In the golden afternoon sunlight, when tree-shadows stretched long and
velvet-soft across the lawns and terraces of Mr. Rose's park, amid all
October's blending fragrances and mellow tints, Corrie Rose came home.
After all, it was Jack Rupert who put the Mercury Titan in the garage,
opposite the house; Corrie yielding his seat to his mechanician.
"I believe I'll let you take her around; I want to go in with my
people," the driver explained. "You might as well get established here,
you know, since you are going to stay some time. I," it was so long
since anyone had seen that teasing mischief sparkling in Corrie's
unclouded eyes, "I have grown so used to your gentle, winning ways that
I don't know how to get along without you, Rupert."
Rupert settled himself in the great machine, regarding his companion
with dry intelligence.
"I've got more respect for your morals than I had, Rose, and less for
your sense," he issued final judgment above the clamor of the motor,
before sending the car away.
"Right again," Corrie agreed. He turned and looked up at the house.
The three from the limousine were waiting for him upon the columned
veranda. Weary, stiff and aching from long exertion, soiled with the
dust of course and road, Corrie, victor of that day and of many days,
climbed the broad rose-colored steps to them. There was nothing adequate
to say, had they been a demonstrative family; as it was, no one
considered speech. But at the open door Corrie stopped, turning his
bright, clear glance to his father. And Thomas Rose closed his hand on
his son's shoulder, so that they crossed the threshold together.
Gerard detained Flavia a pace behind.
"When I see you in the lace gown, I am going to kiss you," he stated
firmly. "I do not care how many people are present or where it is. So
you had better come down early to the fountain arcade, where I have
pictured you more often than you will ever know. Will you, flower-lady?"
"Perhaps," she doubted. "If I think of it."
"Heartsease for thought," said Gerard, and kissed her dimpling mouth.
On the stairs a few minutes later, Corrie overtook his sister and caught
her in his arms.
"I need a bath and some fresh rags and--well, everything," he laughed.
"I'm not fit to touch--do you mind?"
She clasped her arms around his neck, nestling her soft cheek against
the rough, grimy cloth of his driving-suit.
"I love you! Oh, my dear, my dear, if mamma had lived, this year could
never have happened! Not to you, nor to me."
He looked into her upturned face, realizing with her the difference that
might have been wrought by a mother's clairvoyant tenderness and the
link of a wife's understanding between her husband and her children. No,
without this lack in the household the year's deception could not have
endured. If the chain of Roses had not once been broken, it could not
have come so near this later destruction.
"Flavia, you know I feel how good they have all been to me? You know
what nonsense it was for Allan--he tells me I can't call my own brother
'Gerard'--what nonsense it was for him to suggest that I ever could
blame anyone but myself for what I had to stand?"
"I know you feel it so, Corrie."
"Then, I want to say there was only you, Other Fellow, who _never_ hurt
or made it harder."
"Even--Allan?"
"I think there never was a man so generous as Allan--but, only you. I,"
he drew a breath of inexpressible content, "I see a bully good life
ahead, but I don't see any woman in it, unless I find one like you. And
from what I overheard Allan saying, just now when I passed you both at
the alcove, he's secured the only perfect angel-girl----"
Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand across his lips.
But it was that evening, in the glowing richness and repose of the
dining-room in the pink marble villa, now reinvested with the dignity of
a home, that the core of the late situation was touched.
Once more Allan Gerard was intent upon the study of Flavia's young
beauty as she sat near him in the lace gown, this time with his ring
flaunting conquest on her fragile hand. Mr. Rose was leaning back and
idly watching the ice dissolve in his glass, when Corrie broke the
pause, resting his arms on the table and lifting his gay, mirthful face
to the man behind his chair:
"Take away those oysters, Perkins! I want my soup right off, and a lot
of it. I'm about starved----" He stopped, himself struck by the words.
The evoked recollections of that last dinner together were too much.
Mr. Rose carefully put the glass down, his strong jaw setting. Flavia's
large startled eyes flashed wet as they went to her brother.
"Corrie, Corrie, I can understand how you began," escaped Gerard
impulsively. "But how could you carry it on month after month?"
The ruddy color ran up to Corrie's forehead, he looked down at the
table, sobered.
"It didn't take me long to see I made an awful bungle of things," he
confessed, half-shy and hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw
what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given my word. I guess you'll
understand a lot more than I can say; as Allan will understand, now, why
I couldn't help knocking down that tramp who wanted money because I
belonged in prison and wasn't there. It was all too much for me to think
out! But--isn't there something said about a fellow who puts his hand to
the plough not taking it off? I used to say that over to myself,
when--well, at night, for instance. I might have been a chump, but it
seemed up to me to keep on with the work I had started, and--and not to
flinch."
"Dear, if you had only spared yourself what you could," Flavia grieved.
"You could have said it was an accident, at least; that you never meant
to hurt Allan."
Corrie's violet-blue eyes laughed out of their eclipse and sought his
father.
"Not much, Other Fellow! No tricks for mine; I had to tell just the
truth or shut up. No, sir, whatever he _looked_ like, Corrie Rose had to
plough a straight furrow."
"Straight furrows lead home," said Allan Gerard, not sententiously, but
musingly.
He also looked toward Mr. Rose, and the senior nodded slow agreement.
"They do, Gerard. And we get more, sometimes, than we've any right to
expect from anything we give. Where we spent this summer, Flavia and I
liked the people. What we did for them didn't cost us much; we were not
looking for any returns. But the news of it got out, somehow, and was
cabled to New York days before we arrived here. One of the journals got
the story and worked up a Sunday article about what an American
millionaire had done for Val de Rosas, and interviewed a certain Luis
Cardenas and his wife, Elvira, whom Flavia had brought together--it
seems they are happy and prospering well, my girl--and printed the whole
thing along with a photograph of Corrie in his racing clothes, as my
son. New York papers go everywhere. The Southerner whom Isabel was in
love with brought that article about her family to her, as an excuse for
an early call, the morning he asked her to marry him. She says, herself,
it was the picture of Corrie in the motor dress she last had seen him
wear on the day of the accident, that broke her up so, and when her
lover proposed she told him the whole truth. If I hadn't paid the taxes
for Val de Rosas, Corrie would have been bearing a false charge yet."
The silence held many thoughts; a silence broken by Corrie himself.
"To-morrow we'll write a jolly note to Isabel," he affirmed contentedly.
"She doesn't need to worry on her honeymoon, poor kid; she has squared
up. There doesn't seem to be any need for anyone to worry, ever, while
they're trying to keep straight, since the scheme is a Square Deal, you
know."
The two older men exchanged a glance.
"I guess some of us need more than a square deal, Corwin B.," his father
pronounced. "But it's all right; we get that, too."