The ruddy dawn that flushed along the edge of the east illuminated a
vast, waiting multitude. For its twelve miles of twisted length, the
narrow ribbon of the Cup course was walled in on either side by the
massed people and uncounted hundreds of automobiles. The neighboring
States, the great cities of New York and Jersey, the countrysides far
and near had emptied their motor-car enthusiasts and sport lovers into
this strip of Long Island, for to-day. Laughing, eating picnic
breakfasts, laying wagers and preparing score-cards, the crowd swayed
tiptoe on the keen edge of expectancy; while up and down the course
drove and pushed the hurrying hundreds who had not yet found
satisfactory place.
As the dawn brightened into full, golden October day, the crush became
greater, the haste and anticipation more intense. When a spluttering
roar announced one of the arriving racers, the press would open,
cheering, to leave his car passage and close in behind him with
boisterous comment and criticism.
"That was the six Atlanta, Louis driving, wasn't it, Dick?"
"Rub your eyes, you're asleep yet--that was the Mercury, Rose up. Can't
you tell a peach from a lemon? Quit shoving, there!"
"Bet you ten a foreign car wins."
"Take you. It'll be the Bluette or the Mercury. Get back, here comes
another. They start in twenty minutes."
Opposite the grand-stand the excitement was greatest, but most orderly.
Around the row of repair pits men ran in and out, hovering about their
cars with solicitous final attentions and eager encouragement to the
smiling drivers. The first machine was already at the starting-line,
ready as an arrow on the cord, its pilot smoking a cigarette and
chatting indolently with the official starter.
"I drew second for you, last night," Gerard reminded his driver, leaning
against the Mercury to look up at him. "Of course, you have your numbers
on. You will have to get into line in a moment; don't you want to get
out and move about, first? You are going to have six or seven hours'
grind."
"I'm rested best right here," responded Corrie placidly. He nestled
himself more snugly into his seat and proceeded to fasten on the mask
and hood that quenched his blond youth into kinship of blank identity
with every other driver on the course. "The crowd is pretty thick; I
hope they get the people off."
"The police are clearing the way, now. Corrie----"
The thunderous voice of the car from the next camp interrupted speech as
it went past them.
"Good luck, Rosie! I'll leave your rear wheels alone," shouted its
driver. "By-by, Allan."
"If he's worried bad about his, I'll lend him a safety-pin from my
shirtwaist," drawled Rupert, lounging up, hooking his own mask. "I ain't
muck-raking, but he broke his rear axle at Indianapolis, last month, and
lost two wheels."
"Corrie," Gerard pursued, "you are to bring yourself back safely. I do
not want any victories at the price of your wreck. Remember that I am
responsible for your being at this work, and remember Flavia."
"If I wreck my car there won't be _any_ victory," Corrie practically
returned. "Besides, I have got Rupert with me to be looked after; if I
were making a speed dash by myself I might take a chance or two. You
never let me out alone. It's all right. They are signalling."
Rupert sprang into his seat like a rubber ball, bracing one small
legging-clad foot for support; not the least of a racing mechanician's
arts being that of clinging at all times to his reeling post of duty.
Gerard held out his hand for Corrie's parting clasp, then exchanged a
warm grip with Rupert. Between the driver and mechanician who were to
play the perilous game side by side, there passed no such friendly
touch. Gerard never looked at the watching violet-blue eyes of the third
man during that farewell ceremony.
"Take care of yourselves," he bade.
"It's a nice morning for a ramble," observed Rupert. "Don't worry, love,
we'll be in to tea."
The Mercury Titan rolled into place in the line of flaming, panting
machines. The driver of the first car threw away his cigarette and sat
up. There was a pause while the group of officials poised, watches in
hand, the people rose, then the starter leaned forward and the first car
sprang from the line.
Amid the gay tumult of music and cheers, Corrie waited the half-minute
interval, his eyes on the counting official, his hand on the lever,
until the starter's hearty clap fell on his shoulder with the word:
"Go!"
With an explosive roar the Mercury shot across the line and rushed,
gathering speed in long leaps, down the white course. Under the first
arched bridge, out of sight it flashed, followed by an answering roar
from the countless throats of those between whose dense ranks it sped.
