. Her gaze
+dwelling on Flavia, she slowly retreated a few steps towards the door,
+then suddenly turned and fled, leaving no answer.
+
+With her going, Flavia's passion died, something like fear taking its
+place. That was what Corrie had felt, reflected Corrie's sister; a sweep
+of flame-like anger that blinded judgment, a slipping of self-mastery
+that loosed hand or tongue. Only, she had not wanted to hurt Isabel,
+that was a point she could not conceive reaching, herself.
+
+When she had somewhat recovered, Flavia went to find her furs and
+outdoor apparel. She knew where Corrie had gone; she would meet him and
+herself break the tidings of his cousin's coming departure. He would be
+walking; he had not touched an automobile since he left the seat of his
+pink racer to rescue Gerard from beneath the crushed Mercury, and he had
+no patience with horses.
+
+It was on a bleak, sandy stretch of Long Island road that she met
+Corrie, a solitary figure against the flat landscape as he came towards
+her. At sight of her little carriage and the cream-colored ponies he
+himself long before had taught her to drive, he stopped, his boyish
+face brightening warmly.
+
+"Other Fellow," was all he said, when she leaned towards him with her
+unaltering love of glance and smile.
+
+There was no need to ask where he had been.
+
+"How is Mr. Gerard, dear?" she ventured, after he was seated beside her
+and they had commenced the return.
+
+"Better."
+
+"You go there every day to ask?"
+
+"Every day."
+
+"And, he----"
+
+"He has seen me every day, even the worst. He talks about politics, the
+aviation meet, the motor magazines,--about everything except himself or
+me. It is his right arm, now, the other hurts are almost well. To-day I
+met the doctor, going out as I was coming in. I asked about him----"
+
+Flavia raised her eyes to meet his, shrinking from the verdict that
+speech must establish beyond the refuge of doubt. Very gently he laid
+his hand over hers upon the reins and brought the ponies to a
+standstill.
+
+"Do you remember this place, Flavia? Well, all that is over for him."
+
+Beside them sloped away a brown, frost-seared field; in its centre still
+showed the outline of a baseball diamond, with the bags forgotten at the
+bases. Flavia's heart contracted sharply, the reins escaped her grasp.
+For the moment memory and vision fused; she saw the straight, slender
+pitcher poised with arms raised above his brown head, saw his laughing
+glance go questing down the field, and the swift, graceful movement that
+launched the ball with unerring unexpectedness. And because she could
+not speak without inadvertently lashing Corrie, she sat mute.
+
+She did not know how long it was before he spoke, with the new steady
+seriousness so strange to meet in him.
+
+"Where are we getting to, Other Fellow? Because we have got to get
+somewheres, you know; we don't stand still. Gerard will go away to his
+own home, soon. You and father and Isabel and I can't just sit here
+looking at each other, like we've been doing."
+
+Gerard would go away, soon. That was the sentence that gripped Flavia.
+Go, without seeing her, without pursuing the purpose he had shown her in
+the fountain arbor? It seemed so impossible that the thrill that shook
+her was not of fear, but of startled expectancy. Yet she answered
+Corrie with scarcely a pause, and with all tenderness.
+
+"Dear, Isabel will not be here, for a little while," she told him,
+hesitatingly. "She is going South with Mrs. Alexander and Caroline. She,
+she needs the change."
+
+"That's good," he approved. "She will be better off, away from here, and
+you will be better for her going. She worries us all with her fidgets."
+
+Amazed, Flavia turned in her seat to regard him.
+
+"Corrie!"
+
+"You thought I would mind?" He smiled whimsically. "Flavia, I've had a
+lot of nonsense knocked out of me. It took a bad shock to cure me of
+Isabel, but I'm well. There's nothing left of that. In fact, I feel all
+full of holes where ideas have been jolted out of me--I feel rather
+empty."
+
+The beautiful foreign motor car had stolen along the road so silently
+that neither brother nor sister perceived its approach until the grind
+of applied brakes sounded beside the stopped carriage.
+
+"I should have supposed that there'd be views in the countryside more
+pleasant to this family than that field," caustically observed Mr.
+Rose. "You can take the machine on home, Lenoir; I'll drive with Miss
+Rose."
+
+He descended, the chauffeur stooping to open the door, while Corrie and
+Flavia looked on, too much surprised to find reply.
+
+"Keep your seat," he curtly ordered, as his son rose to yield the place
+beside Flavia. "I'll get up here. Drive ahead, my girl."
+
+He took the rear seat of the little carriage, resting his arm on the
+cushioned back so that his strong, square-set head was between the two
+who sat in front. The automobile obediently sped on, and only the beat
+of the ponies' hoofs interrupted the chill afternoon hush for the first
+half-mile.
+
+"It's a long time since I found out that you had some points that I
+didn't just understand, Corrie," Mr. Rose stated, his matter-of-fact
+accents carrying a deliberate finality. "I didn't wonder, nor I didn't
+try to force you to fit my pattern; we were solid friends and I was
+willing to take on faith your ways of being different. Once in a while
+I'd bring you on the carpet when you got across the line, not often. You
+were given about everything you wanted and only told that you must keep
+straight. You haven't done it."
+
+An odd shiver ran through Corrie, but he said nothing.
+
+"This isn't a theatre; there won't be any talk of cutting you off with a
+shilling or any other kind of child's talk. What we have got to do is to
+make the best of a bad thing. You will have to go away for a year or
+two, keep apart from automobile racing and automobile people, and live
+gossip down. Poor Gerard did his best for you--God knows why--but there
+are rumors whispered around yet. It would have looked like running away
+to go before; now, Gerard is out of danger. Well?"
+
+"I have been thinking that I should like to go away for a time, sir,"
+Corrie answered, gravely self-contained.
+
+"Very good. To speak out, it will be better for our future living
+together if you're not in my sight for a while now. If we stay
+housemates, there is likely to be another kind of a crash, and two
+crashes don't mend a break. You'll have all the money you want and I
+don't care where you go or how much you spend. Just put in a year as
+well as you can, until we all settle down and go on again. We have got a
+lifetime before us to get through."
+
+After a moment Corrie quietly took the reins from Flavia; blinded by
+tears, she was letting the ponies stray at will.
+
+The brief November day was ending; it was dusk when they reached the
+house, and perhaps none of the three were ungrateful for the shadows
+which veiled them from one another. On the veranda, Corrie detained his
+sister, allowing Mr. Rose to enter alone.
+
+"I'm not coming in just yet, Other Fellow," he said. "Ask father to
+excuse me from dinner; I have an errand that cannot wait. I don't want
+you to worry about me or to be unhappy. I did a lot of thinking
+yesterday, out in the speed-boat by myself; I know what I am going to do
+and that I will put up the best fight I can. Go help father; don't fret
+over me."
+
+He kissed her soft mouth with the man's firmness so different from his
+former casual caresses, and went down the broad steps, walking across
+the lawns in the direction from which they had just come.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE HOUSE AT THE TURN
+
+
+Dinner at the Rose house took place about two hours after the
+corresponding meal occurred at the farmhouse near the Westbury Turn. So
+while Corrie was walking through his five miles of desolate, dark road,
+the evening became well under way in the country parlor; sick-room no
+longer.
+
+There had been changes in the room since Gerard's occupancy of it.
+Bright rugs and coverings mitigated the severity of the horse-hair
+furniture, a couple of easy-chairs stood there like velvet-clad
+cavaliers in a Puritan meeting. If the hues ran to vivid scarlets and
+unexpected contrasts, why, Rupert had done the shopping and had
+consulted his own taste. In the midst of his artistic work, that
+one-time mechanician and self-installed nurse of Gerard's was now seated
+beside a red-shaded lamp, engaged in reading aloud to his companion from
+a classic found on the family book-shelf.
+
+"'Thaddeus, his eyes cast down, glided from the room in a gentle
+suffusion of tears,'" he concluded a paragraph, and broke off, stunned.
+"Gee! And I was understanding that was a man! I ain't qualified for the
+judges' stand, but--did you ever strike this joy-promoting endurance run
+of language before?"
+
+"Once. I didn't have you to read it to me, or I would have enjoyed it
+more," Gerard returned, stirring in his arm-chair opposite the ruddily
+glowing German stove. "Don't you want to give me a cigarette; I haven't
+had one since noon."
+
+He was thinner and still colorless, otherwise there was little to show
+what the last month and a half had meant to Allan Gerard. Except when he
+rose or moved, the inert uselessness of his right arm was not obvious.
+And however hard the battles and rebellion he inwardly had passed
+through, tone or expression carried no outward intelligence of past
+conflict as he smiled across at his entertainer. Gerard possessed in
+full measure that Anglo-Saxon reticence which abhors the useless display
+of emotions. Rupert balanced the volume upon his knee and proceeded to
+comply with the request, twisting his dark little face sardonically.
+
+"When I was racing with Darling French," he reminisced, "we gave out of
+oil, once, on a practice run across country. There was a house by the
+busy curb representing itself as the only one combination garage and
+grocery store, so Darling contracted for a can of warranted cylinder oil
+in a speed dash that left the man all used up and rattling mad. Being in
+some haste, we didn't look up that can's inner life, but chucked the
+stuff where it would do the most good."
+
+"Poor quality?"
+
+"I ain't saying so. The complaint wasn't quality, it was kind. That can
+surrounded the finest brand of Koko Korn syrup, extra rich. They had to
+knock down our motor with a set of cooking utensils, and the man who did
+the job said it was a candied peach."
+
+Gerard laughed.
+
+"Well?" he anticipated.
+
+"Here's your smoke. Well, that type of literature makes my thinks-motor
+feel as if molasses was being poured into it for lubrication--it sticks.
+Will you take it hard if I raise my voice over the sporting page of the
+evening paper, instead?"
+
+Gerard nodded consent, but checked the reply on his lips, listening. The
+outer door had opened and closed, someone could be heard speaking to the
+mistress of the house.
+
+"Corrie Rose!" he marvelled.
+
+Rupert carefully laid _Thaddeus_ on the table and stood up,
+straightening his small, wiry figure.
+
+"I'll crank up and run out," he observed nonchalantly. "Signal
+when you want me back."
+
+There was no need of explanation; since the day of the Mercury's wreck,
+Rupert had never voluntarily remained in the same room with Corrie or
+had exchanged speech with him. The two passed at the doorway, now, with
+a curt nod on the part of the mechanician in response to the visitor's
+salute.
+
+It was not a heartening reception, nor could Gerard's cordial greeting
+lift the shadow of it from Corrie's expression. That long solitary walk
+had left his young face drawn with a white fatigue not physical. But his
+eyes did not avoid Gerard's, and for the first time he spoke of the
+subject always present in the minds of both.
+
+"You ought to hate the sight of me worse than Rupert does," he abruptly
+opened. "But--you don't. I don't know why, but you don't."
+
+"No, I certainly do not," Gerard confirmed, his grave eyes on his guest.
+
+Corrie rested one hand upon the narrow mantel, looking down at the
+fire-bright squares of the stove. He still wore his gray overcoat and
+held his cap, as if prepared to accept dismissal.
+
+"You understand how easily things can go wrong," he said. "I never used
+to understand that, but I do now. You have seen drivers go wild in the
+race fever, more than once. We have both seen the nicest, sweetest
+fellows curse and strike their mechanicians because of a lost minute,
+seen men whose nerve never balked at a risk sit down and cry like girls
+when their car went out of a race. There is a mark on my car now where
+Ralph Stanton once scraped off the paint in passing because I was slow
+in getting out of his way. I suppose you judged mine such a case and
+forgave a moment's insanity. No one else ever will. You," his
+violet-blue eyes suddenly sought the other man's, "you won't think I am
+trying to excuse any such thing as was done to you or to justify my
+part."
+
+"No," Gerard answered, compassionately translating the last weeks'
+writing on the candid face. "I am not likely to think that, Corrie. But
+do not give me credit not due; I am not unusually forgiving or wise, it
+is, indeed, merely that I understand fairly well. And when one
+understands the other man, there seldom is anything to forgive."
+
+"Thank you. It's because you always understand one that I've come here
+to-night. I, I guess I've about realized that I'm not quite nineteen
+years old yet and pretty much a fool. I don't suppose anyone ever meant
+better than I did, or ever did worse at it. Gerard, my father has sent
+me off. Oh, not like that!" as the other man moved, startled. "I mean,
+he has told me to go away for a year or two, anywhere I like, until
+people forget. He says he doesn't want to see me for a while. No one
+does, except my sister. There is no one on earth for whom I care who
+looks the same as before at me except her, and you. I'm sent off to live
+alone and I have never been alone in my life. I'm afraid of myself,
+sick, afraid to be alone--take me with you."
+
+"Corrie?"
+
+The boy's impetuous gesture interrupted.
+
+"Don't say no! It ought to kill me to look at you, it almost does, but
+it's worse away. Let me go where you are going, let me work in your
+factory, if it's at shovelling coal. Don't send me off alone with more
+money than I can spend and nothing to do with myself. I can't stand
+it--I'd go under! You would better have let Rupert send me to prison for
+wrecking your car. I've tried to stand what seemed up to me, but I'm
+near my limit. Gerard, help me see it through."
+
+There was a quality of desperation in the appeal that was like a
+clutching grasp. Gerard felt his own nerves draw tense while his answer
+leaped to the present and future need.
+
+"You are the exact man I want at the factory, Corrie," he assured, with
+all steadying naturalness and calm. "Take off your overcoat and come sit
+down; you are not going right out again. I've got work for you that will
+keep you guessing, as Rupert says. Let me see, it's eight o'clock and
+you walked over; I'll wager you have had no dinner."
+
+"I don't want anything," Corrie refused, his face averted, his fingers
+gripping the mantel-shelf until his nails showed white from pressure.
+
+"All right; I do. I declined my coffee and some of Mrs. Carter's
+ambrosial apple pie, this evening, and I have been repenting ever since.
+You are a fine pretext for having them brought in to us now. Besides, I
+shall have to keep you in good shape if you are going to help me put
+through a scheme of mine. Of course, I am not altering my plan of living
+merely because I have got one arm to use in place of two. I have to have
+some things done for me instead of doing them myself, that's all. I need
+you," he paused, and lifted to his companion the cordial brilliancy of
+his smile, "and I am glad to have you, Corrie."
+
+When, an hour later, the guest rose to depart, Gerard detained him for a
+final word.
+
+"One thing before you go," he said, with a quiet force of command that
+belonged to the other Allan Gerard whom Corrie had not yet
+encountered--the master of many men and affairs, instead of the racing
+driver and social playmate. "We will not speak again of the subject we
+have concluded to-night. I do not wish the accident to the Mercury
+recalled or discussed between us, ever. We are beyond that. Good night;
+I suppose you would rather start with me, day after to-morrow, than
+alone, later?"
+
+Long afterward Gerard came to remember that straight glance of utter
+helplessness and struggling confusion from Corrie's tired eyes.
+
+"I, I can't _think_," confessed Corrie Rose. "I'm in too deep to find a
+way out. I--my head----" he pushed back his heavy fair hair. "Yes, I'd
+rather start with you, if you will let me. Tell me whatever you want of
+me, Gerard; I'll always do it. Good night."
+
+The closing of the outer door was the signal for Rupert's return to the
+parlor.
+
+"Your time on the track is up," he reminded, "and you need your sleeps."
+
+"I am not sleepy, Rupert. We will go home to the factory, day after
+to-morrow, and continue work on that special racing car of mine. Corrie
+Rose is going to drive it when it is done, since I cannot."
+
+The mechanician slowly stiffened.
+
+"Not precisely?" he refused credence.
+
+"Oh, yes; for practice and testing, at first, and racing later. Until it
+is built I shall put him in training on one of the ninety Mercuries. He
+doesn't yet know anything about it, himself, and he isn't going to be
+told until I am ready. You are going to ride with him and break him in.
+He has to be taught a good deal to change him from a clever amateur to a
+professional driver."
+
+"When I sit in a car beside Rose, it'll be because I'm taking him to be
+lynched," Rupert explicitly set forth.
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, dearest."
+
+Gerard rested his head against the cushioned chair-back and met the
+inflexible black eyes with the cool, mischievous resolution of his own
+regard, saying nothing at all.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+SENTENCE OF ERROR
+
+
+It was nearly twelve o'clock, that night, when Corrie arrived home.
+Flavia ran down the wide staircase to meet him, finger on lip; a
+childish figure in the creamy lace and silk of her negligee, with her
+heavy braids of shining hair falling over her shoulders.
+
+"You are so late," she grieved. "And so cold! Come near the hearth--papa
+is in the library, still."
+
+Corrie allowed her small urgent hands to draw him towards the fireplace
+that filled the square hall with ruddy reflections and dancing shadows.
+He was cold to the touch, ice clung to the rough cloth of his ulster,
+but there was color and even light in the face he turned to her.
+
+"It _is_ snowing," he recalled. "But I'm not cold. I am going to bed and
+to sleep. I want you to sleep, too, Other Fellow, because the worst of
+it all is over. I don't mean that things are right--they never can be
+that again, I suppose--but I see my way clear to live, now."
+
+She gazed up at him attentively, sensitively responsive to the vital
+change she divined in him. Before he could continue or she question, Mr.
+Rose came between the curtains of the arched library door, a massive,
+dominant presence as he stood surveying the two in the fire-light. He
+made no remark, yet Corrie at once moved to face him, gently putting
+Flavia aside.
+
+"I am sorry to be so late, sir; I have been arranging for my going
+away," he gave simple account of himself. "I should like to leave the
+day after to-morrow, if you do not object. I am going to stay with a
+western friend. I know you would rather not hear much about me or from
+me for a while, but I will leave an address where I can always be
+reached."
+
+It is not infrequently disconcerting to be taken promptly and literally
+at one's word. Moreover, Corrie looked very young and pathetically
+tired, with his wind-ruffled fair hair pushed back and in his bearing of
+dignified self-dependence. A quiver passed over Mr. Rose's strong,
+square-cut countenance, his stern light-gray eyes softened to a
+contradiction of his set mouth.
+
+"I'm not in the habit of saying things twice," he curtly replied. "I
+gave you leave to go when and where you pleased. To-morrow I'll fix your
+bank account so you can draw all the money you like."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Corrie acknowledged.
+
+"You've no call to thank me," his father corrected. "I guess that when I
+own millions you've got the right to all you can spend. It won't help
+anything for you to be pinched or uncomfortable. I've no wish to see it.
+I am going to take your sister to Europe for the winter, as I told her
+this evening, so we ourselves leave soon after you. Try to keep
+straighter, this time."
+
+There was no intentional cruelty in the concluding sentence, delivered
+as the speaker stepped back into the inner room, but Corrie turned so
+white that Flavia sprang to him with a low exclamation of pain.
+
+"It's all right," he reassured her. And after a moment: "Flavia, I am
+going with Allan Gerard, to work under him and help him in his factory."
+
+"Corrie?"
+
+"I have been with him to-night. I don't want father to know this because
+he wouldn't understand; he might even forbid me to go. Unless he forces
+an answer, I shall not say where I am to be. But Gerard said I must tell
+you everything and write to you often--I would have done that, anyhow.
+You won't mind my going away, now, when you know I am with him?"
+
+She comprehended at last the change in him, the change from restless
+uncertainty to steady fixity of purpose, from an objectless wanderer to
+a traveller towards a known destination, comprehended with a passionate
+outrush of gratitude to the man who had wrought this in a generosity too
+broad to remember his own injury. The eyes she lifted to her brother's
+were splendidly luminous.
+
+"No," she confirmed, in the exhaustion of relief. "I can bear to let you
+go from me, if you are to be with Mr. Gerard."
+
+They nestled together--as each might have clung in such an hour to the
+mother they had left so far down the path of years--on the hearth from
+which one was self-exiled and the other about to be taken.
+
+"Do you remember the story he told us?" Corrie asked, after a long
+pause. "About that Arabian fellow's vase and the pearls, you know?
+I--well, I meant what I said, about expecting to have lots of days like
+that, pearl-days. I couldn't see any farther than that! Yet that
+night--I don't expect now, what I did then; I've lost my chance for it.
+But I would like to do something for Allan Gerard before I die. I'd like
+to make all my pearls into one, and put it into his vase. Instead, he is
+doing things for me."
+
+Her clasping arms tightened about him. Heretofore she always had turned
+a steady face to her brother, sparing him the reproach of grief, but
+now she helplessly felt her eyes fill and overflow. One comfort, one
+hope she had that he did not share. If he went with Allan Gerard, and if
+Gerard took home the wife he had seemed to woo, brother and sister would
+not be separated. Flavia Gerard would be in Allan Gerard's house, where
+Corrie was going.
+
+Had Gerard thought of that, also? Dared she tread on this nebulous
+fairy-ground? Dared she lead Corrie to set foot there, with her?
+
+"Dear," she essayed, her voice just audible, "dear, has Mr. Gerard ever
+spoken to you of me?"
