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diff --git a/27337-8.txt b/27337-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a273ac4 --- /dev/null +++ b/27337-8.txt @@ -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-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*** + + +******* This file should be named 27337-8.txt or 27337-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/3/27337 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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