Part 3

"No," came the discouraging monosyllable from the official stand.

"No one?"

"No."

The driver slowly sent his car forward, temper in every crisp movement, his gaze travelling over the empty tiers of seats, to fall at last upon Gerard and there rest. With a jerk he jammed down the brake and leaned from the machine. Thick fair hair lay across his boyish forehead above level dark brows, his candid dark-blue eyes went direct to their goal: the metal badge fastened to Gerard's lapel and just visible under the edge of his gray overcoat.

"You're wearing a chauffeur's license," he challenged.

"I surely am. Want to engage a man?" was the grave response.

The boy's arch glance swept the other's face, so definitely stamped with the habit of mastery.

"If I did I'd ask you to recommend one," he retorted mirthfully. "I'm not as much mixed as I sounded; I wasn't thinking of hiring you. But I did want to ask if you would ride into the city with me. My mechanician is busy over there, I can't find any one else to go with me, and I've got to get my car down to the Renard shop to-night."

"Now I wonder," Gerard mused aloud, "why you want any one with you."

"Because I won't be eighteen for a month," he gave prompt explanation. "Under the latest law freak turned out at Albany, I'm too young to drive a motor vehicle safely on the public roads unless I have a licensed chauffeur alongside of me. Oh, of course you'd laugh!"

"I was only recalling what I've just been watching you do on the track," apologized Gerard, steadying his countenance. "And speculating upon how the average chauffeur would like to try your feats. I shall appreciate the honor of riding into town with Mr. Rose and his rose."

The driver colored and laughed together, as his guest took the seat beside him.

"They're always ragging me--I mean the professional racers and motor men," he avowed, in a burst of resentful confidence. "They called me kid amateur, and rosebud, and girlie, until I just had my car painted pink and bought these pink suits and told them to go ahead getting all the fun they could. I'll get my turn to-morrow night." He twisted his car through the curved gateway, viciously expert.

"You are planning to win?"

There was no trace of mockery in the level intonation of the inquiry, yet Rose flushed again.

"I want to, and I mean to try," he answered frankly and soberly. "Of course one can't count on that sort of thing. I've got a splendid French machine here. But Allan Gerard is going to race; I'm afraid of him. Why, he hasn't even been out to practice! He says he knows the track, they tell me, and he'll not come down until a couple of hours before the start. That kind of talk rattles me--I wish he'd act like other people and not as if he just meant to drop into the motordrome and win another cup."

"I don't believe Gerard intends to pose as confident," deprecated his companion. "You see, he has his automobile factory to manage as well as his racing work; I rather fancy that he didn't come out to practice because he was busy."

"Oh, I suppose so. It just gets on my nerves; I shouldn't wonder if they were a bit raw from so much chaffing by the professional pilots. We're the quickest tempered family that ever happened, anyhow. I'll go off the handle, I know I will, if those grinning drivers get to gibing at me to-morrow night----" he broke off, slamming savagely into a lower gear as he caught a mounted policeman's eye and endeavored to choke his racing car's speed down to a reasonable approach to the legal limit.

When the desired result was somewhat attained, Gerard spoke with quiet seriousness.

"I've seen considerable motor racing, and I've been watching you this afternoon. With some really steady training and practice you could undoubtedly become one of our few fine drivers. You have the gift."

Rose caught his breath, his blue eyes flashed to meet the other man's with dazzled and dazzling ardor.

"But--you must not 'go off the handle.' Never. You must keep your nerve or quit the track."

"It isn't nerve, it's temper," amended Rose honestly.

Gerard's firm lip bent amusedly, his bronze-brown eyes glinted a fun as purely boyish as could the other's.

"That's quite different," he conceded. "Temper doesn't interfere with driving; on the contrary, some of the best drivers and most amiable men I know are very demons when they are racing."

"Gerard isn't. They say he is the quietest ever. Of course he's almost twenty-eight and used to it all."

The gentleman in question carefully unfastened his glove.

"Gerard seems to worry you," he commented.