+
+Surprised, Corrie looked down at the bent head resting against his rough
+overcoat. Himself a lover, he yet had not suspected this other romance
+flowering beside his own; he did not guess the obvious secret, now.
+
+"Of you? Oh, yes; he asks if you are well, each day. He never forgets
+such things. Why?"
+
+She had no answer to that natural question. In spite of her reason,
+Flavia was chilled by the flat conventionality of Gerard's apparent
+attitude, as represented by those formal inquiries. Almost she would
+have preferred that he had not spoken of her at all; silence could not
+have implied indifference.
+
+"Nothing," she faltered. It clearly was impossible to speak as she had
+imagined. "Only, as his hostess, and your sister, I fancied that he
+might----"
+
+"He wouldn't say that sort of thing to me, Other Fellow. No doubt he
+will come to pay a farewell call before he leaves. He isn't very fit,
+you know; he hasn't been out yet. He _must_ be at his western factory
+this week, he said, or he wouldn't try to travel."
+
+Her color rushed back. Why had she not remembered that? Why should he
+speak of her to anyone, since to-morrow he would come to see her?
+To-morrow? The clocks had struck midnight, to-day they would see each
+other.
+
+"It is late," Corrie added, as if in answer to her thought. He sighed
+wearily. "You are tired, I suppose we both are. Come up."
+
+He passed his arm about her waist, and they went up the stairs together,
+leaning on one another. But Allan Gerard was a third presence with them,
+and in their sense of his guardianship brother and sister rested like
+children comforted.
+
+The following day was one filled with an atmosphere of disruption and
+imminent departure. The very servants caught the contagion and hurried
+uncomfortably about their tasks. Corrie's preparations were
+unostentatious, but Isabel's agitated the entire household. Also, Mr.
+Rose issued his instructions that Flavia should be ready to start for
+France on the next steamer sailing. The house that had been rose-colored
+within and without was become a gray place to be avoided.
+
+Flavia thought all day of Allan Gerard. She knew her father went in the
+afternoon to pay him a farewell visit, she knew Corrie was with him all
+the morning, and when each returned home she suspended breath in
+anticipation of hearing the step of a guest also--the step of Gerard
+coming towards the goal which he had half-showed her in the fountain
+arbor. But Corrie and Mr. Rose each entered alone.
+
+Nevertheless, she chose to wear his color, that night; the pale,
+glistening tea-rose yellow above which her warm hair showed burnished
+gold. He must come that evening, if at all; she would be truly "Flavia
+Rose" to him.
+
+She was standing alone before her mirror, setting the last pearl comb in
+place, when her cousin came into the room.
+
+"You look as if you were happy enough," Isabel commented fretfully. "I
+don't believe you care at all about Corrie's going away. Of course you
+don't care about me. What are you putting on that old-fashioned thing
+for?"
+
+Flavia gravely turned her large eyes upon the other girl; the unjust
+attack fell in harsh dissonance with her own mood of hushed
+anticipation. She could not have robed herself for her wedding with more
+serious care and earnest thoughtfulness than she had used in preparing
+to receive Gerard to-night. This was no time for coquetry; as he came
+for her, she would go to him, she knew, without evasion or pretense to
+harass his weakness. She shrank, wincing sensitively, from this rough
+criticism, but every member of the family had learned not to reply to
+the new Isabel's peevish tartness.
+
+"It was my mother's," she explained, to the last inquiry, tenderly
+lifting the long chain of pearl and amber beads ending in a lace-fine
+pearl cross. Never could she attempt to tell her cousin the blended
+motives from which she had chosen to wear this rosary. "And her mother's
+and again her's. It is very old Spanish work. Shall we go down?"
+
+"What for? It is not time for dinner. Oh, Martin told me there was a
+messenger waiting to deliver a letter, just now, as I came here."
+
+The color flared up over Flavia's delicate face.
+
+"A messenger, Isabel?"
+
+"Yes, who would not send up his message. I told Martin that we would
+ring."
+
+Flavia slowly wound the chain around her throat. There was no escape
+from Isabel's insistent companionship, she realized.
+
+"Ring, then, please," she requested, and passed into her little
+sitting-room, beyond.
+
+Isabel followed curiously, ensconcing herself in one of the easy-chairs
+and idly twitching blossoms from the hyacinths in a bowl near her. All
+day she had been especially nervous and irritable, her least movements
+were characterized by an impatience almost feverish.
+
+The messenger who appeared on the threshold was Jack Rupert, not in the
+familiar guise of the Mercury's mechanician, but Rupert at leisure; a
+small, immaculate figure as New Yorkese as Broadway itself. The movement
+that brought Flavia across to him was impulsive as a confident child's
+and accompanied by a candid radiance of glance and smile flashed
+straight into the visitor's black eyes. She had no attention to spare to
+the fact that Isabel also had risen.
+
+"You have been so good as to bring a message to me, Mr. Rupert?" she
+questioned happily.
+
+"I ain't denying it was a pleasure to come," he made gracious reply,
+with his slight drawl of speech. "I've been given this to deliver to
+Miss Rose, from Mr. Gerard, under orders to bring the answer back unless
+it was preferred to send it by Mr. Rose, junior, to-morrow."
+
+"This" was a letter. As Flavia held out her hand to receive it, Isabel
+reached her side and seized her wrist so fiercely as to bruise the soft
+flesh.
+
+"It is mine!" she panted. "Give it to me--it is mine!"
+
+Flavia stood still, looking at the other girl with slow-gathering,
+incredulous resentment and wonder.
+
+"Yours? You expected this from Mr. Gerard, Isabel?"
+
+"I--no--yes--Corrie warned me he would," Isabel stammered. "You shall
+not read it, Flavia Rose, you shall not! It is for me, for me--no one
+must see it."
+
+She was trembling in a vehement excitement half-hysteric. Very quietly
+Flavia disengaged her arm from the grasp holding it; for the moment
+Isabel's touch was loathsome to her.
+
+"For whom is the letter, my cousin or me?" she asked the bearer.
+
+"I guess there ain't any answer; I don't know," avowed Rupert, troubled
+and hesitant. "I was sent out to report to Miss Rose."
+
+"But you, yourself, for whom did you suppose it?"
+
+"I ain't certain I did any supposing. Mr. Gerard began it after Mr. Rose
+had been with him, yesterday, and it took from then till to-night to
+finish."
+
+"It is _mine_," Isabel reiterated passionately.
+
+The scene was utterly impossible, not to be prolonged. It was the
+strong, cool determination inherited from Thomas Rose that held Flavia
+equal to the demands of her mother's bequeathment of reticent pride.
+
+"Pray give the letter to my cousin," she requested, her calm never more
+perfect. "I am sorry to have confused so simple a matter. She will of
+course recognize for which of us it is intended."
+
+But she meant to see the letter. Even as she watched Isabel snatch the
+surrendered missive, Flavia told herself that this sentence of error
+could not be accepted without sight of the letter. Moving with
+deliberate stateliness, she crossed to a chair near a small table and
+sat down, taking up a book. She was conscious that Rupert watched her,
+and she would make no sign that might constitute a self-betrayal when
+recounted to Gerard if she were indeed so pitifully wrong and he had
+from the first chosen her cousin. What she was not in the least aware
+of, was the inevitable impression made upon the mechanician by the
+dazzling little room and her central figure of gold upon gold and
+pearl-and-amber, and by her still, colorless face set in all this sheen
+and lustre. Had he been as dull as he really was acute, this scene could
+not have been made casual to him.
+
+Isabel's shaking fingers shredded the envelope in extracting the sheet
+of paper, her eyes scanned the page avidly. The result was
+unanticipated; there was a sharp cry, an instant of indecision, then as
+savagely as she had claimed the letter she sprang to thrust it into the
+startled Flavia's lap.
+
+"I can't do it! Flavia, I can't see him--I can't bear it! Tell him
+no--to go away--it's all over, now."
+
+The desperate terror and dread of the cry charged the atmosphere of the
+room with vibrant intensity. Flavia caught the letter.
+
+"I am to read this?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes; read it, help me."
+
+Isabel had seen and still claimed as hers the message. Yes, and had
+expected it, so that there must have been other communication between
+her and the sender. The conviction of her own utter mistake struck
+Flavia down with a force that crushed reason under feeling. She was
+physically giddy as she unfolded the page.
+
+The writing was uncertain and angular; different indeed from the firm
+smooth script that had accompanied the box of yellow roses in giving the
+"definition of the meaning of _Flavia Rose_." The mute evidence of that
+difficult left-handed task pierced the girl who loved Allan Gerard,
+before she read the words.
+
+The letter commenced abruptly, without superscription.
+
+    "I think you will know how hard it is for me to speak to you
+    calmly, even this way, across this distance, remembering how we
+    last met. To you I can confess what I could to no one else,
+    since there is now an end of concealment between us; that is,
+    that Allan Gerard is so weak as to feel shame at being a
+    cripple. So much so, that the idea is intolerable of first
+    remeeting you amidst your household's pitying curiosity. I never
+    used to know I had a personal vanity; I fancy it is not quite
+    that, but rather the humiliation of the man who has always been
+    well-dressed and who suddenly finds himself sent into public
+    sight in a shabby, tattered garment. I had accepted my physical
+    conventionality as part of my social equipment. I do not say
+    this in reproach to anyone or to affect you; I am perfectly sure
+    that you will not offer me the last insult of supposing so or of
+    answering me from that viewpoint. I say it only to excuse my
+    very great presumption in asking you to drive with Corrie to the
+    little railway station, to-morrow morning, to take leave of
+    him--and to tell me whether I am to come back. I want you to see
+    me as I am now, before you determine. Perhaps, left to my own
+    impulse of shielding you, I would have gone in silence, but
+    justice is higher than sentiment; you have the right to hear
+    what I must say and to answer it as you will.
+
+    "I am going to do my best for Corrie, whatever happens. Please
+    trust me so far, and if I have offended or seemed to fail in
+    this letter, remember my past months in excuse.
+
+    "Allan Gerard."
+
+Flavia laid down the sheet of paper. In that moment she suffered less
+from the destruction of her own happiness than from the destruction of
+Gerard's. This cry out of his anguish to the one for whom alone he had
+broken the stoical muteness in which he had wrapped his endured pain of
+mind and body, this self-revelation that was the difficult baring of a
+heart not used to show itself and avowal of weakness at the core of so
+much strength, drew from her an outrush of maternal protectiveness that
+rolled its flood above personal grief. If she could have sent Isabel to
+him, then, an Isabel worthy of the high trust and pathetic dignity in
+humility of that letter, she could have accepted her own sorrow. But she
+knew Isabel Rose, knew the vanity of that hope even as she tried to
+realize it.
+
+"You know what Mr. Gerard wishes to say to you, to-morrow?" she asked
+composedly. If the composure was overdone, it was the error of a novice
+in acting.
+
+The other girl shrank back.
+
+"Yes--I----"
+
+"Then, why do you not answer him? Surely, if you expected him to write
+this, you must answer him."
+
+"I will not!" Isabel cried loudly and rebelliously. "I will not go, I
+will not see him hurt like that and hear him, hear him----" she broke
+off, fighting for breath. "Tell him to go away. I can't help it now, I
+can't see him. It's all over!"
+
+This was the woman Allan Gerard had chosen, Flavia thought in bitter
+wonder; this self-centred, hysterical girl whose love could not survive
+the marring of her lover's outward beauty. Isabel could not bear to go
+to him; the irony of it sank deep into the girl who could scarcely bear
+to stay away. But Flavia turned to the mute Rupert, holding her dignity
+steadily above her pitiful confusion of mind, striving, also, to ease
+this blow to Gerard, who was so little fit to receive it.
+
+"Pray inform Mr. Gerard that Miss Rose is unwell and hardly able to
+answer his letter now," she directed. "I hope she will be able to
+accompany Mr. Corwin Rose, to-morrow morning, as he suggests."
+
+"No!" Isabel denied.
+
+"I'll report, Miss Rose," Rupert asserted with brevity.
+
+The keen black eyes and the deep-blue ones met, and read each other.
+Flavia took a step forward and held out her hand.
+
+"It is not probable that we shall meet again, ever. Thank you," she
+said.
+
+It would not have been possible to bribe Rupert into silence, but Flavia
+had done better. She knew, and the mechanician knew, as he touched her
+soft fingers, that he would keep to himself the knowledge that she had
+elevated to a confidence--the knowledge that she loved Allan Gerard, and
+was not loved in return.
+
+So it happened that when Rupert returned to the Westbury farmhouse, he
+literally repeated Flavia's dictated message and contributed nothing of
+additional information or detail--except that he made one dry comment
+before retiring for the night.
+
+"There's just one of the Rose family that ain't got any yellow streaks,"
+he volunteered.
+
+"Who?" was asked absently.
+
+The response to his letter had left Gerard paler than usual and very
+grave. He did not recognize in it the Flavia he knew; the girl who had
+watched her brother with such rich lavishness of affection, the girl
+whose most innocent eyes had held the possibilities of all Corrie's
+ardent young passion without his impulsive faults, and whose warmth of
+nature had drawn him as a fireside draws a wanderer. He would not doubt
+her for such slight cause, he would wait for morning and her further
+answer, but he felt a premonitory dread and discouragement. He had
+expected so much more than he would now admit to himself. He even had
+thought vaguely, unreasoningly eager as a wistful boy, that she might
+come to him with Corrie that evening, that he might see and touch her.
+
+"The lady you didn't write to," answered his mechanician. "Good night."
+
+The next morning Corrie Rose went to the little railway station, alone.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+GERARD'S MAN
+
+
+The hard, glittering macadam track that swept around the huge western
+factory of the Mercury Automobile Company and curved off behind a mass
+of autumn-gray woodland, was swarming with dingy, roaring, nakedly bare
+cars. The spluttering explosions from the unmuffled exhausts, the voices
+of the testers and their mechanics as they called back and forth, the
+monotonous tones of the man who distributed numbers for identification
+and heard reports from his force, all blended into the cheery
+eight-o'clock din of a commencing work-day. Three brawny,
+perspiration-streaked young fellows were engaged in loading bags of sand
+on the stripped cars about to start out, to supply the weight of the
+missing bodies, and whistling rag-time melodies to enliven their labors.
+
+In the shadow of one of the arched doorways Corrie Rose stood to watch
+the scene, drawing full, hungry breaths of the gasoline-scented,
+smoke-murked air. There was more than frost this December morning; ice
+glinted in the gutters and on the surface of buckets, the healthful
+lash of the wind flecked color into the men's faces as they pulled on
+heavy gloves and hooded caps. The spirit of the place was action; the
+lusty vigor of it tugged with kindred appeal at the inactive, wistful
+one who looked on.
+
+The heavy throb of the machinery-crowded building smothered the sound of
+steps; a touch was necessary to arouse the absorbed watcher.
+
+"You've been here for almost a week, Corrie. Don't you feel like getting
+to work?" queried Gerard's pleasant tones.
+
+The boy swung around eagerly.
+
+"Yes," he welcomed. "Give me something to do, anything."
+
+Gerard nodded, his amber eyes sweeping courtyard and track until,
+finding the man he sought, he lifted a summoning finger.
+
+"Have someone bring out my six-ninety, Rupert," he called across. "Right
+away." And to his companion, "Get into some warm things; you will find
+it cold, driving."
+
+Corrie stiffened, flushing painfully and catching his lip in his white
+teeth.
+
+"Gerard, you mean _me_ to drive?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I shall never drive a car again."
+
+"You will drive the six-ninety Mercury for six hours a day, every day,"
+Gerard corrected explicitly. "Until I get the big special racer built,
+and then you will drive it. You are going to work into the finest kind
+of training and drive until you can drive in your sleep. Too bad the
+winter is shutting in, but that will not stop you any more than it does
+the testers. In fact, driving in the snow is good practice."
+
+Helpless, Corrie looked at the other man, his violet-blue eyes almost
+black with repressed feeling.
+
+"Gerard, you must know how I want to; don't ask me! You know how I ache
+to get ahold of a wheel, but I've forfeited all that."
+
+"You have placed yourself in my factory, under my orders," Gerard
+stated, with curt finality. "While you are here you will do what I tell
+you to do, precisely as does every other worker; precisely as does
+Rupert, for example, who is really tester at the eastern plant and
+ordinarily works under its master, David French. I have decided to give
+you a branch of the work that I once planned to do myself and now
+cannot. Go into the office and put on your driving togs."
+
+"I ain't expecting to shove this ninety through a letter-slot,"
+remonstrated caustic accents from across the busy courtyard. "Move over,
+girls, you're crowding the aisles! Say, Norris, this ain't a joy-ride
+down Riverside Drive, it's a testing run; reverse over there and take
+about six more sachet-bags of mud-pie aboard where your tonneau ain't,
+before you start. Don't it hurt you bad to hurry like that, you
+fellows?"
+
+There was a drawing aside by the cars opposite a wide door, and the
+machine guided by Rupert rolled through, winding a devious course toward
+where its owner waited. Without a word, Corrie turned and went into the
+office.
+
+Gerard remained still, following with his gaze the approach of the
+beloved car he would drive no more, until it came to a halt before him.
+
+"If we're going out, I'll fetch my muff and veils," suggested the
+mechanician, leaning nearer.
+
+"Thanks, Rupert. I am going with Rose, myself, this first time. You can
+be ready this afternoon, though."
+
+Rupert's dark face twisted in a grimace, his black eyes narrowed.
+
+"We're laboring under some classy mistake," he dryly signified. "I was
+inviting myself to go with you. As for Rose, he and I won't perch on the
+same branch unless we get lynched together for horse stealing--and you
+know how I don't love a horse."
+
+The amusement underlying Gerard's expression rippled to the surface.
+
+"All right," he acquiesced. "Detail someone else. But, Rupert----"
+
+"Ma'am?"
+
+"I think you will race next spring as Corrie Rose's mechanician."
+
+Their glances encountered, equally cool and determined.
+
+"I'll take in washing with a Chinese partner, if you and Darling French
+throw me out," assured Rupert kindly. "Don't worry about my future like
+that."
+
+And he slipped across the levers out of his seat, eel-supple, as Corrie
+issued from the office.
+
+There was a mile loop of the perfect macadam track circling the factory
+buildings, then the way ran off into the country roads, inches deep with
+heavy sand, littered with ugly stones, rising over and pitching down
+steep grades where holes and mud-patches abounded. Over this the new
+Mercury cars were driven at top speed, each one reckoning many miles
+before the makers allowed them to be clothed with bodies and gleaming
+enamels and to be sent to the purchasers. No flaw escaped unnoticed, no
+weakness passed. Jaws set under their masks, keen eyes on the road and
+keen ears listening for the least false note in the tone-harmony of
+their machines, the sturdy testers drove through a day's work that would
+have prostrated the average motorist. Out among these men went Corrie
+Rose, more self-conscious than he had ever been on race track or course.
+
+"I never had a ninety before," he confided to Gerard, as they finished
+the mile circuit. "A sixty was my biggest. She's, she's a _beauty_!"
+
+The car slammed violently off the macadam onto the sand road, skidded in
+a half-circle and righted itself with a writhing jerk.
+
+"Mind your path," cautioned Gerard, in open mirth. "This isn't a motor
+parkway. Hello!"
+
+One of the smaller cars was coming towards them, limping back to the
+shops with a broken front spring. The man driving it touched his cap to
+Gerard as they passed, swinging one arm behind him in a significant
+gesture and shouting a warning concerning the bridge ahead. Corrie
+checked his speed, and barely skirted the deep washed-out hole that had
+caused the other machine's disaster.
+
+"There was rain yesterday and freezing weather last night," Gerard
+communicated, at his ear. "Now it is beginning to melt again and
+playing the mischief with the roads. There is a right-angle turn
+coming."
+
+Corrie nodded, fully occupied. His blood sang through his veins, his
+fingers gripped the steering-wheel lovingly; he was revelling in the
+speed exhilaration he had never expected to feel again. The driver who
+hoped for no such commutation of sentence watched him with quietly sad
+eyes; eyes in which no one ever was allowed to surprise their present
+expression, least of all Corrie Rose.
+
+Near noon a tire blew out. Gerard sat on the side of the Mercury and
+gave bits of ironical advice to the worker while Corrie changed a tire
+alone for the first time in his life. Corrie bore the teasing sweetly,
+even when a tool slipped and tore his cold-sensitized fingers.
+
+"I know," he deprecated. "Dean always did it and I just helped. I never
+did anything thoroughly; an amateur isn't a professional. We would have
+lost time by that in a road race."
+
+"You will learn. Rupert and I used to do it in two minutes from stop to
+restart," Gerard returned. "There--gather up your tools; we will go home
+to luncheon."
+
+"To the factory, first?"
+
+"No. Go slowly and I will show you a short cut."
+
+But Corrie was not in a mood to go slowly, so that they almost missed
+the driveway that branched from the macadam track to curve around into a
+park set thickly with fragrant cedars, central in which grove stood the
+quaintly stiff house of dark brick and stone.
