Chapter 14

"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.