Gerard moved back a few paces. He had become rather pale and grave; his
gaze remained fixed on the distant arch through which the Mercury had
vanished, nor did he turn to watch the sending away of the other
nineteen racers.
The touch laid on his sleeve was feather-light.
"I could not stay away," pleaded Flavia, beside him. "May I watch Corrie
with you, Allan?"
He wheeled eagerly, catching her retreating hand before it escaped from
his arm.
"I know why Corrie calls you 'Other Fellow,'" he welcomed. "It is
because you always know the right thing to do."
They looked at each other in the morning brightness, revelling in the
fresh wonder of mutual possession.
"This is hurting you," she grieved. "I saw you before you did me, when
the cars started--you were thinking that last year you yourself would
have been there."
He checked her with the warm brilliance of his smile.
"Not of myself," he denied. "If there was anything to regret, do you
think I could remember it since I have you? No, I was thinking that
Corrie is barely twenty, that I had trained him and sent him out there
in that machine in defiance of his father's wish--in fact, I believe I
had an attack of remorseful panic."
"You did it for Corrie," she gave swift comfort. "Can you suppose that
papa and I do not understand that? You could have found drivers already
skilled, for your car; instead you troubled to take him and make him
what he is now. He is so different from the desperate boy we left,
Allan. Whatever happens out there to-day, you have done the best for
Corrie."
The feverish activity of the camps was swirling around them. Gerard
gently drew the young girl to the place where his private roadster
waited, somewhat aside from the centre of action, and put her in the
scarlet-cushioned seat. After her paced Corrie's dog and took its place
beside her in stately guardianship.
"You can see everything here, and it is not so rough for you," he
explained. "Flavia, a year ago I bought this, when I bought the yellow
roses on the night before my last drive. Will you let me take off your
little glove and put it on your finger, now?"
Her lashes sparkling wet, Flavia bent to him, and in the face of crowds
and camps Gerard set his ring on her hand.
Men were leaning over railings, holding ready watches open. At the
repair pit next but one to the Mercury's, the mechanics and men in
charge had drawn together in whispering groups.
"Car coming!" the word passed suddenly from lip to lip.
On the summit of the white hill a mile distant, a red signal flag went
up. A dark shape darted up over the rise, glanced with incredible
swiftness down the incline, disappearing momentarily behind the packed
angle, then again shot into view and sped past the grand-stand like a
humming projectile; the driver a fixed statue of concentration on the
road before him, the mechanician half-turned in his seat to watch for
cars behind.
The place burst into uproar.
"Number two! Number two first!"
"Mercury leads!"
Horns were blown, handkerchiefs waved, the applause breaking out anew as
a second car rushed past in hot pursuit of the flying Mercury.
"Three! Number three!"
"Oh you Bluette!"
"Here comes another--get back!"
Flavia stooped from her seat.
"Allan, that was Corrie--where is the car that started before him?"
"Tire trouble, perhaps. You are trembling, dear! Let my chauffeur take
you home and wait quietly there until I bring Corrie to you after the
race."
She shook her head.
"No, please no. Here I can see him each lap and know he is safe so far.
Let me stay."
Two cars thundered past, struggling desperately for place. The noise of
the excited people overwhelmed all conversation and left the two lovers
silent. From time to time a telephone bell jingled across the tumult,
blue-uniformed messengers hurried here and there. But when the last of
twenty cars had passed, the twenty-first not appearing, there fell a
lull and men settled back to wait for the second lap.
Five minutes passed, ten. The red flags went up again; two speeding
shapes topped the rise and plunged out of sight.
"Two and three!"
"The Bluette--no--Mercury leads still!"
Excitement flared high as the two racers reappeared. But as they swept
down the straight stretch, the mechanician of the Mercury raised his
arms above his head in warning, the car slackened speed and drew to the
side of the course. As the Bluette machine fled past him, Corrie brought
his car to a halt opposite the judges' stand, leaning toward the
official who sprang to his side.
"The America's off the second bridge--send the ambulance to the road
below," he called, his ringing voice penetrating bell-clear through the
heavier sounds.
Before his grim message was fairly comprehended, he had slammed into a
gear and was off to regain the sacrificed moment.