+
+"Run around to the garage," Gerard directed. "Since you will want the
+car all the time, you might as well keep it here and use the short cut
+out to the road. I will get out here and go into the house."
+
+Corrie obediently bent to his levers.
+
+"All the time?" he repeated, with an indrawn breath of reluctant
+ecstasy. "All the time!"
+
+As Gerard turned to the house, a small figure advanced to meet him.
+
+"We've sent out a gang to massage some of the freckles defacing the
+speedway," Rupert informed him. "Briggs chugged in with a broken spring,
+Norris side-wiped a fence, and Phillips fell into a hole without
+publishing a notice, so that his mechanician got off over the bonnet and
+broke his collar-bone. That ain't testing cars, it's promoting funerals.
+It's easier to motor into heaven on that road than to drive a camel in
+New York. What?"
+
+"Yes, have it put in order, of course. I supposed that Mr. Dalton would
+attend to the matter, since I was out. Rupert, who is the
+sharpest-tongued, most cross-grained and least ceremonious mechanician
+we have?"
+
+"I am," was the prompt reply. "Were you wanting me?"
+
+Gerard looked at him and laughed.
+
+"You have ruled yourself off the list of eligibles," he declared. "I
+want a man to ride with Corrie Rose."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Rupert. His malicious, shrewd face gained
+comprehension. "_Oh!_ Well, I ain't boasting, but I could do that job up
+pretty fine. Failing me, Devlin is the nastiest thing on the place. You
+couldn't pat his head without pricking your fingers."
+
+"Very well. Tell him to report to Rose hereafter,--and do not tell him
+much else. Let all the men know that Rose is training to take my place
+in the racing work, but do not let them know anything about his
+millionaire father or his share in the Cup-race affair."
+
+Rupert directed his gaze towards the inert right arm hanging by Gerard's
+side.
+
+"Your place," he echoed. "Are you giving in without putting up a stiff
+fight?"
+
+Gerard's chin lifted, his eyes sprang to meet the sharp challenge of the
+mechanician's.
+
+"No. The fight will soon be on. Are you going to be my second in it?"
+
+"I'm guessing I'll be there when you look for me."
+
+Their eyes dwelt together for a long moment.
+
+"I should like the men to treat Rose as they do each other, so far as
+possible," Gerard casually resumed his original theme. "It will be good
+for him. He needs roughing!"
+
+Rupert ran his fingers through his crisp black locks, wheeling to
+depart.
+
+"He'll slip control and run wild," he predicted, grimly vicious. "He
+needs the training you're planning for him, all right, but he ain't got
+the stuff in him to stand it. He'll slip control--here's hoping he
+smashes himself this time!"
+
+Gerard moved his head in disagreement.
+
+"Wait," he advised. "You once said he could not last out a certain
+twenty-four-hour race."
+
+"He didn't."
+
+"He finished in third place."
+
+"Because you helped him through, that's why. He didn't have to do it
+alone."
+
+"He doesn't have to do this alone, either," reminded Gerard.
+
+Rupert looked at him, then walked away, every line of his body
+reiterating the prediction he could not sustain argumentatively.
+
+It was half an hour later that Corrie came into the room to join his
+host, carrying a letter in his hand.
+
+"It is from Flavia," he volunteered. "She promised to write as soon as
+they got across, but she did better; she wrote this on board the steamer
+so that it was all ready to send." He sat down in his place and rested
+his arms on the table in the boyish attitude so associated with the
+massively rich dining-room of his father's house and the light-hearted
+group who had gathered there. "It was like her to do better than her
+word,--she doesn't know how to do less. One, one can tie up to _her_."
+
+Gerard continued to gaze out the window opposite, his expression setting
+as if under a sudden exertion of self-control.
+
+"I--well, I was always fond of my sister, but one learns a good deal
+more of people when things go wrong than when they just run along right.
+She asks me about you, how you are now."
+
+"Miss Rose is too kind."
+
+Some quality in the brief acknowledgment compelled a pause. The once
+self-assertive Corrie had become acutely sensitive to any suggestion of
+rebuff or disapproval. He could not in any way divine this rebuke was
+not for him, or know of the bruise he innocently had touched.
+
+When the first course of the luncheon was served, Gerard came over to
+his seat and opened a new subject with his usual kindness of manner. It
+was a curious fact that, although Gerard had felt the awakening of love
+for Flavia Rose from his first glimpse of her, he never had aided Corrie
+for his sister's sake. Even when he had dragged himself from the
+overwhelming blackness of pain and the numbing effects of anaesthetics to
+defend the driver whose foul blow had struck him down, it was of Corrie
+alone he thought, not of Flavia, Corrie whom he had shielded from
+disgrace and open punishment. Man to man they had dealt together, no
+woman, however dear, entered between them. So when Flavia had seemed to
+fail her lover, again the separateness had held and Gerard never even
+imagined visiting her desertion on her brother. He had not resented
+Corrie's natural speech of her, now, but he could not listen to it; not
+yet.
+
+"You will find your regular mechanician waiting for you when you go out
+again," he observed. "You can learn much with him, if you choose,
+Corrie, although he is no Rupert. Take your machine where and how you
+please; it is all practice. I will see you again at dinner, unless you
+grow tired before then and would like to come up to the draughting-room
+to meet my chief engineer and designer."
+
+Corrie looked down, crumpling a fold of the table cloth between nervous
+fingers.
+
+"Gerard, do they know?" he asked, his voice low. "I mean, how you were
+hurt and what Rupert accuses me of?"
+
+"Certainly not. You are no one to them but my new driver."
+
+A still ruddier color tinged the young face, the fair head bent a little
+lower.
+
+"That is all I want to be, ever. Thank you, Gerard; I'll make good."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE MAKING GOOD
+
+
+Corrie did not slip control during the weeks that followed. There was no
+running wild to record. At first he used to come in from his driving
+reddened by more than the cold wind, and there were rumors current of
+certain vigorous word-duels between him and his sullen assistant,
+Devlin. But he never complained to Gerard or exhibited any smart of
+excoriated vanity. The testers accepted him as a little more than their
+equal, after watching him drive, and he gladly met their comradeship
+with his own. It was very easy to like Corrie; soon he was surrounded by
+friends.
+
+Only Jack Rupert never spoke to him. The thing was not done obtrusively,
+but it was done. He never openly slighted Corrie Rose or showed him
+discourtesy, he simply failed to come in contact with him. And Corrie
+tacitly accepted the situation, avoiding the inflexible mechanician, on
+his part. So winter shut in, with blizzards that frequently drove
+everyone off the roads until snow-ploughs and shovels had accomplished
+their work. Then Gerard would summon Corrie to the inside of the huge,
+reverberant factory, where amid its lesser brothers the Titan racing
+machine was slowly growing to completion; the Titan of Gerard's past
+speed-visions, the dream-planned car that was now for another's control.
+He taught, and Corrie learned hungrily.
+
+It was in February Corrie first noticed that Gerard and Rupert
+simultaneously disappeared for an hour and a half every morning. No one
+knew why, or had interested enough to speculate, it seemed. Gerard
+always sent Corrie off on some duty, at that time each day, and only
+accidental circumstances awoke the young driver's attention to a custom
+without an explanation.
+
+Of course, Corrie asked no questions. He was not temperamentally curious
+and he was well-bred. But, returning unexpectedly to the house, one
+morning in early March, he passed Rupert going out and realized himself
+encroaching on the tacitly established period of retirement. Sobered,
+half-doubtful of his course, he ran up the stairs, and in the upper hall
+came suddenly upon Gerard leaning against the wall.
+
+"Gerard!" Corrie exclaimed; goggles and gloves fell to the floor as he
+sprang to his friend. "Gerard, you're ill? Let me help you--lean on me!
+I'm strong enough to _carry_ you."
+
+"It is nothing," Gerard panted. "I tried to come after Rupert in too
+much of a hurry, that's all. I remembered something I had forgotten to
+tell him. What are you doing here? I sent you out."
+
+Once Corrie would have flashed hot retort to a reproof certainly
+undeserved, not now.
+
+"I am sorry; I didn't understand," he apologized. "You never said I
+_must_ stay out. Let me help you, get you something."
+
+"I know; I'm unreasonable!" Gerard straightened himself. "Never mind me,
+Corrie; I am all right now."
+
+He was white with a singular pallor that Corrie was too inexperienced to
+recognize, but he smiled reassurance to his assistant and himself led
+the way to the room opposite.
+
+"There is some dose in the glass on the table," he indicated, finding a
+chair. "I might drink it, if I had it here. And, don't you want to get
+me a cigarette?"
+
+In silence Corrie complied with the requests. Beside the slight,
+colorless Gerard, he radiated vigorous health and that scintillant
+freshness drawn from days passed in sunlight and sweet air, but his
+eyes at this moment held a desperate anxiety and unrest that left the
+advantage of contrast to his companion's clear tranquillity of regard.
+
+"You are getting worse," he declared abruptly. "There is no use of
+trying to spare my feelings, Gerard; instead of gaining, you are losing
+strength."
+
+"I beg your pardon; I am getting better," Gerard corrected with perfect
+assurance. He put aside his glass and leaned back in his chair. "You do
+not in the least know what you are talking about. Since you are here, we
+might get a bit of business done that I had meant to leave until you
+came in to luncheon. You understand that the formalities must be
+preserved; are you willing to sign one of our regular driver's
+contracts, to drive for the Mercury Company this year, and for no one
+else?"
+
+"I will do," said Corrie, "whatever you want. Is this the paper?"
+
+He took up a pen and, still standing, wrote his name across the foot of
+the document, the other man's attentive gaze following his movements.
+
+"Is that the way you sign legal papers, Corrie, without reading them?"
+
+The blue eyes gave the questioner one expressive glance.
+
+"You gave it to me," was the answer.
+
+Gerard contemplated him, then drew another printed sheet from a pile on
+the desk and pushed it across.
+
+"All right. I want you to sign this, too," he signified.
+
+As carelessly as before, Corrie set down his signature and turned away
+from the half-folded page.
+
+"I came back early because I had a letter from Flavia," he explained. "I
+wanted to answer it right away. She says that father doesn't intend to
+come home until autumn. I don't believe she likes it much, but of course
+she wouldn't tell him so. He has enough to stand."
+
+Gerard drew the two papers towards him and put them into a drawer. It is
+hard to be consistent; the temptation of seeing Corrie read Flavia's
+weekly letters had long since vanquished the resolution of the man whose
+love for her seemed to himself to illustrate that the economies of
+Nature do not include human passion. Corrie found a willing, if mute,
+listener to all confidences in regard to his sister.
+
+"She has never told Mr. Rose that you are with me?" Gerard asked,
+to-day.
+
+"No," he responded, surprised. "Oh no! She promised me that, the night
+before I left home."
+
+"Yet, living so close in thought with your father as she does, I should
+have fancied----"
+
+"That she couldn't help telling him? I don't know who started that story
+that women can't keep secrets." Corrie laughed mirthlessly. "From what I
+have seen, they can keep quiet a secret that would tear itself out of
+any man I ever met, if the wrench killed him."
+
+He unclasped the heavy fur coat he still wore and pushed it aside from
+his throat with an impatient air of oppression.
+
+"But Flavia could not hurt anyone, and she knows that would hurt me," he
+added, more gently.
+
+Flavia could not hurt anyone. Allan Gerard considered that statement,
+not so much in bitterness as in a wonder that made all life uncertain.
+He recalled the fountain arcade of rose-colored columns and delicate
+lights, the sweetly demure girl who waited there for her brother, and
+her last brief glance of virginal candor and innocently unconscious
+confession. Flavia could not hurt anyone. Yet she had dismissed the man
+who loved her, without even granting him the poor alms of courteous
+sympathy, had left him to learn her decision from her silence. Long
+since, he had decided that he had been condemned as the cause of her
+beloved brother's downfall, and now he again excused her hardness to
+himself as a result of her over-tenderness for Corrie. Either that, or
+he himself had somehow failed, in some way had been found lacking.
+
+He never did Flavia Rose so much wrong as to suppose her affected by the
+physical injury he had suffered. If she had loved him, no such change
+could have come between them. He knew that no marring of her beauty
+would have had effect upon his steadfast love for her, and he rated her
+far above himself in all good things.
+
+It was quite a quarter-hour before Gerard looked up and saw that Corrie
+had remained standing by the table in an abstraction complete as his
+own, lips pressed shut and straight brows contracted. Startled out of
+self-contemplation, the older man leaned forward to give his aid to a
+moment whose bitterness he divined.
+
+"Corrie, take off your furs and come to luncheon," he directed, crisply
+energetic. "You have got to take out the Titan for its first run, this
+afternoon."
+
+Effectively aroused, Corrie swung around.
+
+"The Titan?" he echoed. "To-day?"
+
+"Yes. Come on."
+
+In the thin, clear March sunshine, two hours later, the Mercury Titan
+rolled out onto the mile track, shaking earth and air with its roar and
+vibrant clamor. The force of testers and factory operatives crowded
+about, busy men found time to cluster at the buildings' doors and
+windows in keen interest.
+
+Opposite Gerard and his little staff, the men who had designed and
+evoked the winged monster, Corrie Rose was in his seat, flushed with
+excitement, but collected and at home in the powerful machine which he
+was to be the first to test and master. "Until you give it to its racing
+driver, let no one except me take it?" he had begged of Gerard. And
+Gerard had given the promise, smiling oddly.
+
+But if Corrie was eager for the start, his mechanician palpably was not.
+The place beside the driver remained vacant until the last moment, when
+the reluctant Devlin slowly climbed into it.
+
+"Devlin is nervous," Gerard gravely commented, to his own one-time
+mechanician. "He is a very good factory man, but this is too big work
+for him. If they were going on a longer trip, I should not like to send
+Corrie out with him."
+
+"I ain't denying anything," snapped Rupert, scowling after the departing
+car as it leaped for the open track like an animal unleashed.
+
+That first afternoon's trial of the Mercury Titan proved it much faster
+than either the track or road would stand. Also, Corrie Rose was proved
+fully capable of handling his wheeled projectile. When he came in, at
+dusk, the testers regarded him with unconcealed respect; there was
+genuine admiration mingled with the congratulations offered him by the
+car's designers. He had become, after Gerard, the most conspicuous man
+in the great automobile plant.
+
+Devlin crawled out of his seat and complained of nausea.
+
+On the third day of practice, when Corrie brought the car back to the
+factory at noon, Rupert suddenly walked up to him and broke the silence
+of months.
+
+"What's the matter with your fifth cylinder?" he demanded.
+
+Amazed, Corrie slipped off his mask and turned his fatigued face to the
+questioner.
+
+"I couldn't help it," he deprecated, quite humbly. "Devlin was too busy
+holding on to do much, and I was driving."
+
+Rupert darted a glance of blighting contempt at the sullen Devlin, and
+walked away.
+
+Gerard had not seen the episode, nor did it reach his ears. But he was
+chatting with Corrie, late on the same afternoon, when Rupert emerged
+from the factory and thrust an overcoat at the young driver who stood
+beside his car.
+
+"I ain't hanging out a diploma," he stated acridly, "but this ain't
+summer by some months and you're qualifying for a hospital--which I
+don't guess is what you were brought here for."
+
+"Thank you," faltered Corrie, and wonderingly put on the garment.
+
+Gerard continued to survey the machine before him, not a flicker
+crossing his expression or betraying consciousness of any unusual event.
+Rupert's swift look of blended defiance and embarrassment directed
+towards his chief glided off an impenetrable surface.
+
+Corrie followed with wistful eyes the mechanician's return to the
+building.
+
+"I knew a West Point fellow, once, who had been given the 'silence'
+treatment--I used to wonder why he minded so much," he laughed, apropos
+of nothing, but his voice caught.
+
+It was the first time Corrie had ever admitted knowledge of Rupert's
+ostracism of him, or revealed how deeply the hurt had been felt. Gerard
+laid a caressing hand on his shoulder, wisely saying nothing. After a
+moment Corrie grasped the Titan's steering-wheel and swung himself into
+his seat behind it, but paused before summoning Devlin to start the
+motor, and rewarded Gerard's tact by another impulsive confidence,
+spoken just audibly:
+
+"I miss my father all the time. I think I always will. And I would miss
+him most if he came home and I had to live along side of him. He--well,
+he stays in Europe. I'll put up the car for the night, if you're ready
+to have me; it's getting pretty dark to run any more."
+
+"The car is in your hands; put it where you please, when you please,"
+responded Gerard; that mark of trust seemed the only comfort he could
+offer, then; he was too fine not to ignore the other issues.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE TITAN'S DRIVER
+
+
+There was a letter for Corrie in the evening mail, next day. At least,
+there was an envelope containing a gaudy picture-postal. It was at this
+last that Corrie was gazing, when Gerard came to remind him that dinner
+waited, and of it he first spoke.
+
+"It's from Isabel. I--she need not have sent it!" He abruptly pushed the
+card across the table toward Gerard and turned away to complete his
+preparations.
+
+"A postal?"
+
+"Oh, yes. She used to be fond of writing long letters, but she has quit
+the habit. Flavia tells me she has not received but three postal-cards
+from Isabel since they parted, although they used to be such chums."
+
+"I am to read?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+The red and green landscape represented, libellously, the Natural Bridge
+of Virginia. Across the glazed surface ran a few blurred lines of
+script:
+
+      "Dear Corrie:
+          May I marry someone else, if I want to, or do you
+    say not?
+                                    I.R."
+
+Gerard laid down the card and regarded, troubled, his companion's
+straight shoulders and the back of his erect head, the only view
+afforded as Corrie stood before his mirror employing a pair of military
+brushes upon his unruly blond hair.
+
+"I did not know that the affair--that matters were so far arranged
+between you and your cousin," he said.
+
+He spoke with hesitation, uncertain of how to venture upon a subject
+never before broached between them, yet feeling speech tacitly invited.
+In the stress of his own suffering at the time following the accident,
+preoccupied by the witnessing of Corrie's hard punishment of dishonor
+and grief and his struggle to fall no lower under it, he had forgotten
+that the boy-man also had to bear the loss of the girl upon whom he had
+spent his first love. For it required no deep insight to recognize that
+Isabel Rose was not the type of woman who is a refuge in time of
+disaster.
+
+But the embarrassment was his alone; Corrie answered without confusion:
+
+"We were engaged, yes. But that is ended. She had no need to write. She
+might have known, or have taken it for granted."
+
+Gerard studied the view presented of his companion, striving to draw
+some conclusion from pose or tone. He had no mind to have his work of
+months marred and his driver distracted by an interlude of useless
+sentimentality; the temptation to congratulate Corrie upon his freedom
+from an unsuitable marriage was almost too strong. But what he actually
+said was quite different, and escaped from his lips without
+consideration of its effect.
+
+"I should not have supposed your cousin had so fine and strict a sense
+of honor."
+
+The oval brush slipped through Corrie's fingers and fell to the floor,
+rolling jerkily away with the light glinting on its silver mounting in a
+series of heliographic flashes. The owner stooped to recover it, groping
+for the conspicuous object as if the room were dark instead of flooded
+with the brightness of late afternoon.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. "What did you say? Her sense of
+honor----?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," Gerard promptly apologized, aware of worse than
+indiscretion. "I, really, Corrie, I hardly realized what I was saying.
+Certainly I did not mean that the way it sounded. I only intended to
+say----"
+
+What had he intended to say? What could he substitute for the spoken
+truth that would not wound the hearer either for himself or for the
+girl he loved?
+
+"I only meant," he recommenced, "that her asking your formal release
+showed a careful punctiliousness not common."
+
+Corrie had recovered his brush, now. He laid it on the chiffonier before
+answering.
+
+"How do we know what is common? What is honor, anyway; what other people
+see or what you are? I fancy she wouldn't have written if she hadn't
+been sure of what I'd say," he retorted, with the first cynicism Gerard
+ever had seen in him. "She likes me to take the responsibility, that's
+about all. Well, I've done it. Did you say I was keeping dinner
+waiting?"
+
+This of the once-adored Isabel! However much relief the older man felt,
+there came with it a sensation of shock and regret. Had Corrie lost so
+much of his youth, unsuspected by his daily companion? Where were the
+old illusions which should have blurred this sharp judgment? He made
+some brief reply, and presently they went downstairs.
+
+The dinner was rather a silent affair.
+
+"Do you want to drive me into town?" Gerard inquired, at its conclusion.
+"I find that I must see Carruthers before he leaves for the East, and
+he is stopping at the Hotel Marion. If you are tired, I will get my
+chauffeur."
+
+"I should like it," Corrie exclaimed, rising eagerly. "I'll get the car.
+Your car?"
+
+"I should think so. I am not exactly anxious to drive into town with
+your racing machine, although we have got to make fair time in order to
+catch him before his train leaves."
+
+Corrie laughed, turning away.
