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."