Part 19

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?"

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."