There was a brief flurry in the official stand. One man seized the
telephone while another went slowly to the lost car's camp. From lip to
lip the news went.
"Harry was married last week," observed an oil-smeared mechanic,
touching his cap to Gerard in going by. "I guess there's no show after
that tumble; Rose might as well have saved his time."
"There is more than one prize in a contest," Gerard disagreed, meeting
Flavia's awed eyes. "Corrie Rose may win better than a gold cup."
"Corrie----?" she faltered.
"Corrie has given his leading place and one of his hoarded fragments of
time--these races are won or lost by scant minutes--for the bare chance
that his report might send aid to the injured men a little sooner than
if that task were left to the frightened witnesses of the disaster."
Flavia's small head lifted proudly, bright color flashed into the
countenance whose loving faith had never failed Corrie in his hours of
disgrace.
"I wish papa had seen," she longed wistfully. And after a moment: "You
yourself have done the same; he told me so, once. Now you have taught
him to do what you never can do any more, poor Allan."
A curious expression crossed Gerard's mobile face; hesitation and doubt
blended with a luminous radiance shining from some inward thought that
leaped up like a clear flame. He moved as if to speak impulsively, but
Flavia had turned to watch the approach of a rushing car, and he
remained silent.
In the next hour, the Mercury passed the grand-stand five times;
sometimes alone, sometimes the quarry of a coursing group of
speed-hounds whose flaming breath was close behind, sometimes itself
curving around some slower rival amid the wave-like succession of
cheers. The bulletin-board showed Corrie running in third place when he
passed for the sixth time, with Rupert stretched along the edge of the
car to relieve his cramped limbs in an ease that suggested imminent
death by falling.
The seventh time the Mercury did not come around. Gerard, who had been
in front, returned to Flavia with his steadying reassurance.
"Tire trouble, no doubt," he told her. "He is due to have some; his luck
has been astonishing in escaping it so far. He is driving to win; no car
ever held the lead from start to finish."
Flavia folded her hands in her lap, not trusting herself far enough to
reply. Gerard studied his watch in silent calculation, as the minutes
ticked past.
"It must have been two tires," he at last hazarded. "When one blows out
while actually on a turn, the other is almost certain to follow. Of
course, they might have engine trouble."
A French car rolled up to its repair pit, stopped, and suddenly burst
into flames. There was a wild scramble among its force of attendants, a
rush with fire extinguishers and pails of sand. Before the danger was
realized, it had ended and the mechanics were at work upon the choked
pipe which had sent the car to its camp.
"Oh!" gasped the young girl, rising.
Gerard stopped her, pointing to the white hill. The roar of an
approaching car filled the air; as Flavia looked, the Mercury shot past,
running faultlessly, but carrying two spare tires where she had started
with four.
"They will be in, next lap," Gerard predicted. "Rupert won't want to run
with only two extra tires on board, and I don't think Corrie will
overrule him."
He went forward to give some directions to prepare for the flying visit,
Flavia watching. She made no demand for attention, no betrayal of
feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into which she had been
brought. Men looked curiously at the delicate, serious girl who sat so
quietly in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information crept out
that she was Rose's sister and Gerard's fiancee, so that wonder became
merely admiration.
True to expectation, the Mercury halted before her repair pit, on the
next circuit.
"Cases," commanded Rupert, tersely, out of his seat before the stop.
"Move quick! Who's nailed fast now?"
The slur was undeserved; the waiting tires were flung on and secured by
hurrying hands.
"Drink it," Gerard ordered, thrusting a cup at Corrie, as that young
driver leaned wearily back. "I don't care whether you want it or not."
"It's the people," Corrie explained, his blue eyes seeking Gerard's
across the goggles. "I don't mind anything else. They're over the course
so you can't see ahead. Jim hit a woman, on the back stretch, as we
passed."
He put the heavy china cup to his lips, but dropped it with a crash to
seize his levers as Rupert bounded in beside him.
"Have the people cleared off," he petitioned over his shoulder, while
sending his car forward.
Gerard went to the judges' stand.