+
+"I'll make the time, all right," he promised. "Your roadster isn't so
+pretty slow, considering. I'll be at the door in three minutes."
+
+He was, driving hatless and without a motor-mask in the fresh spring
+air.
+
+"No overcoat?" Gerard disapproved. "What would Rupert say?"
+
+Corrie flushed like a complimented girl; that the mechanician should
+have admitted him to any intercourse, however cold and slight, moved him
+so deeply that even Gerard's allusion was too much.
+
+"I have it with me; I don't need it," he evaded hurriedly. "Ready?"
+
+"Ready."
+
+The car sprang forward.
+
+The yellow country road merged into macadam, the macadam into asphalt.
+They were in the city, presently, slowly rolling through streets filled
+with playing children who garnered the last daylight moments. On one
+corner a hand-organ was performing, and the group disporting itself to
+the flat, tinkling music broke apart to shout after the car, waving
+grimy hands.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Corrie!" one shrill voice came to the motorists.
+
+The driver lifted his hand in salute, glancing at his companion with a
+blended mischief and diffidence so delightful, so much like the old
+merry Corrie Rose, that Gerard laughed in sheer sympathy of pleasure.
+
+"They seem to know you, Corrie?"
+
+"They do. At least, what they call knowing me. You see, I blew out a
+tire here, on the way home after you sent me in to the postoffice, last
+week, and about three dozen kiddies gathered around to watch me change
+it. Bully little frogs; they nearly lost all the kit of tools trying to
+help me. And talk! So I--well, I gave them all a spin about the square,
+in blocks of as many as could hang on at a time, and I set up the ice
+creams all around. It seemed my treat. You don't mind? I suppose they
+_are_ full of germs and want washing, but I just remembered they were
+kids."
+
+"I certainly do not mind," Gerard assured. He wanted to say something
+more, but found his thoughts singularly inarticulate. There was a
+certain verse commencing with "Inasmuch----" that he would have quoted
+to Corrie, had they been of any blood but the reticent Saxon. "They
+remembered part of your name," he added instead.
+
+"That was all I told them. The Hotel Marion?"
+
+"Yes. Speed up all you dare, our time is short."
+
+The time was indeed short. As they came down the avenue, Gerard uttered
+an exclamation, catching sight of a man who descended the hotel steps
+toward a carriage.
+
+"Cross the street! There he goes. Quick, or we'll lose him! Cross over."
+
+He was promptly obeyed. The car shot across the street regardless of
+traffic rules, and was brought shuddering to a halt beside the left-hand
+curb. Gerard sprang out and went to join the man who had stopped beside
+the carriage to wait for his pursuer.
+
+Left in the car, Corrie took a leisurely survey of the street,
+preparatory to withdrawing from his illegal situation. But it was
+already too late. Even while he looked, a blue-garbed figure appeared
+around a corner, perceived the south-bound automobile beside the east
+curb and marched upon the offender.
+
+To some temperaments there is an undeniable exhilaration in conflict.
+Corrie puckered his lips to a soundless whistle, settled back in his
+seat, and waited.
+
+"What are you doing over here?" the officer challenged, arriving. "Don't
+you know how to drive? You're under arrest."
+
+"What for?" Corrie asked unmoved.
+
+"What for? How did you get a chauffeur's license? For driving on the
+wrong side of the street, of course."
+
+"I'm not driving."
+
+"Don't be funny, young fellow! For stopping on the wrong side, if you
+like it better, then."
+
+"I'm not stopping."
+
+"You----?"
+
+"I am stopped. You did not see me do it. I might have come out of one of
+those buildings, or have come up on one of those sidewalk elevators, for
+all you know. You can't arrest me for something you didn't see me do,
+man. You wouldn't if you could; I can see you have a sweet disposition."
+
+The officer stared, and took a more careful survey of his antagonist.
+
+"You're no chauffeur, I guess," he pronounced dryly.
+
+"Well, I've got a license."
+
+"That may be. Anyway, chauffeur or college student, you can't stay here
+with that machine."
+
+"You want me to leave? Certainly, officer, I always obey the law. Here
+comes my friend; I'll go now."
+
+The policeman's face relaxed into a sour smile, the nonsense snaring him
+into unwilling participation.
+
+"Do," he recommended. "The minute your wheels move, you will be driving
+on the wrong side of the street and I will pull you in."
+
+"When I drive on the wrong side of the street, go ahead and do it. Are
+you ready to start, Gerard?"
+
+Gerard, who had come up in time to hear enough, had interpretation been
+necessary, put an additional argument into the man's hand before
+entering the car.
+
+"My fault, Johnston," he stated, with the quiet serenity of one certain
+of his ground. "You know I am not a law-breaker, I fancy; this was a
+case of necessity."
+
+"It was your friend, Mr. Gerard----"
+
+Corrie reached for a lever, smiling ingenuously across as he interrupted
+to reply.
+
+"The rule says to keep to the right, officer?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, I am left-handed, that's all. Now look at this."
+
+This was the execution of a movement that sent the automobile rolling
+backwards.
+
+"You see, I go north on the east side," the driver called, while the
+machine slid away. "All right, yes? Nothing in the rules about which end
+first you drive your car? No? I thought not. Good-by."
+
+The car was at the corner, rounded it, and darted away in the customary
+method of straightforward progression.
+
+"But if this had been New York, I would be in jail," Corrie added placid
+commentary, when security was attained. "I know all about it; I was
+arrested in Manhattan, once, for driving without a license number
+displayed. The cords must have broken and have let the number-plate fall
+off. Much that policeman listened to me. He ordered Dean into the
+tonneau with Flavia, stepped up into the seat beside me and ordered me
+to drive to the nearest police station."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I drove. It cost me twenty-five dollars, a week later, and I had to
+'phone for the family lawyer with bail to keep me from spending that
+night in a cell. Father----"
+
+The stop was full. Gerard turned his attention to the street traffic,
+giving his companion liberty to evade continuing the theme. The evasion
+was not made.
+
+"Father," Corrie resumed, clearly and steadily, "gave me this diamond I
+wear, when I told him, so that I might always have something with me to
+give as a bond for reappearance instead of having to be locked up until
+I got help. He said one might be caught without one's pocketbook along,
+but not without one's ring. I have never taken it off since."
+
+There was a change in his tone that Gerard had heard before, and never
+had succeeded in analyzing; not the change from gayety to gravity,
+although that was present, but some more subtle alteration that stirred
+the hearer to a strange, illogical sense of discomfort and failure on
+his own part. The feeling was transient and most unreasonable;
+common-sense swept it aside almost as it was formed. He said nothing,
+nor did his companion speak again.
+
+The sunset glow and color were gone, but the delicate after-light still
+remained as a luminous presence in the land when the automobile entered
+the boundaries of the Mercury Company's property. There was a gate
+before the private road to Allan Gerard's house. When Corrie halted the
+car there and descended to open the way, a ragged, unsavory figure rose
+from the grass before him.
+
+"I'll open it, mister," the man volunteered. "Never mind it," as Corrie
+felt in his pocket for coin. "I want more than that. Forgotten me, have
+you?"
+
+Astonished, Corrie scrutinized him, seeking the recollection implied.
+
+"You're the man in the _Dear Me_!" he identified suddenly. "The man I
+threw overboard."
+
+"Ah! You're it." He drew nearer, blinking intelligence. "I served you a
+square turn for your grub and clothes, too. Get rid of your friend; you
+an' me has got to talk."
+
+Before the bearing of confident familiarity, the unclean personality and
+significant smile, Corrie slowly stiffened in rigid distaste.
+
+"What do you want to say to me?" he demanded curtly. "What do you mean
+by serving me a square turn? Speak out. There is nothing concerning me
+that my friend doesn't already know."
+
+The man projected his unshaven chin, cunningly interrogative. The
+intervening months had altered him, not pleasantly. The tramp of the
+_Dear Me_ had been unattractive; this man was repellent.
+
+"Is he on to what happened on the day before the last Cup race? Given
+him the inside story of that, have you? Or was he there?"
+
+The pause was not noticeably long.
+
+"He is Allan Gerard," said Corrie, his voice suppressed. "Say what you
+wish."
+
+"I saw you ridin' past without a hat on, a while ago, an' I knew you.
+Want? I want you to stand somethin' for me to live on, Mr. Rose, you
+bein' a millionaire. I was on the spot after the smash an' heard the
+talk an' saw your wrench picked up. You'd treated me right, so I just
+lifted a bunch of tools from one of the machines standin' empty, an'
+sprinkled them around that twelve-mile race track. The newspaper fellows
+found the things, too, an' kind of thought less of findin' the one where
+you smashed Mr. Gerard. One fellow help another, eh? No use of goin' to
+Sing Sing, neither."
+
+Corrie's movement was swiftly accurate and uncalculated as the leap of
+some enraged primitive creature. His ungloved fist struck with an impact
+sounding like the slap of an open hand, and flung the man crashing
+through the hedge of lilac-bushes to roll over and over on the ground,
+clutching blindly at the turf strewn with broken leaf-buds.
+
+"Corrie!" Gerard cried stern warning, too late, starting from his seat.
+
+Corrie swung about, his blue eyes blazing in his flushed face, his lips
+parted in a scarlet line across the white gleam of his set teeth.
+
+"If he comes near me again, I'll _kill_ him!" he panted savagely.
+
+"It seems to me you have done enough of that sort of thing, already,"
+Gerard retorted, equally angered.
+
+The biting reminder was not premeditated; it leaped out of brief wrath
+and all the aching memories stirred by the episode. But it was none the
+less effective. Gerard himself did not realize how effective until he
+saw all the color and animation wiped from the young face and saw Corrie
+put his hand across his eyes.
+
+"Corrie!" he exclaimed, cut deeply by his own cruelty, amazedly furious
+with himself. "Corrie----"
+
+Corrie had turned his back to him, not in offence, but as a woman would
+cover her face. He answered without moving.
+
+"It's--all right. I understand; it is--all right."
+
+Gerard left the car, more humiliated in his own sight than he ever had
+been in his life. For the moment his own lack of self-control loomed
+larger than Corrie's, past or present.
+
+"Corrie, I said what I did not mean," he appealed, laying his hand on
+the other's shoulder. "Forgive me. Don't take it like this!"
+
+Corrie slowly turned to him.
+
+"There isn't anything you can say to me, that I can complain of," he
+checked apology, quietly serious. "It is all right, of course. I--no one
+can understand just what it was like to hear him talk that way to me, no
+one can, ever. But I should not have struck him."
+
+The expression in his eyes as they encountered Gerard's was not of
+remorse or shame, or resentment, was not any mingling of these, but
+simply of utter loneliness patiently accepted. Gerard stood back in
+silence, helplessly aware of having inflicted a hurt no contrition could
+heal.
+
+The man was sitting up, dazed and bruised, his stupid gaze following his
+assailant. To him Corrie went, dragging forth a handful of paper money.
+
+"Keep away from me," the victor cautioned with harsh dislike. "I mean
+it. Here, take this and go. I'm giving it to you because I knocked you
+down and not because of anything you claim, understand."
+
+The man grasped the money eagerly, peering up with more admiration than
+sullenness.
+
+"You've got a good punch, mister," he conceded. "I'll get out. I
+wouldn't have come, only I thought you'd really done what they said,
+that time."
+
+Corrie drew back sharply, staring at the other. His right hand was cut
+and bleeding from the blow he had dealt, red drops trickled and fell as
+he stood, but he did not seem aware of the fact, either then or when he
+turned away to take his place at the steering-wheel. Gerard took the
+seat beside him without comment; he fancied he could imagine very
+exactly what Corrie Rose, gentleman, was enduring.
+
+But whatever Corrie had to endure then or at any time, he was quite
+masculine enough to hurry it out of sight. At the house, he turned to
+Gerard his usual matter-of-fact glance.
+
+"I will put the car in the garage and go over to the factory for a
+while," he said. "Mr. Edwards was going to examine that throttle which
+jarred open--on the Titan, I mean--so it would be ready for me to start
+early to-morrow. I told him I would be over, this evening."
+
+"As you like. But do not stay too long; the house is lonely without you.
+And, do something for that cut hand, Corrie, or it may make you
+trouble."
+
+They looked at each other.
+
+"Thank you," acknowledged the younger.
+
+The Titan was ready next morning, as due, and the early start was made.
+
+The great machine had run for several days without especial incident,
+but this morning Devlin's nervous incompetency manifested itself in a
+new direction. He forgot to fill the oil-tank of the car he served as
+mechanician, before Corrie took it out. One of the testers drove into
+the busy courtyard, about ten o'clock, shouting the information that the
+Titan was stuck eight miles out on the back road and Rose wanted the
+emergency car to bring him oil.
+
+Sardonic of eye, caustic of tongue, Rupert himself attended to the
+carrying out of the request and watched the rescuing car depart on its
+mission. Half an hour later the Titan rolled past, missing fire and
+running with a sound like a sick gatling gun. Bare-headed and without
+his mask, Corrie was driving with one hand and striving to aid his
+mechanician's efforts with the other, as they swept around the mile
+track. In gritting exasperation Rupert stared after them, then snatched
+up a red flag and ran to the edge of the road.
+
+Gerard, notified of trouble with the big car, arrived from his office in
+time to see the Titan halt, flagged, and the lightning strike Devlin.
+
+"Get out," snarled Rupert, his dark face black with scorn, swinging one
+small arm in a wide gesture. "I ain't had any explanation of what you're
+doing behind anything except a baby-carriage, and I don't want it. Get
+out and don't come back. Quick!"
+
+Dazed, Devlin obeyed. Rupert dragged open the motor's hood, busied
+himself for thirty seconds and crashed the metal cover shut again. As he
+flung himself into the seat beside the stupefied Corrie, he first caught
+sight of Gerard standing on the stone portal.
+
+"Better send someone to hold down the yard," he sharply advised. "I
+ain't going to be there. What?"
+
+Corrie had sufficient presence of tact to send the car forward without
+pause or comment, not daring to look at his new companion. But he
+gathered a jumbled view of Gerard's mirthful face and of Devlin standing
+sulkily at bay before his grinning mates.
+
+When the Mercury Titan returned from its morning's work, it was running
+with the velvet purr of a happy tiger, the flames from its exhausts
+shimmered in the violet tints of perfect mixture, and the indicating
+dial pointed to the fact that Corrie had found some stretch of road
+where he had passed the hundred mile an hour gait.
+
+"She's in exact shape," approved Gerard, who had come out to meet them.
+"Good work, Rupert."
+
+Rupert turned a hard dark eye upon him.
+
+"I ain't pining for this," he signified measuredly. "But there's
+something coming to any decent car, and this one's suffered cruel."
+
+Gerard nodded.
+
+"I have been wondering where I could find a mechanician fit to race with
+Corrie this season," he confided, nonchalantly serene.
+
+The double bombshell dealt full effect.
+
+"Well, rest yourself," urged Rupert tartly, leaving his seat. "I'll do
+it. I know I'm a liar, I guess, but that won't hurt my work none."
+
+"Race?" gasped Corrie. "Race? _I!_"
+
+One rebel vanquished utterly, Gerard surveyed the other, preparing for
+his first conflict with the new Corrie Rose he had himself created; the
+Corrie Rose who in his twentieth year was a full-grown man.
+
+"I have had you and the car entered for the Indianapolis meet, next
+month," he announced; "after that we are going to Georgia, then down to
+try the sea-beach along the Florida shore, where you can let out all
+the speed the machine has got. Of course you will race. What else have
+you been training for?"
+
+Corrie's full red lips closed, his blue eyes braved Gerard's.
+
+"I will not. Gerard, I cannot. To go back as the millionaire amateur of
+the pink car, to stand the toleration of the professional drivers, who
+cannot really handle their machines better than I can mine, to know that
+the story of how you were wrecked is being whispered after me--I'm not
+big enough to face it all! I might be challenged and sent off the track,
+for all I know."
+
+"You will not go back as an amateur," Gerard corrected. "You are entered
+and registered as a professional automobile racer, enrolled on the books
+of the A.M.A., under their protection and subject to their rules and
+authority for the future. You will find your certificate of the fact
+lying on your table. Yes, I did it without consulting you. You signed
+the necessary papers yourself, without reading them, and you cannot undo
+this without a formal resignation--unless you contrive to get yourself
+suspended."
+
+Corrie's fingers gripped the wheel, the varying expressions changing his
+face like storm-swept water, while the hunger of his gaze besought
+Gerard.
+
+"You--it's _true_? Gerard, you've done _that_ for me? They, the A.M.A.
+officers, they accepted me?"
+
+"Yes. Once for all, there are no whispers connecting you with my
+accident. That matter is dead. You go back to the racing as a recognized
+driver in the employ of the Mercury Company, I acting as your manager
+and Jack Rupert as your mechanician. Do you think it probable that
+anyone would credit the idea of trouble between us, Corrie?"
+
+"Give me a moment, or I'll lose the only honor I've kept," said Corrie
+Rose, and turned away his face. "I shall do whatever you bid me, of
+course."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+VAL DE ROSAS
+
+
+On the day that Corrie in his American home consented to drive the
+Mercury Titan through the racing season, Flavia and Mr. Rose arrived at
+the tiny Spanish village of Val de Rosas--arrived, not so much through
+design as through the bursting of a tire on their motor car.
+
+"It seems as if the name of the place might be one of our lost titles,"
+observed Mr. Rose idly. "And there is the castle to match, on the
+hillside. Come stroll through the town, my girl, while Lenoir repairs
+damages."
+
+Smiling, Flavia stepped down beside him, throwing back her silk veils
+and lifting her fair, almost too delicate face to the Andalusian
+sunshine. After her stepped a great dog, with the sedate,
+matter-of-course bearing of a constant attendant.
+
+"I wonder who lives in the castle," she responded to his mood of
+playfulness. "_Our_ castle. We should dispossess them."
+
+"Lets," proposed her father.
+
+There was an inn in the village, kept by a ravishingly plump landlord of
+sixty who wore a short velvet jacket. He informed the travellers that
+the diminutive white castle was not only vacant, but to let, being the
+property of a mad Englishman who had bought it to live in while writing
+a book, and having finished the book had departed. Mr. Rose regarded his
+daughter speculatively.
+
+"We have been going from one place to another for five months, and we
+have got to put in six more," he said with brief decisiveness. "I mean
+to stay on this side of the water until fall. Do you want to try living
+here for a while, or would you rather keep moving?"
+
+"Let us stay here," Flavia voted eagerly. "Dear, I am so tired of
+hotels."
+
+Mr. Rose studied her as she stood, slim and frail, before him, her large
+eyes fixed on his.
+
+"I guess we are tired of more than that, you and I," he pronounced. "But
+I'll run up and see if the place can be made fit to live in. You had
+better rest here, in the shade; Frederick will take care of you and
+Lenoir is within call. Here, senor, set a chair here under these trees."
+
+She moved to the seat placed for her by the deferential host, and
+watched her father's departure up the winding road. They were both
+thinking of Corrie, lacking whom all places were blank, with whom, in
+one winter's enthusiasm, they had studied this soft Spanish tongue they
+now used without him. They had planned a trip to Puerto Rico, then, that
+never had been taken. But Flavia also was thinking of Allan
+Gerard--Allan Gerard, who loved Isabel and for whose sake Flavia carried
+a double sorrow, his and her own. As he had found excuses in his mind
+for her apparent failure of him, so she on her part never had blamed him
+for what she considered her own misunderstanding of his purpose. They
+were not given to the small vice of ready condemnation. There is no
+comfort in blaming the one loved, where the love is great.
+
+A murmur of wondering dismay aroused Flavia from her musing, a sound
+scarcely louder than the murmur of the bees busied among the heavy
+waxen-white lemon-blossoms overhead. She lifted her chin from her hand,
+and saw a brown-haired, brown-skinned, brown-eyed girl standing on the
+path, gazing at the huge dog that barred her passage.
+
+"Pray do not be frightened," Flavia begged. "Come here, Frederick!
+Indeed, he is only a young dog and very gentle."
+
+"He is very large, senorita," the girl smiled, half-reassured,
+half-fearful. "He bites, no?"
+
+"No, indeed. See."
+
+"He loves the senorita. That does not surprise," with Latin grace of
+compliment.
+
+Flavia smiled, too, drawing the Great Dane's bulky head against her
+knee.
+
+"I love him, perhaps."
+
+"One sees it, since he voyages with the senores in that splendid
+automobile, where a man might find place with joy."
+
+A wistfulness in the comment moved the listener to give explanation,
+almost in apology for lavishing upon an animal what might have rejoiced
+a human being.
+
+"He is my brother's dog. But my brother went away, and the poor dog
+grieved for him all the time, except with me. I could not leave him to
+fret, without either of us, so he came abroad, too."
+
+"Across the ocean, senorita?"
+
+"Across the ocean. From America."
+
+The two young girls considered one another in a pause full of cordial
+sympathy. Different in race, station and experience, the bond of
+maidenhood drew them to each other with delicate lines of mutual
+comprehension and accord.