Corrie Rose was not the first or only driver to complain of the packed
course. The Mercury had scarcely departed when the Marathon car came in,
its experienced and steel-fibred pilot on the brink of nervous
breakdown.
"I won't drive if the mob isn't put off the road," he defied his
manager. "I've killed a woman back there--do you hear? A _woman_! There
are women and kids right against the wheels on the worst turns. Get 'em
off!"
The Marathon force flocked around him in consternation, while his
manager ran to the judges and the owner of the car implored and adjured
the recalcitrant driver to go on without further loss of time. But it
was Gerard who saved the situation for his rival.
"It's all right, Jim," he called across, issuing from the official stand
and comprehending the deadlock at sight. "You only broke her leg--a
telephone report came. Go on; everyone's with you, man!"
The Marathon's mechanician, wise in knowledge of his pilot, at this
juncture leaned over and thrust between Jim's lips a lighted cigar.
"Buck up! We're losin'," he urged roughly.
The driver's teeth sullenly clamped shut upon the strong tobacco; he
slammed viciously into a gear and hurled his machine down the course
before the startled camp realized its victory. The stop had lasted
exactly three minutes, but it cost the Marathon its hope of the race.
The morning advanced, gaining in sun-gilt beauty. In the next hour four
racers were taken from the contest, three by mechanical difficulties,
one as the result of an accident that sent both driver and mechanician
to the hospital. The Mercury continued to run steadily and evenly,
keeping a consistent pace.
"How much longer?" Flavia anxiously questioned, once. "Do you think
everything can stay right to the very end, Allan?"
Gerard laid his warm left hand over her cold one, as it rested on the
cushions, his loving eyes caressing her.
"Two hours more, my Flavia. Most surely I believe everything can stay
right; why not? Remember Corrie delights in this. He is happier now than
when he is what we call at rest. If," again that singular expression of
blended shadow and inward illumination rose over his face, "if I were to
be made myself and wholly cured, it would not change Corrie's position
in Corrie's eyes. I cannot help him there in that hard part, but I have
given him a way to forget for a while."
Her soft mouth bent grievedly; Flavia's attention was effectually
distracted from contemplation of her brother's bodily peril.
Gerard turned aside. He had heard the reports arrive of one accident
after another, he saw driver after driver come in gray-lipped and savage
under the strain of racing on the crowded path, and he knew what Flavia
did not--that this was proving the most disastrous affair ever held on
the Cup course.
"I don't mind risking my own neck, I'm used to that," gritted an
old-time comrade to Gerard, during a pause for refilling tanks. "It's
the people under foot; ---- them! Haven't they any sense? Jim's
Marathon hit a man, ten minutes ago; he's still driving, half crazy,
because he can't stop. _Damn_ the country police!"
"Rose----?"
"Rose is changing tires at the Westbury turn. I'm off."
That bit of news spared a bad quarter-hour to the two who loved Corrie.
Gerard was at the front of the camp, watching for his car, when he felt
a hand lain on his shoulder.
"Some racer just went off the turnpike into the ditch," Mr. Rose's
subdued tones informed him. "Where's Corrie?"
"Safe; changing tires on this side of the turnpike," Gerard gave quick
assurance. "It's not he. But this has been a bad day; I'm not surprised
that you couldn't keep away from here."
"I couldn't keep away," Mr. Rose assented heavily. He drew out his
handkerchief and passed it across his forehead, damp under the line of
reddish-gray hair, pushing open his overcoat with the abrupt gesture
that was also a habit of his son's. "I've had a hell of an hour where I
was, Gerard. This morning I got a letter from my niece, Isabel. It seems
she is married and her husband made her write it."
The two men looked fully at each other; some quality in Thomas Rose's
expression communicated its white reflection to Gerard's changing face.
"He never did it--Corrie, I mean. Gerard, Isabel Rose threw the wrench
that struck you and wrecked your car, last year. He's been shielding
her. God, how I've ground it into the boy!"
There was a tall pile of spare tires beside them; on it Gerard put his
hand, steadying himself against the shock that was less of surprise than
of poignant self-reproach for his own failure to divine this open
riddle. In that moment of final understanding, he knew that he had seen
the pitiful truth rise to the surface of Corrie's blue eyes a hundred
times, and had left its appeal to die out, unanswered.
Far down the course a ripple of cheering started, running nearer in a
wave of gathering volume. Out around the curve swooped a gray streak,
fled toward the camps, was opposite, and past. The Mercury was unleashed
and hunting down its lost lead in the fastest speed of the day.
Mr. Rose brought his eyes from following its flight to meet Gerard's
gaze.
"You remember how Isabel nagged him to take her around the race course
in his pink machine," he reminded. "I forbade it and thought no more
about the thing. Well, she got him alone--you know, I guess, that he was
wild with boy's near-love for her and would have let her drag the heart
out of his body--and she got his promise to take her around once. She
worked the plan all out; Corrie started without his mechanician, and she
waited for him a mile down the course, dressed in her riding-habit and
wearing a man's cap and motor-mask. She figured that no one would notice
her much on the road and Corrie could drop her off after making the
circuit, just before he reached the camps, so that he would come in
alone as he started and no one would be the wiser. They were just a
couple of fool kids on a kid lark."
A yellow car roared to a stop beside them, interrupting clamorously.
From his seat its mechanician fell rather than stepped.
"He smashed his wrist cranking her," the driver raged. "Someone
else--quick!"
A blue-clad factory mechanic flung himself into the vacant place,
bare-headed, without coat or mask.
"Here's my chance!" he exulted. "Go on, I'm it."
The car leaped out, no second wasted in parley. Men gathered up the
injured mechanician and hurried him away. Mr. Rose looked on as if at a
stage scene which did not interest him, and dully resumed his narrative.
"It worked all right, Gerard, until they met you on the back stretch and
you challenged Corrie to race. He didn't want to, with her along, but
she devilled him to go on, and he did. I can guess it went to his head,
having her beside him. When you began cutting Corrie off so he couldn't
pass by, he caught the joke right enough. She says he was laughing when
he began to pitch odd screws and bolts at your car--he was never angry
for a moment, just playing, as you were. But she was all excited over
losing; when she saw he had both hands busy and you were forcing them
back again, she snatched something out of the open box Corrie had got
the bolts from and threw it at you, herself. She didn't know what she
had thrown or done, until she saw you fall stunned across your
steering-wheel and your car plunge off the road."
"I might have known," said Gerard, and turned his face to the course he
did not see.
"_You_ might have known!" flared Mr. Rose. "What was the matter with
_me_? Hadn't I lived with Corwin B. Rose since he was born and never had
seen him cheat or play foul, win or lose? He was straight, always. I
should have known when he wouldn't talk--he never was afraid to speak
out and take his licking. Oh yes, I belong to the brutal common people
and Corrie wasn't brought up by moral suasion; he had more than one
flogging before he was fourteen and we called him a man. And he never
lied to dodge one. I went back on him; he never did on me."
The gay tumult of the tensely-strung multitude was in their ears, the
band-music crashed blatant aid to the excitement. With a humming purr
and rush the Mercury car shot past again, followed by the long roll of
applause.
"We're leading by a minute and a half," one of Gerard's men triumphed,
running past on some errand. "Oh you Rosie!"
"He stopped his machine as soon as he could, and put Isabel out," Mr.
Rose continued sombrely. "She says herself that she was scared sick and
begged him to save her. I can guess that part. Anyhow, he told her to go
home and say nothing, that he would take care of her. He did. If it
hadn't been for your protecting him, that morning, he might have ended
in State's prison. I don't suppose she would ever have cleared him if
she hadn't fallen in love with one of those Southerners she has been
visiting, and blurted out the truth when he proposed, the other day. He
put her in a buggy, drove over to the nearest clergyman, and married
her then and there; then gave her paper and pen and made her write the
whole story to me. He is a gentleman; he'd stand with her for whatever
she had done, but he would not stand for her leaving Corrie to bear her
blame. I'll make it up to him, yet!"
"Does Flavia know?" Gerard asked.
"I gave her Isabel's letter on the way across to you."
Flavia was sitting in the car with her wet handkerchief clasped in her
folded hands, her veils drawn across the hushed beauty of her face. As
Gerard came up, she bent to him.
"Corrie," she breathed. "Corrie, to do this! I am proud and glad and
humbled. How could he, how could he?"