+
+"It is the dog's name which is on the great silver-and-leather collar,
+or the name of the senorita?"
+
+Flavia's small fair hand guided the plump brown one tracing the legend
+upon the massive band.
+
+"'_Federigo el Grande, que pertenece a Corwin Basil Rose, Long
+Island_,'" she translated.
+
+"Don Corwin--that does not say itself easily!"
+
+"We called him Corrie."
+
+"Ah, that I can say; Don Corrie."
+
+The soft household name sounded yet softer in the Andalusian accents.
+Flavia looked away, feeling her lips quiver.
+
+"Will you tell me your name?" she asked, by way of diversion. "Mine is
+Flavia Rose. Perhaps we shall see more of each other, if I stay here and
+you do also."
+
+"I am called Elvira Paredes, senorita. And I shall be here--I cannot go
+for so long, so long, perhaps never."
+
+Flavia leaned forward, her clear eyes questioning.
+
+"You want to go away? To leave this place for some other?"
+
+The confidence came with an outrush of feeling, a wealth of expression
+and expressive gestures.
+
+"Senorita, to join my betrothed. Ah, there never was one like him, so
+beautiful, so brave, so constant like the sun in rising! You cannot
+know. No one can know who has not seen it. And sing! Under my window he
+would sing until the birds would hush, hush to listen. I have no
+marriage-portion, I who am an orphan living with the sister of my
+mother's cousin. Not for that did Luis hesitate. But the time came when
+he must do military service; serve in Morocco, senorita, serve among
+savages who would torture him! And to come back poor as he went. So he
+left. Far away he journeyed, to New York, which is in America, to find
+peace and make a home."
+
+"Where you will go to him?"
+
+"Senorita, we hope it. He works, I wait. We write long letters. But it
+is three years. It costs much to cross the ocean, and one grows old."
+The brown eyes looked the tragedy of hope deferred.
+
+"For men must work and women must weep----" The old refrain came to
+Flavia. But not this woman, not if her American sister could prevent.
+And the preventing was so easy! She drew the girl down on the seat
+beside her, impulsive as Corrie could have been.
+
+"Listen, Elvira--I may call you Elvira? Let me help you. I have so much
+money, so much more than I can spend, and I am not very happy. Let me
+think that I have given you what I cannot have; let me send you to Luis.
+My father will tell us how, he will arrange everything so that you will
+not have to trouble at all. We will send a message to Luis so that he
+may meet you."
+
+"Senorita!"
+
+"You will let me? You will not say no? Why, Elvira!"
+
+The girl dropped her face in Flavia's lap and burst into hysterical
+tears, covering her hands with kisses.
+
+When Mr. Rose returned, half an hour later, this time in the big
+automobile whose rushing passage stirred whirlwinds of dust on the
+age-old road, his daughter met him eagerly.
+
+"Papa, I want to send Elvira Paredes to America, to her fiancee. She is a
+kinswoman of the inn-keeper, here. Will you arrange it for us? I think
+she would be frightened if you sent her by first-class, but second-class
+would be very nice. She knows how to go in the train to Malaga, if you
+get the ticket, and ships sail from there, do they not? Oh, and would
+you cable to Luis Cardenas, in New York, so he will know she is coming?
+I will find the street and number from Elvira."
+
+His children long since had trained Mr. Rose to be surprised at no
+charming vagaries. He contemplated Flavia, amused, and well pleased with
+her animation.
+
+"Found something to play with, eh? Very good, we will fix it. But your
+Elvira will have to wait until I get an answer from her lover through
+the cable company; I'm sending no girls to New York without knowing
+they'll land in the right hands. Now, I believe that house up there will
+suit. We'll have some luncheon and then drive up for you to see it. I
+like the place, myself. It opens well."
+
+It opened well, if the happiness of Elvira Paredes was a good augury.
+
+"All the rest is from my father," Flavia said, in parting from her. "But
+take this from me, to wear or for a marriage portion, as you choose."
+
+The gift was a sapphire ring slipped from Flavia's slim finger.
+
+"It resembles the eyes of the senorita; may they always be as bright and
+clear," fervently returned Elvira, who was an Andalusian and therefore a
+poet.
+
+"That cost some money, when I bought it," Mr. Rose practically observed,
+from his seat in the motor-car. "Tell her not to flash it in New York,
+alone, if she wants to keep it. You can put that into classic Spanish
+for me, my girl."
+
+That was the beginning of an interlude whose placid monotony was
+tempered by much equally placid incident. The Americans liked the
+village, and the village rejoiced in the Americans, so that they came to
+know each other very well. More than once Flavia thought of the legend
+of Al-Mansor, and that if one of these days could be deemed happy enough
+to record by a pearl, the vase could be filled with the gem-chronicles,
+so much alike were the weeks.
+
+For the white castle on the hill kept its visitors, and so it happened
+that the summer most crowded and busy of any Corrie ever had known,
+slipped drowsily by in drowsy Val de Rosas for the two most interested
+in him.
+
+He never told Flavia what he was doing. The new Corrie Rose was more
+considerate than the self-centred thoughtlessness of youth had permitted
+the boy Corrie to be. He would have remembered her anxiety for his
+safety and dread of danger for him, of himself, but his silence was
+further impelled by Gerard, who had pointed out--in a few brief
+sentences that avoided Flavia's name--the responsibility she must feel
+in keeping such a secret from her father. But, because it was so
+difficult to write to his "Other Fellow" without telling her all,
+Corrie's letters came with greater intervals and were less in length.
+
+"I am still touring with Gerard," he wrote to Flavia, in the last note
+of his that came to Val de Rosas. "Don't mind if my letters come slower,
+please; I am pretty busy. I guess you will understand what it means to
+me when I can say that I am doing some work for Gerard and that he calls
+it good. I wish it cost me more to do. I hope father is well; you didn't
+say, last time. Keep on writing often, you know, it's the next thing to
+seeing you."
+
+He wrote that note the night after he broke a track record in
+California, wrote it on the chiffonier of the hotel bedroom while making
+ready to attend a motor club dinner at which he was to be chief guest in
+honor of the day's event. Four weeks later Flavia read it, under the
+flowering almond trees that surrounded the house so closely as to
+overhang the balcony on which she sat. Read it, then kissed the
+careless, boyish _Corwin B. Rose_ that slanted crookedly across the foot
+of the page. Holding the letter, she sat quite still.
+
+From the room within drifted the voices of Mr. Rose and the mild Father
+Bartolome, between whom the last months had established a cordial basis
+of esteem. The village priest had dined with them; it was in deference
+to his presence that Flavia wore a gown whose lace collar came up to her
+round chin, and now had left the two gentlemen to after-dinner
+conversation instead of herself entertaining her father. She had the
+sense of being horribly alone; her longing for Corrie became physical
+pain, so that she crushed the letter in her fingers, catching her breath
+with difficulty. Close to one another they always had been, still closer
+together trouble had drawn them, but now half the world stretched its
+empty spaces between. The impulse that goaded her was to cry out to her
+father that she must see Corrie--to take her to him--yet she did not
+speak or move, resolute in endurance. To make that appeal to her father
+would be to separate Corrie from Allan Gerard, she knew, to bring her
+brother back to the atmosphere of constraint and reproach to escape
+which he had left the rose-colored Long Island villa they called home.
+
+"Taxes are taxes," Mr. Rose's raised accents set forth. "Governments
+have to be maintained. If the tax collector is due to-morrow, Val de
+Rosas has got to pay up."
+
+There was a murmured reply in the softer tones.
+
+"No money?" the American echoed. "I suppose I could guess that." There
+came the crisp sound of parting paper. "Now, if you will make a figure
+for the total, Father, I'll give you this check to pay for the whole
+thing. I've lived in this town five months, and I like the people--it's
+my treat. No, I haven't counted the chickens and measured the houses,
+but I can see the amount isn't exactly ruinous. Now, we won't talk any
+more about it; here you are."
+
+"Senor Rose," solemnly said the old man, with inexpressible dignity and
+authority,--Flavia heard him rise,--"this will be repaid by the One to
+Whom you lend through the poor--repaid to you, and to your daughter."
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"You might include my son in that; I've got one, you know," suggested
+Thomas Rose, carefully casual.
+
+Flavia covered her eyes, and the tears trickled through her slender
+fingers.
+
+When the moon was up and the pant of a distant motor announced that the
+guest was being conveyed to the village by Lenoir and the big
+automobile, Flavia went in to her father. Both of them maintained their
+usual composure, as they smiled at one another across the room, but the
+young girl's extreme pallor was not to be disguised when she came into
+the light. Mr. Rose looked at her, and continued to look.
+
+"You're not well, my girl," he asserted, concerned. "Never mind drawing
+that curtain; come over here. Don't you think it's time to tell me why
+you sent off Gerard? I know how hard it must have hit him, when he was
+down already, and I've felt sorry often enough, but a man has to take a
+woman's answer and I've said nothing. But I believed at home that you
+liked him, and I believe you have been fretting ever since."
+
+Flavia grasped the heavy curtain, gazing at him in an utter confusion of
+thought that amounted to actual giddiness.
+
+"I--I sent away Mr. Gerard?" she marvelled.
+
+"Who else? Or if you accepted him, why was I not told?"
+
+"Will you tell me what you mean?" she asked brokenly.
+
+"Mean? I mean that the last time I saw Allan Gerard alone, on the day I
+met you and Corrie driving home together, he asked my permission to
+propose to you. I rather guess that hour with him didn't make me very
+easy on Corrie, although I was given no cause to be otherwise by Gerard.
+Gerard said frankly that he wouldn't have offered you such a wreck as he
+felt himself, much as he loved you, if he had not gone so far before he
+was hurt that he had no right to leave in silence. He said that as a
+matter of honorable justice he must lay the decision before you and
+abide by your will. Very quiet, he was--I told him that I would rather
+give you to him than to any other man on earth, and I meant it."
+
+The room blurred before Flavia's dilated eyes.
+
+"You never told me! Papa, you never told me!"
+
+The passionate cry of grief brought Mr. Rose to his feet.
+
+"Told you? Gerard was to tell you. I wanted to carry him home with me
+that afternoon, but he refused. In fact, he was not fit, nor I either,
+to stand any more sentiment just then. He said he would write and ask
+you to see him, if you cared to have him speak or come back at all. That
+trip West he had to take. Didn't he write?"
+
+She saw the softly-lighted little room at home where Jack Rupert had
+come to her, and Isabel's suffused, desperate face as she snatched the
+letter from its owner. And as a pendant picture she saw the bleak,
+solitary railway station in the gray December morning, where Gerard, ill
+and reft of his splendid strength, had waited alone for the girl who did
+not come.
+
+Mr. Rose reached her as she swayed forward.
+
+"Take me home," she gasped, clinging to him with small fierce hands. "I
+never knew. Dear, take me home."
+
+The next morning they left Val de Rosas.
+
+It is a long journey from Andalusia to New York. But it was on the
+morning they boarded the ocean liner that Mr. Rose purchased a New York
+journal--and met a news item that gave him material for thought during
+the rest of the trip. The item was on the sporting page, and stated that
+the Cup race course was now open for practice; among the first of the
+cars to commence training being the Mercury Titan, driven by Corrie
+Rose--one of the cleverest young professionals in America, whose work
+with the Mercury Company's special racing machine had given the greatest
+satisfaction to its owner and designer, Mr. Allan Gerard.
+
+There was no longer any cause for concealment. When Mr. Rose carried the
+journal to Flavia, she told him quite simply to whom Corrie had gone in
+his exile and what she knew of his life with Gerard. Of his racing she
+herself had been left ignorant; she could guess whose forgiving
+tenderness had spared her that anxiety.
+
+"You are not angry with Corrie," she ventured, before her father's knit
+brow and squared jaw. "You did not forbid him to race or he would not
+have done so, I am sure."
+
+"No, I did not. I didn't think I had to," was the dry response. "Angry?
+He and I are past that. The days are gone when we used to have our
+differences and shake hands on them. We'll get along together quietly
+enough, I dare say."
+
+"Now, I would rather you said you were angry," she grieved.
+
+Thomas Rose thrust his hands into his pockets, looking down at the
+newspaper page. He had altered during the last year in a way difficult
+to characterize. It was not that he looked older or more hard, there was
+no bitterness in the strong face, but he looked like a man who stood in
+the shadow instead of in the sun.
+
+"So would Corrie, I fancy," he said heavily.
+
+Corrie's sister folded her hands in her lap.
+
+"Is there no chance if one falls once?" she rebelled in futile reproach.
+"He was so young, he has suffered so much--can he never pay?"
+
+"I'm not much of a reader, as a rule, but I did a good deal of it at Val
+de Rosas, this summer," Mr. Rose slowly returned. "And a line from an
+Englishman's work stuck in my memory. He said that tears can wash out
+guilt, but not shame. I can give Corrie all I've got, I have always been
+fond of him and I am yet, but I can't give him my respect. It was a
+shameful thing to strike down an unprepared man from behind, because he
+was losing in a game. Some things can't be paid for, because they are
+not bought and sold. Of course he will have every chance possible. He
+isn't what I supposed; well, there is no use of complaining, we will
+make the best of what he is. I sent him away while we settled down to
+living on the new basis; I guess we are as ready to go on, now, as we
+ever will be."
+
+"If he heard you say that, I think he would die," she stated her
+hopeless conviction.
+
+"People don't die so easily, my girl. I tell you he and I will get along
+well enough. Pass me those books over there."
+
+Flavia obeyed, having no words. Mr. Rose sat down and compared the date
+of the steamer's probable arrival with that of the Cup race.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE STRENGTH OF TEN
+
+
+It had required more than eloquence or tact, it had required actual
+compulsion to bring Corrie Rose back to race at Long Island. All his
+successful work, all the cordiality that met him wherever he went, and
+the temptation to essay new conquest, failed to overcome his repugnance.
+But he could not defy Gerard.
+
+"I don't see how _you_ can bear to look at the place," he had flung, in
+his final defeat.
+
+"My dear Corrie, I am not any further from that here than there," Gerard
+had quietly replied.
+
+Corrie understood, and submitted dumbly thereafter. And, in spite of
+himself, his first day's practice on the course swept everything aside
+except eager exhilaration. He was too superbly healthy for morbidity,
+too masculine for continuous dwelling in memories; if Gerard had not
+been very certain of that fact, he would never have brought his ward
+there. When Corrie was driving, Corrie was happy. He drove with a sober
+intensity of devotion, his passion was serious, whereas Gerard had raced
+fire-ardent and won or lost laughing.
+
+There was a small hotel near the course which the motor-men had made a
+rendezvous. Here Gerard established his party, during the two weeks of
+practice work. He did not choose to have Corrie in New York, although
+Rupert chafed and he himself was obliged to go in to the city
+frequently, at considerable inconvenience.
+
+On the last afternoon before the race, he returned from such a trip, and
+arrived before the hotel just as Corrie rolled up with the Mercury Titan
+and halted it opposite him.
+
+"It's five o'clock," the driver explained, stilling his roaring motor
+and leaning out. "Everyone is coming in, to get ready for to-morrow."
+
+There was little trace left of the petulant, gaudily dressed boy who a
+year before had driven the pink car, in this serious young professional
+clad in the Mercury's racing gray and bearing the Mercury's silver
+insignia on his shoulder. The bend of his mouth was firmer, his
+dark-blue eyes had acquired the steady, all-embracing keenness of
+Gerard's--the gaze of all those men with whom the inopportune flicker of
+an eyelid may mean destruction. He was clothed with his virile youth as
+with a radiant garment, as he smiled across at Gerard.
+
+"Yes, get some rest; you will be out at dawn," approved Gerard, coming
+closer. "Where is Rupert? What is the matter, Corrie? You look
+disturbed."
+
+"Rupert got off at the corner, back there. I suppose if I look rattled,
+that _he_ is what is the matter. He----" Corrie suddenly dropped his
+face in his folded arms as they rested upon the steering-wheel, his
+shoulders shaking.
+
+"He? How? He has been talking to you?"
+
+"He sure has been talking to me," Corrie affirmed, lifting his
+laughter-flushed face. "When I think that he once gave me the silence
+treatment! His tongue would take the starch out of a Chinese laundry and
+make a taxicab chauffeur feel he couldn't drive."
+
+"You do not let him talk to you when you are driving!"
+
+"Oh, when I am driving he is the perfect mechanician. He wouldn't open
+his lips if I hit a right-angle turn at ninety miles an hour or disobey
+if I told him to climb out and cut the tires off the rear wheels. No, it
+is when I am not officially driving that he gives me some remarks to
+study about. Good pointers, too! I like it, really. I only wish," his
+expression shadowed abruptly, "I only wish I didn't have to remember
+that nothing could bring him to shake hands with me."
+
+"Corrie----"
+
+"I know--I beg your pardon for speaking of that to you. But, Gerard," he
+bent to grasp a lever, "I'd take what you got last year, I'd consent to
+be picked up dead from under my car to-morrow, if I could that way buy
+one hour to stand clean before you and Jack Rupert. That's all--don't
+think I want to flinch, please. If you will go on in, I'll put this
+machine away and be back to dinner in fifteen minutes. I see Rupert
+coming to help me, now. We're starved to death and some tired. By the
+way, George shouted over to me that he would be in as soon as he got the
+Duplex canned for the night, and to order a few dozen eggs and a couple
+of hams fried for him. Would you attend to it on your way in?"
+
+"I surely would," Gerard answered, the great gentleness of his tone
+mating oddly with the light words. "What do you want ordered for
+yourself?"
+
+"Anything, and plenty of it."
+
+Gerard did not smile as he went into the building. He too would have
+given much to spare Corrie Rose the memory of that October morning's
+fault. From all punishment except that memory he had sheltered him,
+further aid no one could give. But because he loved Corrie, he climbed
+the hotel stairs in slow abstraction and failed to perceive the
+limousine that came up before the Mercury Titan, and stopped.
+
+He was standing by a table in the empty parlor of the hotel, when the
+door opened, and closed. Thinking some other guest had entered, he did
+not turn from the letters he was reading, nor was there any further
+movement or demand upon his attention. That which slowly invaded his
+consciousness was a summons more delicate than sound, a faint,
+distinctive flower-fragrance that proclaimed one individual presence.
+Flavia Rose was in the room; he knew it before he swung around and saw
+her standing there.
+
+The shock that leaped along his pulses was less of hope than of renewed
+pain.
+
+"Miss Rose!" he exclaimed.
+
+She moved a little forward. Against her dark velvet gown, under her wide
+velvet hat, her soft, earnest face showed whitely lustrous and
+irradiated, her beautiful eyes dwelt on his.
+
+"I never knew," she said, her clear voice like rippled water. "Your
+letter, the night before you went away, never came to me. I never knew
+you had sent for me, until last month."
+
+The movement that brought Gerard across the room was as nakedly
+passionate as the incoherent simplicity of her speech.
+
+"You never knew? Flavia, you would have come?"
+
+"I would have come; I wanted to come long before, while you were so
+ill----"
+
+They had waited a year on the verge of that moment; it was enough to
+touch one another in this security of understanding. There was no
+question between them, no doubt, now that they saw each other face to
+face; all their world flowered into light and fragrance, present and
+future one dazzling marvel.
+
+But at last they drew slightly apart, gazing at each other with an
+incredulity of such happiness, both Flavia's little hands held in the
+firm clasp of Gerard's left. And then gradually awoke amazement that
+they could ever have been separated, who were so closely bound together.
+
+"My dear, my dear, you knew I loved you," he wondered. "How did this
+happen to us?"
+
+"How could I know? You had never said it."
+
+"Did I need to? I thought the very stones in the fountain arcade must
+have seen it. And I trusted Rupert with the letter; he said he had given
+it to you, he even brought an answer."
+
+"Do not blame him," she quickly defended. "He told you that he had given
+it to Miss Rose; he meant to Isabel, who claimed it."
+
+"Your cousin? What had I to do with her? Why should I have written to
+her? Have written _that_, Flavia!"
+
+The tears rushed to her eyes.
+
+"Your letter--Allan, if I had known that message was for me, I would
+have gone back with Rupert to you that evening. But Isabel took it, for
+some reason she expected a message from you, that night. I have not been
+able to understand that, although I have tried ever since papa told me,
+last month, that it was I whom you chose. She spoke of something Corrie
+had said. I--I think she believed you did care for her more seriously
+than she had meant you should. She was so very sure the letter was for
+her--and you did not call me Flavia once."
+
+"I had no right, I dared not. Dear, I had had a bad month; I did not
+remember that any Miss Rose but you existed. I used to close my eyes,
+when things were worst, and see your eyes against the dark. There were
+days when I did not see much else. But they were not so bad, no day ever
+was so bad as the morning Corrie came to the station without you.
+Forgive me, I hurt you!"
+
+She shook her fair head, wordless. Quiet from the very vehemence of
+feeling that possessed them both, Gerard stooped and kissed her.