"He has more courage than I," Gerard gravely acknowledged. "I could not
have done it. A superb folly, unjust to himself and us. He might safely
have confided in his father or me and have trusted Isabel to our care."
"Allan, she had his promise to tell no one and she held him to it. She
was ill and hysterical with terrified shame; Isabel never could endure
to be found at fault even in little things. She was not bad or wicked,
but just a coward."
"She found strength enough to watch Corrie under torture week after
week," he retorted, his golden-brown eyes hardening to agate. "If I had
been killed under my car, Flavia, do you realize that Rupert would have
brought your brother face to face with the electric chair? And Corrie
would have shut his lips and endured it all. Don't ask me to pity Isabel
Rose--I've lived this year with her victim."
Trembling under the control forced on herself, Flavia slipped her hand
into his.
"I know, Allan, I know. Yet she did suffer to see his suffering. In her
letter, she says that Corrie came to her at dawn, the last morning we
were all at home, and called her out into the empty hall to beseech her
for permission to tell you. He had not been to bed that night, at all.
She never afterward forgot his desperate, worn face and that memory
finally drove her to confession. But she refused him. He did break down
then, and flashed out at her that he must and would tell you the truth,
when he left her. Of course he did not do so. Allan, she declares that
he then told you, that she knows it because you wrote to her that
evening about your accident and said you would take care of Corrie
whatever happened."
"I!"
"Your letter to me. She had been insane with dread all day, believing
Corrie would fulfil his threat to tell you his innocence, and when
Rupert came she saw only that idea confirmed. She knew of no relations
between you and me. She thought only of herself."
Gerard looked at her, having no words; presently he sat down on the edge
of the car at her feet, and they continued silent, hand in hand. Mr.
Rose had found a camp-chair in the shadow of a wall, and sat watching
the race in grim quiescence.
When the last hour of the contest was reached, it was noted that the
Mercury car had suddenly slackened its pace. The difference in speed was
not great; the car was running faultlessly, but keeping a slower gait.
The men in the Mercury camp clustered together, waiting and discussing.
The car came around on the next lap with the condition hardly improved.
Rupert was neither watching behind nor busied with his usual duties, but
sat erect in his seat with one arm around Corrie's shoulders, apparently
talking in the driver's ear, head bent to head. Neither glanced toward
the row of repair pits or the grand-stand, as they passed between and on
out of view. Gerard's brows contracted sharply; he uttered an excuse to
Flavia and went front.
"Morton's giving out, too," the manager of the next camp imparted
confidentially, joining him. "The road-bed is rotten, the men say. Ten
feet of it caved in at one turn. Too bad!"
"Rose had no sleep last night," Gerard briefly excused his driver.
"God, how I've ground it into the boy," Corrie's father had said; and
Gerard could have echoed the cry, looking back at what he had meant for
kindness.
The moments dragged, the next scant quarter-hour stretched long. But at
last the Mercury's vibrant voice rolled down the white road,
approaching. Up to her camp the car sped, and stopped.
Before the halt was effected, Rupert had snatched off the driver's
suffocating mask, leaning over him.
"Oil, gas," he demanded generally. "Jump for those tanks, _quick_. Here,
Rose----"
His white, fatigue-drawn face bared to the fresh wind, Corrie tried to
speak, but instead let his head fall forward on his arm as it rested
upon the steering-wheel.
"Rose, you low-down quitter, you punk chauffeuse!" Rupert stormed at
him. "You going to chuck up a won race? You mollycoddle----Water, you
fellows--can't you even wait on a real man? Here, Rose, you ain't
anything but a fake!"
He carefully splashed the water over the boyish forehead, streaks of
grime trickling over them both.
"Fill the tanks," Corrie gasped, lying passive under the rough
treatment. "I'm ready to go on--tell me when."
Gerard was beside the car.
"Corrie," he began.
Rupert unexpectedly flamed out at him across the prostrate figure:
"Let him alone! He ain't a Sandow and the driving's hell. He's going on,
I tell you. Here, Rose, get some class into you, what?"
But Gerard had a better tonic than cold water or stinging abuse. He
silenced the mechanician with a glance and laid his hand on Corrie's
arm.
"Corrie, your cousin has told us the truth," he said. "We know, now, who
caused the wreck of my car last year."
Corrie started so violently as to overturn the jug in Rupert's hand and
send its contents over them both, his avid blue eyes flashed wide to
Gerard.
"Isabel----?"
"Isabel has told us that your companion threw the wrench that struck me,
and why you bore the charge. You stand cleared."
Corrie slowly drew himself erect in his seat, brushing the water from
his eyes and pushing back his wet clusters of fair hair. It was not so
much color as vital life that flowed into his face, mechanically he
reached for his mask.
"Thanks," he answered. "I can drive, now."
"Tanks full," shouted a score of voices.
Men scattered from around the car's wheels in expectation of the start,
Gerard stepped back. But Corrie turned in his seat and held out his hand
to the speechless Rupert.
"You heard--now do it," he required.
Still dumb, the mechanician dragged off his glove and gave for the
race's finish the hand-clasp that he had denied for its start.
The Mercury sprang from her camp with a roar of unloosed power and
speed-lust. Car and driver splendid mates, they fled in pulsating vigor
down their white path where the sun was shining.
During the rest of the hour, people stood up in seats and automobiles,
watching the Mercury Titan. Not before had they witnessed driving like
that, never again could the driver himself equal that inspired flight.
Just sixty-nine seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Corrie Rose brought
his car across the line. As he halted the Mercury before the judges, the
people burst out over the course and overwhelmed the victors. Music,
clicking cameras, cheers and congratulations--the current of gayety
swirled around the winning racer. The first to grasp Corrie's hand was
the official starter who had sent him out six hours before, the second
was the driver of the barely-defeated Marathon. After that, there was no
record possible.
It was some time before Corrie and Rupert could be rescued from the
enthusiastic press of admirers. When at last the Mercury came over to
its own camp, Gerard was first able to bring Flavia to her brother.
Stiff, weary and dishevelled, Corrie descended from his car, tripping
impatiently over the flowers someone had placed in it. There was a
perfunctory quality in the tenderness with which he kissed Flavia, as
there had been a restive haste in his acceptance of his present ovation.
Now, he turned his candid eyes full to Gerard's, baring his inmost need
to the one who always understood.
"I want my father," said Corrie Rose.
Very lovingly Gerard put his arm around the slim shoulders and drew his
master-driver to a tent behind the repair pit, there left him to enter
alone and went back to Flavia.
"I put twelve ham sandwiches and my will in the locker, there," he found
Rupert sweetly explaining to the young girl. "I guessed I'd have use for
one or the other by this time. And I guess I guessed right. Oh, no--I'll
be able to take my regular nourishment just the same, when we get back;
this won't count. I," he sent Gerard a glance of saturnine intelligence,
"I've got myself all tired out here lately trying to keep on disliking
Rose."
"Allan, have you thought that we are going home?" Flavia asked, lifting
her happy face to her lover, as he stood over her. "_Home_; papa and
Corrie, and you and I, who were so far apart."
"I have thought that you would put on that lace frock you wore the last
evening I saw you there, only this time you will come where I can touch
you. Shall I tell you what you looked like that night? You were a golden
rose in a sheath of snow, quite out of reach. And you played your dainty
music so calmly and smoothly, while I was on fire and seeing rose-color
as I listened to your father's stories. I was like poor Cyrano de
Bergerac: I had gazed so long at your sun-bright little head that when I
looked away my dazzled eyes still saw gold."
Her red mouth dimpled into soft mischief and daring.
"Shall I tell you what _I_ saw while I was playing, Allan? I watched you
under my eyelashes--this way--and I wondered whether anyone else ever
looked quite so nice even from behind, and, and what it would be like to
touch your crinkly hair with one's finger."
"Do it now!"
She declined with an eloquent gesture. Around their enclosure the vast
crowds were streaming back to New York, the course was filled from edge
to edge with a solid procession of homing automobiles of every type and
age. Amid noise and congestion and merriment, Long Island's guests were
trouping out.
But comparative quietness had descended upon the row of pits when, half
an hour later, Mr. Rose and Corrie strolled casually up to join the
other two members of the party.