+
+"Will you marry me soon, Flavia? After this race, when Corrie can be
+with us? Let us waste no more time apart; I have wanted you so long, so
+very long."
+
+The lovely color flushed her transparent face, but her fingers clung to
+his.
+
+"All the way home from Spain, I have been remembering that I really was
+betrothed to you this whole year," she answered, not turning from him
+the innocent candor of her clear gaze. "Before that, before I knew the
+truth, I used to think how strange a thing it would have been if you had
+died in the accident and I had lived all the rest of my life believing
+myself promised to you, when in fact you had loved Isabel, not me. I
+used to think, often, of that first day when I fell on the stairs at the
+Beach race track--when you caught me and held me close to you--and how
+you would never again hold me like that or miss not doing so. I am quite
+sure that no one ever was wanted so much as I have wanted you. It may
+not be right to tell this even to you, but it is true. And I will marry
+you whenever you ask, Allan."
+
+Allan Gerard, man of the practical world and the twentieth century, went
+to his knee on the floor of the hotel parlor and hid his face against
+her hand.
+
+The room was rosy with the glow of sunset, when someone discreetly
+knocked. In response to Gerard's invitation to enter, the door opened
+and revealed the wiry, jersey-clad form of Rupert on the threshold.
+Grimy yet from his recent employment, he was engaged in deftly winding a
+strip of antiseptic gauze around his wrist while he spoke.
+
+"I ain't one to invite li'l' Artha' Brownskin to meet the A.M.A. on
+Sunday," he began discontentedly, and broke off at sight of Flavia.
+
+"I don't need to introduce you to Miss Rose," smiled Gerard. "What have
+you done to your wrist? Much?"
+
+"Scratched it threading my sewing-machine; I'll be able to sit up in bed
+to-morrow," reassured the mechanician, his acute black eyes travelling
+from the young girl to his chief. "I didn't mean to run into this camp
+without being signalled. As I was saying, I ain't one to promote
+trouble, but there's a gentleman downstairs who's calling off our race."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Mr. Rose is explaining to our driver that he ain't fit to be allowed on
+a race course. And no one's opposing his remarks any."
+
+Gerard divined the situation.
+
+"Go down," Flavia begged, as he turned to her. "I have been selfish to
+keep you here; I might have known! But I saw Corrie just for a moment,
+then father sent me to you. Go to Corrie; Mr. Rupert will bring me."
+
+"I can guess that I'm a fierce bad postman," Rupert dryly acknowledged.
+"But I ain't likely to confuse ladies on the way downstairs. You're sure
+needed below."
+
+In the empty paved space before the hotel, the Mercury Titan still
+reposed its massive bulk, with its driver in his seat, his fair head
+uncovered in the pink-and-gold light and his face turned to the man who
+stood beside the car. There was neither heat nor resentment in either
+Mr. Rose's expression or his son's as the older man came over to shake
+hands with Gerard. Corrie did not move; his left arm was thrown about
+the neck of the huge dog reared up beside him against the machine.
+
+"I'm glad to see you looking so well," Mr. Rose briefly greeted. "I have
+been talking to Corrie, here, while we waited for you, Gerard, but this
+thing won't do."
+
+"What won't do, Mr. Rose?" Gerard questioned, equally matter-of-fact.
+
+"You know, and Corrie knows. I appreciate the way you have stood by him
+and the way he has kept to his work--I'm proud of it--but this isn't a
+question of how any of us three feel. I am sorry to hurt him, but we
+have got to face facts. A man who loses his temper is not fit for
+certain places; a race track is one."
+
+"The Corrie Rose whom I know and who trained under me is fit for any
+place," Gerard gravely maintained. The work of months was on the verge
+of loss; he gauged very exactly what this sentence would result in for
+Flavia's brother.
+
+Mr. Rose glanced towards his son; if his powerful, square-cut face was
+inflexible, it was without hardness.
+
+"Gerard, I am sorry," he repeated. "It's like you to overlook what
+happened to yourself and try him again; he and I have got more to
+consider and to be responsible for. He might race straight for years,
+yes, forever; but his temper might slip him to-morrow. I know he means
+right, but it can't be chanced. I'll risk seeing no more men picked up
+as you were. Corrie, whenever I've said must--that hasn't been
+often--you've answered. I think you will now. Get off that machine and
+come home with me, my boy; we will try a fresh start, you and I."
+
+Corrie stirred slightly; even his lips were gray and dark circles
+appeared suddenly stamped beneath his eyes. He offered no defence or
+demur, but before his movement could spell obedience Gerard had sprung
+across the intervening space and dropped his left hand on the driver's
+arm, forcing him to retain his seat.
+
+"Stay there," he commanded curtly. "You are my employee, under contract
+to drive my cars this season; if you break your signed agreement I will
+bring you up before the A.M.A. board and have you suspended for
+unprofessional conduct."
+
+Corrie gasped as from a dash of cold water in the face, the rough tonic
+effectually bringing him out of his daze of habitual submission.
+
+"Mr. Rose, this is not sentiment, but business," Gerard continued in his
+usual tone. "Corrie is not racing to-morrow for the first time, or for
+the fifth or sixth, this season. He is the cordially liked and respected
+comrade of his fellow-drivers--there is not one who would not laugh in
+your face at the idea of fearing to have him among them. I tell you, for
+the rest, that any other man on the course might let his nerves trick
+his self-control; Corrie Rose never will. I know him, now, better than
+you yet can. But," he snatched a rapid survey of Corrie, then lifted
+his hand from the other's arm and drew back, "he is not a child; let
+him decide."
+
+"Corrie----" his father recommenced, his voice choked.
+
+But Corrie had found himself. He laid one firm, gauntleted hand on the
+beloved steering-wheel and turned to Mr. Rose the serious countenance
+and steadfast eyes of the new Corrie of the Mercury's making. With the
+other hand he pressed the dog's great head closer to him; perhaps only
+Allan Gerard saw and translated the pathos of that unconscious gesture.
+
+"I would do anything else, sir," he stated simply. "But Gerard has
+stayed by me through the worst time I will ever have. I know--you gave
+me money; but he helped me _live_. Afterward I will do whatever you bid
+me, now I cannot leave him without a driver on the eve of a race. All
+the more," his speaking glance went to Gerard, "all the more I must
+stay, because he would rather hold me strictly to a business contract
+than remind me that I owe him anything or that it is through me that he
+is not driving this car himself."
+
+There was a moment of absolute silence. Then the rustle of soft garments
+came with Flavia's swift crossing from the doorway where she and Rupert
+had witnessed the contest. Straight to the side of the gray machine she
+went, and clasping her little hands over her brother's arm, raised to
+him the high trust and unchanging love of her regard.
+
+"Dearest, I hope you win, to-morrow," she said bravely and sweetly. "But
+kiss me, Corrie, and come home afterward. We need you, papa and I--and
+Allan."
+
+"Other Fellow," he thanked her, under his breath, and leaned down to
+give the caress.
+
+Gerard and Mr. Rose were looking at each other.
+
+"You win," conceded the older man, without rancor. "I hope we are not
+sorry. Bring him to the house after you get through, to-morrow, I guess
+we'll be a family party."
+
+The snorting uproar of an arriving racing car crashed across reply.
+
+"Hey, Rosie, did you rope those hams and eggs?" blithely shouted the
+masked driver, checking his machine. "If you didn't, I'll hook a wheel
+off your cart to-morrow when I pass you. Why haven't you canned your car
+yet? Oh, excuse _me_!" perceiving Flavia.
+
+"I roped them, George," assured Corrie. "I'm coming in, now."
+
+Rupert advanced to the front of the Mercury.
+
+"You're giving orders," he signified to his driver. "Do I crank?"
+
+The slight episode was the fitting period to Gerard's argument; he gave
+Mr. Rose his fine, cool smile to point it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frederick the Great did not go home to the pink villa. Not even Flavia
+could win him from the master he had refound. So it happened that when
+Gerard went to Corrie, after midnight, he discovered his driver seated
+beside an open window in the drab, cheerless hotel bedroom, his arms
+folded on the sill and the dog's head resting on his knee.
+
+"Corrie, do you know it is past twelve o'clock?" he exclaimed, purposely
+authoritative in spite of his aching pity. "I saw the light over your
+door and came in to give you what Rupert describes as a calling down.
+How do you expect to be up fresh and fit for a race at dawn? You go to
+bed, young man, where I sent you two good hours ago."
+
+"I am going," Corrie replied, without turning. "I'm--all right.
+Gerard----"
+
+The pause was so long that Gerard came quietly over and put his hand on
+the other's shoulder, waiting.
+
+"Gerard, do you remember what Rupert once said, in the yacht club where
+we fed the tramp, about my getting just what I earned and that no luck
+would soften my brick walls? And I said I was content because I meant to
+earn what I wanted. I didn't know what I was talking about, but he was
+right. I'm not complaining, you know; it's fair enough. No, don't answer
+yet; that isn't what I meant to say."
+
+The dog moved restlessly and whined, nestling closer to the master he
+loved. Corrie dropped a hand to the animal's neck.
+
+"This good old chap and I will go to bed, presently. We've got to win,
+to-morrow; it's the last time. Gerard, did you ever read a poem Flavia
+and I used to like, I wonder? About a man having the strength of ten,
+because his heart was clean? Do you believe it--I mean, that a man can
+stand more if he knows he is right inside than if, if he could not think
+that?"
+
+"Corrie, yes, I do believe it. But there are few stainless Galahads.
+Strength and rightness do not depend on the past, but the present. The
+finest strength I have seen, has been in men who, who----"
+
+The intended conclusion died on his lips, before he found words to
+soften its intrinsically harsh implication. Corrie had turned to him a
+glance so clear, a face so startling in its white resolution and dignity
+of fearless candor, that Gerard drew back with a sensation of rebuked
+presumptuousness. What he had offered as a consolation suddenly loomed
+as an insult.
+
+"Thank you," said Corrie, quite simply. "You're awfully good to me,
+Gerard. I don't know why I said all that--I, I guess something slipped.
+Good night; Fred and I will get some sleep. It's a short night,
+anyhow."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE WHITE ROAD OF HONOR
+
+
+The ruddy dawn that flushed along the edge of the east illuminated a
+vast, waiting multitude. For its twelve miles of twisted length, the
+narrow ribbon of the Cup course was walled in on either side by the
+massed people and uncounted hundreds of automobiles. The neighboring
+States, the great cities of New York and Jersey, the countrysides far
+and near had emptied their motor-car enthusiasts and sport lovers into
+this strip of Long Island, for to-day. Laughing, eating picnic
+breakfasts, laying wagers and preparing score-cards, the crowd swayed
+tiptoe on the keen edge of expectancy; while up and down the course
+drove and pushed the hurrying hundreds who had not yet found
+satisfactory place.
+
+As the dawn brightened into full, golden October day, the crush became
+greater, the haste and anticipation more intense. When a spluttering
+roar announced one of the arriving racers, the press would open,
+cheering, to leave his car passage and close in behind him with
+boisterous comment and criticism.
+
+"That was the six Atlanta, Louis driving, wasn't it, Dick?"
+
+"Rub your eyes, you're asleep yet--that was the Mercury, Rose up. Can't
+you tell a peach from a lemon? Quit shoving, there!"
+
+"Bet you ten a foreign car wins."
+
+"Take you. It'll be the Bluette or the Mercury. Get back, here comes
+another. They start in twenty minutes."
+
+Opposite the grand-stand the excitement was greatest, but most orderly.
+Around the row of repair pits men ran in and out, hovering about their
+cars with solicitous final attentions and eager encouragement to the
+smiling drivers. The first machine was already at the starting-line,
+ready as an arrow on the cord, its pilot smoking a cigarette and
+chatting indolently with the official starter.
+
+"I drew second for you, last night," Gerard reminded his driver, leaning
+against the Mercury to look up at him. "Of course, you have your numbers
+on. You will have to get into line in a moment; don't you want to get
+out and move about, first? You are going to have six or seven hours'
+grind."
+
+"I'm rested best right here," responded Corrie placidly. He nestled
+himself more snugly into his seat and proceeded to fasten on the mask
+and hood that quenched his blond youth into kinship of blank identity
+with every other driver on the course. "The crowd is pretty thick; I
+hope they get the people off."
+
+"The police are clearing the way, now. Corrie----"
+
+The thunderous voice of the car from the next camp interrupted speech as
+it went past them.
+
+"Good luck, Rosie! I'll leave your rear wheels alone," shouted its
+driver. "By-by, Allan."
+
+"If he's worried bad about his, I'll lend him a safety-pin from my
+shirtwaist," drawled Rupert, lounging up, hooking his own mask. "I ain't
+muck-raking, but he broke his rear axle at Indianapolis, last month, and
+lost two wheels."
+
+"Corrie," Gerard pursued, "you are to bring yourself back safely. I do
+not want any victories at the price of your wreck. Remember that I am
+responsible for your being at this work, and remember Flavia."
+
+"If I wreck my car there won't be _any_ victory," Corrie practically
+returned. "Besides, I have got Rupert with me to be looked after; if I
+were making a speed dash by myself I might take a chance or two. You
+never let me out alone. It's all right. They are signalling."
+
+Rupert sprang into his seat like a rubber ball, bracing one small
+legging-clad foot for support; not the least of a racing mechanician's
+arts being that of clinging at all times to his reeling post of duty.
+Gerard held out his hand for Corrie's parting clasp, then exchanged a
+warm grip with Rupert. Between the driver and mechanician who were to
+play the perilous game side by side, there passed no such friendly
+touch. Gerard never looked at the watching violet-blue eyes of the third
+man during that farewell ceremony.
+
+"Take care of yourselves," he bade.
+
+"It's a nice morning for a ramble," observed Rupert. "Don't worry, love,
+we'll be in to tea."
+
+The Mercury Titan rolled into place in the line of flaming, panting
+machines. The driver of the first car threw away his cigarette and sat
+up. There was a pause while the group of officials poised, watches in
+hand, the people rose, then the starter leaned forward and the first car
+sprang from the line.
+
+Amid the gay tumult of music and cheers, Corrie waited the half-minute
+interval, his eyes on the counting official, his hand on the lever,
+until the starter's hearty clap fell on his shoulder with the word:
+
+"Go!"
+
+With an explosive roar the Mercury shot across the line and rushed,
+gathering speed in long leaps, down the white course. Under the first
+arched bridge, out of sight it flashed, followed by an answering roar
+from the countless throats of those between whose dense ranks it sped.
+
+Gerard moved back a few paces. He had become rather pale and grave; his
+gaze remained fixed on the distant arch through which the Mercury had
+vanished, nor did he turn to watch the sending away of the other
+nineteen racers.
+
+The touch laid on his sleeve was feather-light.
+
+"I could not stay away," pleaded Flavia, beside him. "May I watch Corrie
+with you, Allan?"
+
+He wheeled eagerly, catching her retreating hand before it escaped from
+his arm.
+
+"I know why Corrie calls you 'Other Fellow,'" he welcomed. "It is
+because you always know the right thing to do."
+
+They looked at each other in the morning brightness, revelling in the
+fresh wonder of mutual possession.
+
+"This is hurting you," she grieved. "I saw you before you did me, when
+the cars started--you were thinking that last year you yourself would
+have been there."
+
+He checked her with the warm brilliance of his smile.
+
+"Not of myself," he denied. "If there was anything to regret, do you
+think I could remember it since I have you? No, I was thinking that
+Corrie is barely twenty, that I had trained him and sent him out there
+in that machine in defiance of his father's wish--in fact, I believe I
+had an attack of remorseful panic."
+
+"You did it for Corrie," she gave swift comfort. "Can you suppose that
+papa and I do not understand that? You could have found drivers already
+skilled, for your car; instead you troubled to take him and make him
+what he is now. He is so different from the desperate boy we left,
+Allan. Whatever happens out there to-day, you have done the best for
+Corrie."
+
+The feverish activity of the camps was swirling around them. Gerard
+gently drew the young girl to the place where his private roadster
+waited, somewhat aside from the centre of action, and put her in the
+scarlet-cushioned seat. After her paced Corrie's dog and took its place
+beside her in stately guardianship.
+
+"You can see everything here, and it is not so rough for you," he
+explained. "Flavia, a year ago I bought this, when I bought the yellow
+roses on the night before my last drive. Will you let me take off your
+little glove and put it on your finger, now?"
+
+Her lashes sparkling wet, Flavia bent to him, and in the face of crowds
+and camps Gerard set his ring on her hand.
+
+Men were leaning over railings, holding ready watches open. At the
+repair pit next but one to the Mercury's, the mechanics and men in
+charge had drawn together in whispering groups.
+
+"Car coming!" the word passed suddenly from lip to lip.
+
+On the summit of the white hill a mile distant, a red signal flag went
+up. A dark shape darted up over the rise, glanced with incredible
+swiftness down the incline, disappearing momentarily behind the packed
+angle, then again shot into view and sped past the grand-stand like a
+humming projectile; the driver a fixed statue of concentration on the
+road before him, the mechanician half-turned in his seat to watch for
+cars behind.
+
+The place burst into uproar.
+
+"Number two! Number two first!"
+
+"Mercury leads!"
+
+Horns were blown, handkerchiefs waved, the applause breaking out anew as
+a second car rushed past in hot pursuit of the flying Mercury.
+
+"Three! Number three!"
+
+"Oh you Bluette!"
+
+"Here comes another--get back!"
+
+Flavia stooped from her seat.
+
+"Allan, that was Corrie--where is the car that started before him?"
+
+"Tire trouble, perhaps. You are trembling, dear! Let my chauffeur take
+you home and wait quietly there until I bring Corrie to you after the
+race."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, please no. Here I can see him each lap and know he is safe so far.
+Let me stay."
+
+Two cars thundered past, struggling desperately for place. The noise of
+the excited people overwhelmed all conversation and left the two lovers
+silent. From time to time a telephone bell jingled across the tumult,
+blue-uniformed messengers hurried here and there. But when the last of
+twenty cars had passed, the twenty-first not appearing, there fell a
+lull and men settled back to wait for the second lap.
+
+Five minutes passed, ten. The red flags went up again; two speeding
+shapes topped the rise and plunged out of sight.
+
+"Two and three!"
+
+"The Bluette--no--Mercury leads still!"
+
+Excitement flared high as the two racers reappeared. But as they swept
+down the straight stretch, the mechanician of the Mercury raised his
+arms above his head in warning, the car slackened speed and drew to the
+side of the course. As the Bluette machine fled past him, Corrie brought
+his car to a halt opposite the judges' stand, leaning toward the
+official who sprang to his side.
+
+"The America's off the second bridge--send the ambulance to the road
+below," he called, his ringing voice penetrating bell-clear through the
+heavier sounds.
+
+Before his grim message was fairly comprehended, he had slammed into a
+gear and was off to regain the sacrificed moment.
+
+There was a brief flurry in the official stand. One man seized the
+telephone while another went slowly to the lost car's camp. From lip to
+lip the news went.
+
+"Harry was married last week," observed an oil-smeared mechanic,
+touching his cap to Gerard in going by. "I guess there's no show after
+that tumble; Rose might as well have saved his time."
+
+"There is more than one prize in a contest," Gerard disagreed, meeting
+Flavia's awed eyes. "Corrie Rose may win better than a gold cup."
+
+"Corrie----?" she faltered.
+
+"Corrie has given his leading place and one of his hoarded fragments of
+time--these races are won or lost by scant minutes--for the bare chance
+that his report might send aid to the injured men a little sooner than
+if that task were left to the frightened witnesses of the disaster."
+
+Flavia's small head lifted proudly, bright color flashed into the
+countenance whose loving faith had never failed Corrie in his hours of
+disgrace.
+
+"I wish papa had seen," she longed wistfully. And after a moment: "You
+yourself have done the same; he told me so, once. Now you have taught
+him to do what you never can do any more, poor Allan."
+
+A curious expression crossed Gerard's mobile face; hesitation and doubt
+blended with a luminous radiance shining from some inward thought that
+leaped up like a clear flame. He moved as if to speak impulsively, but
+Flavia had turned to watch the approach of a rushing car, and he
+remained silent.
+
+In the next hour, the Mercury passed the grand-stand five times;
+sometimes alone, sometimes the quarry of a coursing group of
+speed-hounds whose flaming breath was close behind, sometimes itself
+curving around some slower rival amid the wave-like succession of
+cheers. The bulletin-board showed Corrie running in third place when he
+passed for the sixth time, with Rupert stretched along the edge of the
+car to relieve his cramped limbs in an ease that suggested imminent
+death by falling.
+
+The seventh time the Mercury did not come around. Gerard, who had been
+in front, returned to Flavia with his steadying reassurance.
+
+"Tire trouble, no doubt," he told her. "He is due to have some; his luck
+has been astonishing in escaping it so far. He is driving to win; no car
+ever held the lead from start to finish."
+
+Flavia folded her hands in her lap, not trusting herself far enough to
+reply. Gerard studied his watch in silent calculation, as the minutes
+ticked past.
+
+"It must have been two tires," he at last hazarded. "When one blows out
+while actually on a turn, the other is almost certain to follow. Of
+course, they might have engine trouble."
+
+A French car rolled up to its repair pit, stopped, and suddenly burst
+into flames. There was a wild scramble among its force of attendants, a
+rush with fire extinguishers and pails of sand. Before the danger was
+realized, it had ended and the mechanics were at work upon the choked
+pipe which had sent the car to its camp.
+
+"Oh!" gasped the young girl, rising.
+
+Gerard stopped her, pointing to the white hill. The roar of an
+approaching car filled the air; as Flavia looked, the Mercury shot past,
+running faultlessly, but carrying two spare tires where she had started
+with four.
+
+"They will be in, next lap," Gerard predicted. "Rupert won't want to run
+with only two extra tires on board, and I don't think Corrie will
+overrule him."
+
+He went forward to give some directions to prepare for the flying visit,
+Flavia watching. She made no demand for attention, no betrayal of
+feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into which she had been
+brought. Men looked curiously at the delicate, serious girl who sat so
+quietly in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information crept out
+that she was Rose's sister and Gerard's fiancee, so that wonder became
+merely admiration.
+
+True to expectation, the Mercury halted before her repair pit, on the
+next circuit.
+
+"Cases," commanded Rupert, tersely, out of his seat before the stop.
+"Move quick! Who's nailed fast now?"
+
+The slur was undeserved; the waiting tires were flung on and secured by
+hurrying hands.
+
+"Drink it," Gerard ordered, thrusting a cup at Corrie, as that young
+driver leaned wearily back. "I don't care whether you want it or not."
+
+"It's the people," Corrie explained, his blue eyes seeking Gerard's
+across the goggles. "I don't mind anything else. They're over the course
+so you can't see ahead. Jim hit a woman, on the back stretch, as we
+passed."
+
+He put the heavy china cup to his lips, but dropped it with a crash to
+seize his levers as Rupert bounded in beside him.
+
+"Have the people cleared off," he petitioned over his shoulder, while
+sending his car forward.
+
+Gerard went to the judges' stand.
+
+Corrie Rose was not the first or only driver to complain of the packed
+course. The Mercury had scarcely departed when the Marathon car came in,
+its experienced and steel-fibred pilot on the brink of nervous
+breakdown.
+
+"I won't drive if the mob isn't put off the road," he defied his
+manager. "I've killed a woman back there--do you hear? A _woman_! There
+are women and kids right against the wheels on the worst turns. Get 'em
+off!"
+
+The Marathon force flocked around him in consternation, while his
+manager ran to the judges and the owner of the car implored and adjured
+the recalcitrant driver to go on without further loss of time. But it
+was Gerard who saved the situation for his rival.
+
+"It's all right, Jim," he called across, issuing from the official stand
+and comprehending the deadlock at sight. "You only broke her leg--a
+telephone report came. Go on; everyone's with you, man!"
+
+The Marathon's mechanician, wise in knowledge of his pilot, at this
+juncture leaned over and thrust between Jim's lips a lighted cigar.
+
+"Buck up! We're losin'," he urged roughly.
+
+The driver's teeth sullenly clamped shut upon the strong tobacco; he
+slammed viciously into a gear and hurled his machine down the course
+before the startled camp realized its victory. The stop had lasted
+exactly three minutes, but it cost the Marathon its hope of the race.
+
+The morning advanced, gaining in sun-gilt beauty. In the next hour four
+racers were taken from the contest, three by mechanical difficulties,
+one as the result of an accident that sent both driver and mechanician
+to the hospital. The Mercury continued to run steadily and evenly,
+keeping a consistent pace.
+
+"How much longer?" Flavia anxiously questioned, once. "Do you think
+everything can stay right to the very end, Allan?"
+
+Gerard laid his warm left hand over her cold one, as it rested on the
+cushions, his loving eyes caressing her.
+
+"Two hours more, my Flavia. Most surely I believe everything can stay
+right; why not? Remember Corrie delights in this. He is happier now than
+when he is what we call at rest. If," again that singular expression of
+blended shadow and inward illumination rose over his face, "if I were to
+be made myself and wholly cured, it would not change Corrie's position
+in Corrie's eyes. I cannot help him there in that hard part, but I have
+given him a way to forget for a while."
+
+Her soft mouth bent grievedly; Flavia's attention was effectually
+distracted from contemplation of her brother's bodily peril.
+
+Gerard turned aside. He had heard the reports arrive of one accident
+after another, he saw driver after driver come in gray-lipped and savage
+under the strain of racing on the crowded path, and he knew what Flavia
+did not--that this was proving the most disastrous affair ever held on
+the Cup course.
+
+"I don't mind risking my own neck, I'm used to that," gritted an
+old-time comrade to Gerard, during a pause for refilling tanks. "It's
+the people under foot; ---- them! Haven't they any sense? Jim's
+Marathon hit a man, ten minutes ago; he's still driving, half crazy,
+because he can't stop. _Damn_ the country police!"
+
+"Rose----?"
+
+"Rose is changing tires at the Westbury turn. I'm off."
+
+That bit of news spared a bad quarter-hour to the two who loved Corrie.
+
+Gerard was at the front of the camp, watching for his car, when he felt
+a hand lain on his shoulder.
+
+"Some racer just went off the turnpike into the ditch," Mr. Rose's
+subdued tones informed him. "Where's Corrie?"
+
+"Safe; changing tires on this side of the turnpike," Gerard gave quick
+assurance. "It's not he. But this has been a bad day; I'm not surprised
+that you couldn't keep away from here."
+
+"I couldn't keep away," Mr. Rose assented heavily. He drew out his
+handkerchief and passed it across his forehead, damp under the line of
+reddish-gray hair, pushing open his overcoat with the abrupt gesture
+that was also a habit of his son's. "I've had a hell of an hour where I
+was, Gerard. This morning I got a letter from my niece, Isabel. It seems
+she is married and her husband made her write it."
+
+The two men looked fully at each other; some quality in Thomas Rose's
+expression communicated its white reflection to Gerard's changing face.
+
+"He never did it--Corrie, I mean. Gerard, Isabel Rose threw the wrench
+that struck you and wrecked your car, last year. He's been shielding
+her. God, how I've ground it into the boy!"
+
+There was a tall pile of spare tires beside them; on it Gerard put his
+hand, steadying himself against the shock that was less of surprise than
+of poignant self-reproach for his own failure to divine this open
+riddle. In that moment of final understanding, he knew that he had seen
+the pitiful truth rise to the surface of Corrie's blue eyes a hundred
+times, and had left its appeal to die out, unanswered.
+
+Far down the course a ripple of cheering started, running nearer in a
+wave of gathering volume. Out around the curve swooped a gray streak,
+fled toward the camps, was opposite, and past. The Mercury was unleashed
+and hunting down its lost lead in the fastest speed of the day.
+
+Mr. Rose brought his eyes from following its flight to meet Gerard's
+gaze.
+
+"You remember how Isabel nagged him to take her around the race course
+in his pink machine," he reminded. "I forbade it and thought no more
+about the thing. Well, she got him alone--you know, I guess, that he was
+wild with boy's near-love for her and would have let her drag the heart
+out of his body--and she got his promise to take her around once. She
+worked the plan all out; Corrie started without his mechanician, and she
+waited for him a mile down the course, dressed in her riding-habit and
+wearing a man's cap and motor-mask. She figured that no one would notice
+her much on the road and Corrie could drop her off after making the
+circuit, just before he reached the camps, so that he would come in
+alone as he started and no one would be the wiser. They were just a
+couple of fool kids on a kid lark."
+
+A yellow car roared to a stop beside them, interrupting clamorously.
+From his seat its mechanician fell rather than stepped.
+
+"He smashed his wrist cranking her," the driver raged. "Someone
+else--quick!"
+
+A blue-clad factory mechanic flung himself into the vacant place,
+bare-headed, without coat or mask.
+
+"Here's my chance!" he exulted. "Go on, I'm it."
+
+The car leaped out, no second wasted in parley. Men gathered up the
+injured mechanician and hurried him away. Mr. Rose looked on as if at a
+stage scene which did not interest him, and dully resumed his narrative.
+
+"It worked all right, Gerard, until they met you on the back stretch and
+you challenged Corrie to race. He didn't want to, with her along, but
+she devilled him to go on, and he did. I can guess it went to his head,
+having her beside him. When you began cutting Corrie off so he couldn't
+pass by, he caught the joke right enough. She says he was laughing when
+he began to pitch odd screws and bolts at your car--he was never angry
+for a moment, just playing, as you were. But she was all excited over
+losing; when she saw he had both hands busy and you were forcing them
+back again, she snatched something out of the open box Corrie had got
+the bolts from and threw it at you, herself. She didn't know what she
+had thrown or done, until she saw you fall stunned across your
+steering-wheel and your car plunge off the road."
+
+"I might have known," said Gerard, and turned his face to the course he
+did not see.
+
+"_You_ might have known!" flared Mr. Rose. "What was the matter with
+_me_? Hadn't I lived with Corwin B. Rose since he was born and never had
+seen him cheat or play foul, win or lose? He was straight, always. I
+should have known when he wouldn't talk--he never was afraid to speak
+out and take his licking. Oh yes, I belong to the brutal common people
+and Corrie wasn't brought up by moral suasion; he had more than one
+flogging before he was fourteen and we called him a man. And he never
+lied to dodge one. I went back on him; he never did on me."
+
+The gay tumult of the tensely-strung multitude was in their ears, the
+band-music crashed blatant aid to the excitement. With a humming purr
+and rush the Mercury car shot past again, followed by the long roll of
+applause.
+
+"We're leading by a minute and a half," one of Gerard's men triumphed,
+running past on some errand. "Oh you Rosie!"
+
+"He stopped his machine as soon as he could, and put Isabel out," Mr.
+Rose continued sombrely. "She says herself that she was scared sick and
+begged him to save her. I can guess that part. Anyhow, he told her to go
+home and say nothing, that he would take care of her. He did. If it
+hadn't been for your protecting him, that morning, he might have ended
+in State's prison. I don't suppose she would ever have cleared him if
+she hadn't fallen in love with one of those Southerners she has been
+visiting, and blurted out the truth when he proposed, the other day. He
+put her in a buggy, drove over to the nearest clergyman, and married
+her then and there; then gave her paper and pen and made her write the
+whole story to me. He is a gentleman; he'd stand with her for whatever
+she had done, but he would not stand for her leaving Corrie to bear her
+blame. I'll make it up to him, yet!"
+
+"Does Flavia know?" Gerard asked.
+
+"I gave her Isabel's letter on the way across to you."
+
+Flavia was sitting in the car with her wet handkerchief clasped in her
+folded hands, her veils drawn across the hushed beauty of her face. As
+Gerard came up, she bent to him.
+
+"Corrie," she breathed. "Corrie, to do this! I am proud and glad and
+humbled. How could he, how could he?"
+
+"He has more courage than I," Gerard gravely acknowledged. "I could not
+have done it. A superb folly, unjust to himself and us. He might safely
+have confided in his father or me and have trusted Isabel to our care."
+
+"Allan, she had his promise to tell no one and she held him to it. She
+was ill and hysterical with terrified shame; Isabel never could endure
+to be found at fault even in little things. She was not bad or wicked,
+but just a coward."
+
+"She found strength enough to watch Corrie under torture week after
+week," he retorted, his golden-brown eyes hardening to agate. "If I had
+been killed under my car, Flavia, do you realize that Rupert would have
+brought your brother face to face with the electric chair? And Corrie
+would have shut his lips and endured it all. Don't ask me to pity Isabel
+Rose--I've lived this year with her victim."
+
+Trembling under the control forced on herself, Flavia slipped her hand
+into his.
+
+"I know, Allan, I know. Yet she did suffer to see his suffering. In her
+letter, she says that Corrie came to her at dawn, the last morning we
+were all at home, and called her out into the empty hall to beseech her
+for permission to tell you. He had not been to bed that night, at all.
+She never afterward forgot his desperate, worn face and that memory
+finally drove her to confession. But she refused him. He did break down
+then, and flashed out at her that he must and would tell you the truth,
+when he left her. Of course he did not do so. Allan, she declares that
+he then told you, that she knows it because you wrote to her that
+evening about your accident and said you would take care of Corrie
+whatever happened."
+
+"I!"
+
+"Your letter to me. She had been insane with dread all day, believing
+Corrie would fulfil his threat to tell you his innocence, and when
+Rupert came she saw only that idea confirmed. She knew of no relations
+between you and me. She thought only of herself."
+
+Gerard looked at her, having no words; presently he sat down on the edge
+of the car at her feet, and they continued silent, hand in hand. Mr.
+Rose had found a camp-chair in the shadow of a wall, and sat watching
+the race in grim quiescence.
+
+When the last hour of the contest was reached, it was noted that the
+Mercury car had suddenly slackened its pace. The difference in speed was
+not great; the car was running faultlessly, but keeping a slower gait.
+The men in the Mercury camp clustered together, waiting and discussing.
+
+The car came around on the next lap with the condition hardly improved.
+Rupert was neither watching behind nor busied with his usual duties, but
+sat erect in his seat with one arm around Corrie's shoulders, apparently
+talking in the driver's ear, head bent to head. Neither glanced toward
+the row of repair pits or the grand-stand, as they passed between and on
+out of view. Gerard's brows contracted sharply; he uttered an excuse to
+Flavia and went front.
+
+"Morton's giving out, too," the manager of the next camp imparted
+confidentially, joining him. "The road-bed is rotten, the men say. Ten
+feet of it caved in at one turn. Too bad!"
+
+"Rose had no sleep last night," Gerard briefly excused his driver.
+
+"God, how I've ground it into the boy," Corrie's father had said; and
+Gerard could have echoed the cry, looking back at what he had meant for
+kindness.
+
+The moments dragged, the next scant quarter-hour stretched long. But at
+last the Mercury's vibrant voice rolled down the white road,
+approaching. Up to her camp the car sped, and stopped.
+
+Before the halt was effected, Rupert had snatched off the driver's
+suffocating mask, leaning over him.
+
+"Oil, gas," he demanded generally. "Jump for those tanks, _quick_. Here,
+Rose----"
+
+His white, fatigue-drawn face bared to the fresh wind, Corrie tried to
+speak, but instead let his head fall forward on his arm as it rested
+upon the steering-wheel.
+
+"Rose, you low-down quitter, you punk chauffeuse!" Rupert stormed at
+him. "You going to chuck up a won race? You mollycoddle----Water, you
+fellows--can't you even wait on a real man? Here, Rose, you ain't
+anything but a fake!"
+
+He carefully splashed the water over the boyish forehead, streaks of
+grime trickling over them both.
+
+"Fill the tanks," Corrie gasped, lying passive under the rough
+treatment. "I'm ready to go on--tell me when."
+
+Gerard was beside the car.
+
+"Corrie," he began.
+
+Rupert unexpectedly flamed out at him across the prostrate figure:
+
+"Let him alone! He ain't a Sandow and the driving's hell. He's going on,
+I tell you. Here, Rose, get some class into you, what?"
+
+But Gerard had a better tonic than cold water or stinging abuse. He
+silenced the mechanician with a glance and laid his hand on Corrie's
+arm.
+
+"Corrie, your cousin has told us the truth," he said. "We know, now, who
+caused the wreck of my car last year."
+
+Corrie started so violently as to overturn the jug in Rupert's hand and
+send its contents over them both, his avid blue eyes flashed wide to
+Gerard.
+
+"Isabel----?"
+
+"Isabel has told us that your companion threw the wrench that struck me,
+and why you bore the charge. You stand cleared."
+
+Corrie slowly drew himself erect in his seat, brushing the water from
+his eyes and pushing back his wet clusters of fair hair. It was not so
+much color as vital life that flowed into his face, mechanically he
+reached for his mask.
+
+"Thanks," he answered. "I can drive, now."
+
+"Tanks full," shouted a score of voices.
+
+Men scattered from around the car's wheels in expectation of the start,
+Gerard stepped back. But Corrie turned in his seat and held out his hand
+to the speechless Rupert.
+
+"You heard--now do it," he required.
+
+Still dumb, the mechanician dragged off his glove and gave for the
+race's finish the hand-clasp that he had denied for its start.
+
+The Mercury sprang from her camp with a roar of unloosed power and
+speed-lust. Car and driver splendid mates, they fled in pulsating vigor
+down their white path where the sun was shining.
+
+During the rest of the hour, people stood up in seats and automobiles,
+watching the Mercury Titan. Not before had they witnessed driving like
+that, never again could the driver himself equal that inspired flight.
+
+Just sixty-nine seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Corrie Rose brought
+his car across the line. As he halted the Mercury before the judges, the
+people burst out over the course and overwhelmed the victors. Music,
+clicking cameras, cheers and congratulations--the current of gayety
+swirled around the winning racer. The first to grasp Corrie's hand was
+the official starter who had sent him out six hours before, the second
+was the driver of the barely-defeated Marathon. After that, there was no
+record possible.
+
+It was some time before Corrie and Rupert could be rescued from the
+enthusiastic press of admirers. When at last the Mercury came over to
+its own camp, Gerard was first able to bring Flavia to her brother.
+
+Stiff, weary and dishevelled, Corrie descended from his car, tripping
+impatiently over the flowers someone had placed in it. There was a
+perfunctory quality in the tenderness with which he kissed Flavia, as
+there had been a restive haste in his acceptance of his present ovation.
+Now, he turned his candid eyes full to Gerard's, baring his inmost need
+to the one who always understood.
+
+"I want my father," said Corrie Rose.
+
+Very lovingly Gerard put his arm around the slim shoulders and drew his
+master-driver to a tent behind the repair pit, there left him to enter
+alone and went back to Flavia.
+
+"I put twelve ham sandwiches and my will in the locker, there," he found
+Rupert sweetly explaining to the young girl. "I guessed I'd have use for
+one or the other by this time. And I guess I guessed right. Oh, no--I'll
+be able to take my regular nourishment just the same, when we get back;
+this won't count. I," he sent Gerard a glance of saturnine intelligence,
+"I've got myself all tired out here lately trying to keep on disliking
+Rose."
+
+"Allan, have you thought that we are going home?" Flavia asked, lifting
+her happy face to her lover, as he stood over her. "_Home_; papa and
+Corrie, and you and I, who were so far apart."
+
+"I have thought that you would put on that lace frock you wore the last
+evening I saw you there, only this time you will come where I can touch
+you. Shall I tell you what you looked like that night? You were a golden
+rose in a sheath of snow, quite out of reach. And you played your dainty
+music so calmly and smoothly, while I was on fire and seeing rose-color
+as I listened to your father's stories. I was like poor Cyrano de
+Bergerac: I had gazed so long at your sun-bright little head that when I
+looked away my dazzled eyes still saw gold."
+
+Her red mouth dimpled into soft mischief and daring.
+
+"Shall I tell you what _I_ saw while I was playing, Allan? I watched you
+under my eyelashes--this way--and I wondered whether anyone else ever
+looked quite so nice even from behind, and, and what it would be like to
+touch your crinkly hair with one's finger."
+
+"Do it now!"
+
+She declined with an eloquent gesture. Around their enclosure the vast
+crowds were streaming back to New York, the course was filled from edge
+to edge with a solid procession of homing automobiles of every type and
+age. Amid noise and congestion and merriment, Long Island's guests were
+trouping out.
+
+But comparative quietness had descended upon the row of pits when, half
+an hour later, Mr. Rose and Corrie strolled casually up to join the
+other two members of the party.
+
+"I don't know how long you propose to stay here," observed the senior,
+tolerantly. "Lenoir is waiting with the limousine, and it strikes us
+it's about time to start for home."
+
+"Chilly wind blowing, too," Corrie suggested, his hands in the pockets
+of his long gray motor-coat. "Fancy Lenoir lugging this old coat of mine
+around in the car, Other Fellow, until now. It's a wonder the
+butterflies haven't eaten it--moths, I mean."
+
+Gerard and Flavia exchanged a glance of infinitely tender comprehension
+of these two.
+
+"I want to show you all something, first," Gerard detained them. "We
+don't want to take any worries home that we can leave here. Give me that
+ball of tape you put in your pocket this morning, Corrie."
+
+Astonished, Corrie obeyed.
+
+"Hello, Rupert!" Gerard sent his clear voice across to where that
+black-eyed mechanician leaned against the Mercury Titan, a hundred feet
+away. "Catch!"
+
+Rupert promptly turned. The improvised ball in his fingers, Gerard
+slowly raised both arms above his head in the old graceful gesture, his
+brilliant amber eyes smiling at his companions, then launched the sphere
+straight to its goal.
+
+It was not Flavia who found overtaxed nerves give way.