"I don't know how long you propose to stay here," observed the senior,
tolerantly. "Lenoir is waiting with the limousine, and it strikes us
it's about time to start for home."
"Chilly wind blowing, too," Corrie suggested, his hands in the pockets
of his long gray motor-coat. "Fancy Lenoir lugging this old coat of mine
around in the car, Other Fellow, until now. It's a wonder the
butterflies haven't eaten it--moths, I mean."
Gerard and Flavia exchanged a glance of infinitely tender comprehension
of these two.
"I want to show you all something, first," Gerard detained them. "We
don't want to take any worries home that we can leave here. Give me that
ball of tape you put in your pocket this morning, Corrie."
Astonished, Corrie obeyed.
"Hello, Rupert!" Gerard sent his clear voice across to where that
black-eyed mechanician leaned against the Mercury Titan, a hundred feet
away. "Catch!"
Rupert promptly turned. The improvised ball in his fingers, Gerard
slowly raised both arms above his head in the old graceful gesture, his
brilliant amber eyes smiling at his companions, then launched the sphere
straight to its goal.
It was not Flavia who found overtaxed nerves give way.
"Gerard! _Gerard!_" Corrie's cry rang out; he sank down on a camp-chair
and covered his face.
Alarmed and remorseful, Gerard sprang to him.
"Corrie--don't take it like that! It is all right; I've been fighting
for this ten months under a French surgeon's orders."
"You never told me. Oh, Gerard, Gerard!"
"I did not want to tell you until I was sure the cure was real and
permanent. And I was not sure until I met the surgeon in New York,
yesterday."
"You could have told me last night. I might have been killed to-day and
_never_ have known."
Gerard exchanged with Mr. Rose a glance of very sad understanding, a
mutual acknowledgment of mutual error.
"Would you have driven the Mercury to-day against your father's wish, if
you had known that I should be able to drive my own car next year? I
think not. If you were to be taken from me and this life, I wanted you
to take with you the memory of this race instead of the humiliation of a
withdrawal. And I believed that I was dealing with an unsteadied boy who
needed the sharp tonic of work and danger--ah, Corrie, forgive
me!--instead of the strongest man in endurance I ever knew. But I would
tell no one else until I did you, although," he turned to the radiant
girl, "although it was hard not to hold out both hands to Flavia."
She put her hands in both his, then, and felt them close on hers for all
time.
"Rupert knew," Corrie presently divined, as the unsurprised mechanician
lounged toward them.
"Yes, Rupert knew," Gerard confirmed. "He helped me go through the
treatment each day. One reason I did not tell you what we were doing,
was that the process was not very pleasant, and it used to leave me
rather upset and sick for a while--you caught me too soon after it that
morning you signed the contracts. Don't wince; _you_ had nothing to do
with my smash."
"But I blamed myself, always!" Corrie stood up, thrusting his hands into
his pockets and squaring his shoulders with the sturdy responsibility so
easily read now. "I had no business to take Isabel there, and I put the
mischief into her head by pitching bolts at you. She couldn't tell it
was in fun. I--I would rather have known you'd get well, Gerard, than
have known I was cleared."
"Didn't it ever occur to you, Corrie, to blame _us_, when we were so
ready to convict you and pass judgment?" countered Gerard.
Checked, Corrie surveyed the three with the ingenuous astonishment of a
new point of view.
"Blame you people?" he marvelled. "Why, when I thought what a low brute
you had every right to believe I was, I used to feel like thanking you
for staying in the same room with me. I--Well, I guess it's time to go
home, isn't it? I'll leave you to start."
"Leave us?" exclaimed Flavia.
"You'll make a line for that limousine right now, Corwin B.," pronounced
Mr. Rose, with the familiar easy mastery that was a caress.
His son laughingly shook his fair head.
"No, thanks, sir. I'm going to drive the Mercury Titan home and put it
in the garage. Unless," he looked over his shoulder, "unless Rupert is
afraid to trust himself to ride with a punk chauffeuse and a no-class
fake?"
"I ain't real nervous to-day," drawled the mechanician graciously. "Nor
I ain't supposing but what you're entitled to a chauffeur's license,
Rose."