+
+"Gerard! _Gerard!_" Corrie's cry rang out; he sank down on a camp-chair
+and covered his face.
+
+Alarmed and remorseful, Gerard sprang to him.
+
+"Corrie--don't take it like that! It is all right; I've been fighting
+for this ten months under a French surgeon's orders."
+
+"You never told me. Oh, Gerard, Gerard!"
+
+"I did not want to tell you until I was sure the cure was real and
+permanent. And I was not sure until I met the surgeon in New York,
+yesterday."
+
+"You could have told me last night. I might have been killed to-day and
+_never_ have known."
+
+Gerard exchanged with Mr. Rose a glance of very sad understanding, a
+mutual acknowledgment of mutual error.
+
+"Would you have driven the Mercury to-day against your father's wish, if
+you had known that I should be able to drive my own car next year? I
+think not. If you were to be taken from me and this life, I wanted you
+to take with you the memory of this race instead of the humiliation of a
+withdrawal. And I believed that I was dealing with an unsteadied boy who
+needed the sharp tonic of work and danger--ah, Corrie, forgive
+me!--instead of the strongest man in endurance I ever knew. But I would
+tell no one else until I did you, although," he turned to the radiant
+girl, "although it was hard not to hold out both hands to Flavia."
+
+She put her hands in both his, then, and felt them close on hers for all
+time.
+
+"Rupert knew," Corrie presently divined, as the unsurprised mechanician
+lounged toward them.
+
+"Yes, Rupert knew," Gerard confirmed. "He helped me go through the
+treatment each day. One reason I did not tell you what we were doing,
+was that the process was not very pleasant, and it used to leave me
+rather upset and sick for a while--you caught me too soon after it that
+morning you signed the contracts. Don't wince; _you_ had nothing to do
+with my smash."
+
+"But I blamed myself, always!" Corrie stood up, thrusting his hands into
+his pockets and squaring his shoulders with the sturdy responsibility so
+easily read now. "I had no business to take Isabel there, and I put the
+mischief into her head by pitching bolts at you. She couldn't tell it
+was in fun. I--I would rather have known you'd get well, Gerard, than
+have known I was cleared."
+
+"Didn't it ever occur to you, Corrie, to blame _us_, when we were so
+ready to convict you and pass judgment?" countered Gerard.
+
+Checked, Corrie surveyed the three with the ingenuous astonishment of a
+new point of view.
+
+"Blame you people?" he marvelled. "Why, when I thought what a low brute
+you had every right to believe I was, I used to feel like thanking you
+for staying in the same room with me. I--Well, I guess it's time to go
+home, isn't it? I'll leave you to start."
+
+"Leave us?" exclaimed Flavia.
+
+"You'll make a line for that limousine right now, Corwin B.," pronounced
+Mr. Rose, with the familiar easy mastery that was a caress.
+
+His son laughingly shook his fair head.
+
+"No, thanks, sir. I'm going to drive the Mercury Titan home and put it
+in the garage. Unless," he looked over his shoulder, "unless Rupert is
+afraid to trust himself to ride with a punk chauffeuse and a no-class
+fake?"
+
+"I ain't real nervous to-day," drawled the mechanician graciously. "Nor
+I ain't supposing but what you're entitled to a chauffeur's license,
+Rose."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE END OF THE ROAD
+
+
+In the golden afternoon sunlight, when tree-shadows stretched long and
+velvet-soft across the lawns and terraces of Mr. Rose's park, amid all
+October's blending fragrances and mellow tints, Corrie Rose came home.
+After all, it was Jack Rupert who put the Mercury Titan in the garage,
+opposite the house; Corrie yielding his seat to his mechanician.
+
+"I believe I'll let you take her around; I want to go in with my
+people," the driver explained. "You might as well get established here,
+you know, since you are going to stay some time. I," it was so long
+since anyone had seen that teasing mischief sparkling in Corrie's
+unclouded eyes, "I have grown so used to your gentle, winning ways that
+I don't know how to get along without you, Rupert."
+
+Rupert settled himself in the great machine, regarding his companion
+with dry intelligence.
+
+"I've got more respect for your morals than I had, Rose, and less for
+your sense," he issued final judgment above the clamor of the motor,
+before sending the car away.
+
+"Right again," Corrie agreed. He turned and looked up at the house.
+
+The three from the limousine were waiting for him upon the columned
+veranda. Weary, stiff and aching from long exertion, soiled with the
+dust of course and road, Corrie, victor of that day and of many days,
+climbed the broad rose-colored steps to them. There was nothing adequate
+to say, had they been a demonstrative family; as it was, no one
+considered speech. But at the open door Corrie stopped, turning his
+bright, clear glance to his father. And Thomas Rose closed his hand on
+his son's shoulder, so that they crossed the threshold together.
+
+Gerard detained Flavia a pace behind.
+
+"When I see you in the lace gown, I am going to kiss you," he stated
+firmly. "I do not care how many people are present or where it is. So
+you had better come down early to the fountain arcade, where I have
+pictured you more often than you will ever know. Will you, flower-lady?"
+
+"Perhaps," she doubted. "If I think of it."
+
+"Heartsease for thought," said Gerard, and kissed her dimpling mouth.
+
+On the stairs a few minutes later, Corrie overtook his sister and caught
+her in his arms.
+
+"I need a bath and some fresh rags and--well, everything," he laughed.
+"I'm not fit to touch--do you mind?"
+
+She clasped her arms around his neck, nestling her soft cheek against
+the rough, grimy cloth of his driving-suit.
+
+"I love you! Oh, my dear, my dear, if mamma had lived, this year could
+never have happened! Not to you, nor to me."
+
+He looked into her upturned face, realizing with her the difference that
+might have been wrought by a mother's clairvoyant tenderness and the
+link of a wife's understanding between her husband and her children. No,
+without this lack in the household the year's deception could not have
+endured. If the chain of Roses had not once been broken, it could not
+have come so near this later destruction.
+
+"Flavia, you know I feel how good they have all been to me? You know
+what nonsense it was for Allan--he tells me I can't call my own brother
+'Gerard'--what nonsense it was for him to suggest that I ever could
+blame anyone but myself for what I had to stand?"
+
+"I know you feel it so, Corrie."
+
+"Then, I want to say there was only you, Other Fellow, who _never_ hurt
+or made it harder."
+
+"Even--Allan?"
+
+"I think there never was a man so generous as Allan--but, only you. I,"
+he drew a breath of inexpressible content, "I see a bully good life
+ahead, but I don't see any woman in it, unless I find one like you. And
+from what I overheard Allan saying, just now when I passed you both at
+the alcove, he's secured the only perfect angel-girl----"
+
+Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand across his lips.
+
+But it was that evening, in the glowing richness and repose of the
+dining-room in the pink marble villa, now reinvested with the dignity of
+a home, that the core of the late situation was touched.
+
+Once more Allan Gerard was intent upon the study of Flavia's young
+beauty as she sat near him in the lace gown, this time with his ring
+flaunting conquest on her fragile hand. Mr. Rose was leaning back and
+idly watching the ice dissolve in his glass, when Corrie broke the
+pause, resting his arms on the table and lifting his gay, mirthful face
+to the man behind his chair:
+
+"Take away those oysters, Perkins! I want my soup right off, and a lot
+of it. I'm about starved----" He stopped, himself struck by the words.
+
+The evoked recollections of that last dinner together were too much.
+Mr. Rose carefully put the glass down, his strong jaw setting. Flavia's
+large startled eyes flashed wet as they went to her brother.
+
+"Corrie, Corrie, I can understand how you began," escaped Gerard
+impulsively. "But how could you carry it on month after month?"
+
+The ruddy color ran up to Corrie's forehead, he looked down at the
+table, sobered.
+
+"It didn't take me long to see I made an awful bungle of things," he
+confessed, half-shy and hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw
+what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given my word. I guess you'll
+understand a lot more than I can say; as Allan will understand, now, why
+I couldn't help knocking down that tramp who wanted money because I
+belonged in prison and wasn't there. It was all too much for me to think
+out! But--isn't there something said about a fellow who puts his hand to
+the plough not taking it off? I used to say that over to myself,
+when--well, at night, for instance. I might have been a chump, but it
+seemed up to me to keep on with the work I had started, and--and not to
+flinch."
+
+"Dear, if you had only spared yourself what you could," Flavia grieved.
+"You could have said it was an accident, at least; that you never meant
+to hurt Allan."
+
+Corrie's violet-blue eyes laughed out of their eclipse and sought his
+father.
+
+"Not much, Other Fellow! No tricks for mine; I had to tell just the
+truth or shut up. No, sir, whatever he _looked_ like, Corrie Rose had to
+plough a straight furrow."
+
+"Straight furrows lead home," said Allan Gerard, not sententiously, but
+musingly.
+
+He also looked toward Mr. Rose, and the senior nodded slow agreement.
+
+"They do, Gerard. And we get more, sometimes, than we've any right to
+expect from anything we give. Where we spent this summer, Flavia and I
+liked the people. What we did for them didn't cost us much; we were not
+looking for any returns. But the news of it got out, somehow, and was
+cabled to New York days before we arrived here. One of the journals got
+the story and worked up a Sunday article about what an American
+millionaire had done for Val de Rosas, and interviewed a certain Luis
+Cardenas and his wife, Elvira, whom Flavia had brought together--it
+seems they are happy and prospering well, my girl--and printed the whole
+thing along with a photograph of Corrie in his racing clothes, as my
+son. New York papers go everywhere. The Southerner whom Isabel was in
+love with brought that article about her family to her, as an excuse for
+an early call, the morning he asked her to marry him. She says, herself,
+it was the picture of Corrie in the motor dress she last had seen him
+wear on the day of the accident, that broke her up so, and when her
+lover proposed she told him the whole truth. If I hadn't paid the taxes
+for Val de Rosas, Corrie would have been bearing a false charge yet."
+
+The silence held many thoughts; a silence broken by Corrie himself.
+
+"To-morrow we'll write a jolly note to Isabel," he affirmed contentedly.
+"She doesn't need to worry on her honeymoon, poor kid; she has squared
+up. There doesn't seem to be any need for anyone to worry, ever, while
+they're trying to keep straight, since the scheme is a Square Deal, you
+know."
+
+The two older men exchanged a glance.
+
+"I guess some of us need more than a square deal, Corwin B.," his father
+pronounced. "But it's all right; we get that, too."
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+            _MYSTERY AND ACTION A'PLENTY_
+
+                   IN HER OWN RIGHT
+
+                  By JOHN REED SCOTT
+
+ Author of "The Impostor," "The Colonel of the Red Huzzars,"
+   "The Woman in Question," "The Princess Dehra," etc.
+
+             Three colored illustrations
+               By CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD
+          12mo. Decorated Cloth, $1.25 net.
+
+In this new novel Mr. Scott returns to modern times, where he is as much
+at home as when writing of imaginary kingdoms or the days of powder and
+patches. Mr. Scott's last novel, "The Impostor," had Annapolis in 1776
+as its _locale_, but he shows his versatility by centering the important
+events of this romance in and around Annapolis of today.
+
+There are mystery and action a-plenty, and a charming love interest adds
+greatly to an already brilliant and exciting narrative.
+
+                 _CRITICAL OPINIONS_
+
+    "A brisk and cleanly tale."--_Smart Set._
+
+    "A sparkling, appealing novel of today."--_Portland Oregonian._
+
+    "Enjoys the exceptional merit of being a stirring treasure tale
+    kept within the bounds of likelihood."--_San Francisco
+    Chronicle._
+
+    "A charming and captivating romance filled with action from the
+    opening to the close, so fascinating is the story
+    wrought."--_Pittsburgh Post._
+
+    "Just such a dashing tale of love and adventure as habitual
+    fiction readers have learned to expect from Mr. Scott. A well
+    told tale with relieving touches of dry humor and a climax
+    unusual and strong."--_Chicago Record Herald._
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+           _By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ_
+
+
+                =Dawn of the Morning=
+
+      Illustrated in color by ANNA WHELAN BETTS.
+          Decorated cloth. 12mo. $1.25 net.
+
+Like her most successful stories, "Marcia Schuyler" and "Phoebe Deane,"
+Mrs. Lutz's new novel is set in New York State about 1826--quaint old
+days of poke bonnets and full skirts.
+
+It is a refreshingly sweet and charming story and the author has created
+in Dawn, a gentle appealing heroine, whose tangled romance only serves
+to make more happy the beautiful ending when all the threads of Dawn's
+life are straightened out.
+
+
+                    =Phoebe Deane=
+
+ Frontispiece in color and five illustrations from paintings by
+   E.L. HENRY, N.A. 12mo. Cloth, with medallion, $1.50.
+
+Few present-day books are so thoroughly wholesome, fresh and charming as
+this quiet, old-fashioned romance, as refreshingly sweet as the name of
+its heroine.
+
+Phoebe Deane, a motherless girl, meets the trials of a life of
+dependence, and an unwelcome suitor, with a brave, sweet spirit. In
+spite of deceit and treachery, her lover at last comes to her rescue,
+and her happiness is assured.
+
+
+                  =Marcia Schuyler=
+
+Frontispiece in color by ANNA WHELAN BETTS, and six illustrations
+from paintings by E.L. HENRY, N.A. Fifth edition. 12mo.
+            Cloth, with medallion, $1.50.
+
+The story opens upon the wedding preparations for the marriage of
+winsome, wilful Kate to strong and good David. Complications arise by
+which David marries her younger sister Marcia instead and it is only
+after a period of trials and heartaches that Marcia wins her husband's
+love when he comes to understand her worthiness and Kate's heartless
+frivolity and duplicity. The _Chicago Tribune_ pronounces Marcia "One of
+the most lovable heroines that ever lived her life in the pages of a
+romance."
+
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+              _A NOVEL OF THE REAL WEST_
+
+                    "=ME--SMITH="
+
+                 By CAROLINE LOCKHART
+       With five illustrations by Gayle Hoskins
+
+               12mo. Cloth, $1.20 net.
+
+
+Miss Lockhart is a true daughter of the West, her father being a large
+ranch-owner and she has had much experience in the saddle and among the
+people who figure in her novel.
+
+"Smith" is one type of Western "Bad Man," an unusually powerful and
+appealing character who grips and holds the reader through all his
+deeds, whether good or bad.
+
+It is a story with red blood in it. There is the cry of the coyote, the
+deadly thirst for revenge as it exists in the wronged Indian toward the
+white man, the thrill of the gaming table, and the gentleness of pure,
+true love. To the very end the tense dramatism of the tale is maintained
+without relaxation.
+
+    "Gripping, vigorous story."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+    "This is a real novel, a big novel."--_Indianapolis News._
+
+    "Not since the publication of 'The Virginian' has so powerful a
+    cowboy story been told."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
+
+    "A remarkable book in its strength of portrayal and its
+    directness of development. It cannot be read without being
+    remembered."--_The World To-Day._
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                _By ELIZABETH DEJEANS_
+
+                 =The Winning Chance=
+
+      Frontispiece in color by Gayle P. Hoskins.
+            12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.50.
+
+We have no hesitancy in pronouncing this powerful story one of the most
+impressive studies of our highly nervous American life that has been
+published in a long while. It is written with enormous vitality and
+emotional energy. The grip it takes on one intensifies as the story
+proceeds.
+
+
+                =The Heart of Desire=
+
+       Illustrations in colors by The Kinneys.
+            12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.50.
+
+A remarkable novel, full of vital force, which gives us a glimpse into
+the innermost sanctuary of a woman's soul--a revelation of the truth
+that to a woman there may be a greater thing than the love of a man--the
+story pictured against a wonderful Southern California background.
+
+
+                  =The Far Triumph=
+
+       Illustrated in color by Martin Justice.
+          12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.25 net.
+
+Here is a romance, strong and appealing, one which will please all
+classes of readers. From the opening of the story until the last word of
+the last chapter Mrs. Dejeans' great novel of modern American life will
+hold the reader's unflagging interest. Living, breathing people move
+before us, and the author touches on some phases of society of momentous
+interest to women--and to men.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+             _By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT_
+
+               =She Buildeth Her House=
+
+            "The Strongest American Novel"
+                  _Chicago Journal._
+
+Seldom has the author of a first great novel so brilliantly transcended
+his initial success. A man and a woman inspiringly fitted for each other
+sweep into the zone of mutual attraction at the opening of the story.
+Destiny demands that each overcomes certain formidable destructible
+forces before either is tempered and refined for the glorious Union of
+Two to form One.
+
+    With colored frontispiece, by Martin Justice.
+              Decorated cloth, net $1.25
+
+
+               =Routledge Rides Alone=
+
+"A gripping story. The terrible intensity of the writer holds one
+chained to the book."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new story places in the world
+of fiction to furnish the scenes for his narrative--India and Manchuria
+at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. While the novel is distinguished
+by its clear and vigorous war scenes, the fine and sweet romance of the
+love of the hero, Routledge--a brave, strange, and talented
+American--for the "most beautiful woman in London" rivals these in
+interest.
+
+     With colored frontispiece by Martin Justice.
+       12mo. Cloth, with inlay in color $1.50.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                     =PHRYNETTE=
+
+                BY MARTHE TROLY-CURTIN
+
+          With a frontispiece by FRANK DESCH
+           12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net
+
+Phrynette is seventeen, extremely clever and naive, and attractive in
+every way. The death of her French father in Paris leaves her an orphan,
+and she goes to London to live with an aunt of Scotch descent. Her
+impressions of the people, the happenings and the places she becomes
+familiar with, peculiarities of customs and every little thing of
+interest are all touched upon in a charming and original manner, while
+in places there is irresistible humor. Throughout there is a good solid
+love story, and the ending is all that is to be desired.
+
+    "A very charming novel."--_San Francisco Argonaut._
+
+    "Original, clever and extremely well-written."--_Pittsburgh
+    Dispatch._
+
+    "Refreshingly original and full of wholesome mirth. To say that
+    the book is delightful reading is understating the
+    fact."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+              _ROMANCES by DAVID POTTER_
+
+                =The Lady of the Spur=
+
+The scenes of this delightful romance are set in the south-western part
+of New Jersey, during the years 1820-30. An unusual situation develops
+when Tom Bell, a quondam gentleman highwayman, returns to take up the
+offices of the long-lost heir, Henry Morvan. Troubles thicken about him
+and along with them the romance develops. Through it all rides "The Lady
+of the Spur" with a briskness, charm, and mystery about her that give an
+unusual zest to the book from its very first page.
+
+Third edition. Colored frontispiece by Clarence F. Underwood.
+                 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+
+                =I Fasten a Bracelet=
+
+Why should a young well-bred girl be under a vow of obedience to a man
+after she had broken her engagement to him? This is the mysterious
+situation that is presented in this big breezy out-of-doors romance.
+When Craig Schuyler, after several years' absence, returns home, and
+without any apparent reason fastens on Nell Sutphen an iron bracelet. A
+sequence of thrilling events is started which grip the imagination
+powerfully, and seems to "get under the skin." There is a vein of humor
+throughout, which relieves the story of grimness.
+
+       Frontispiece in color by Martin Justice.
+          12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net.
+
+
+              =An Accidental Honeymoon=
+
+A sparkling and breezy romance of modern times, the scenes laid in
+Maryland. The plot is refreshingly novel and delightfully handled. The
+heroine is one of the "fetchingest" little persons in the realms of
+fiction. The other characters are also excellently drawn, each standing
+out clear and distinct, even the minor ones. The dialogue of the story
+is remarkably good, and through it all runs a vein of delightful humor.
+
+   Eight illustrations in color by George W. Gage.
+          Marginal decorations on each page.
+          12mo. Ornamental cloth, $1.35 net.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                  _By CAROLYN WELLS_
+
+
+                    =THE GOLD BAG=
+
+"The Gold Bag" is so unlike the usual products of Miss Wells' pen that
+one wonders if she possesses a dual personality or is it merely
+extraordinary versatility, for she can certainly write detective stories
+just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the
+first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to
+ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man.
+Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a
+woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece
+with whom the detective promptly falls in love, though she is already
+engaged to her uncle's secretary, an alliance which the dead man
+insisted must be discontinued, otherwise he would disinherit the girl.
+The story is well told and the interest is cleverly aroused and
+sustained.
+
+ Second edition. With a colored frontispiece. 12mo.
+             Decorated cloth, $1.20 net.
+
+
+                      =THE CLUE=
+
+This is a detective story, and no better or more absorbing one has
+appeared in a long time. The book opens with the violent death of a
+young heiress--apparently a suicide. But a shrewd young physician waxes
+suspicious, and finally convinces the wooden-headed coroner that the
+girl has been murdered. The finger of suspicion points at various people
+in turn, but each of them proves his innocence. Finally Fleming Stone,
+the detective who figured in a previous detective story by this author,
+is called in to match his wits against those of a particularly astute
+villain. Needless to say that in the end right triumphs.
+
+         With a colored frontispiece. 12mo.
+               Decorated cloth, $1.50.
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
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