Part 36

"It is, all the time. Thanks. I didn't bring you here to talk about that, when you should be asleep, though. Rupert, no more is to be said about Corrie Rose. There has been too much of that already, I can see."

Rupert's black eyes hardened and narrowed to lines of glinting jet.

"I've got the truth stripped down to running facts, carrying no trimmings, and I'm demonstrating it to everybody I meet," he imparted dryly. "And I mean to keep on. I know what you want, all right, and I ain't intending to do it. Let him stand for what is coming to him."

Gerard lifted his cigarette, seeking the narcotic smoke. His superb vitality and undrained youth had turned upon him like traitorous servants upon a fallen master, denying him surcease in unconsciousness and holding him as a sensitive instrument for pain to run its gamut upon.

"Why?" he queried.

"Because I want to see him get his. You don't? I do. I guess my say goes, this time. I ain't enjoying being sore wherever I ain't worse, but I'd go out and take another smash like we had to-day to see him wearing zebra clothes in a jail. Missing that, I'll make that pink millionaire palace red-hot and get him ruled off every race course in the country."

"Rupert----"

The mechanician's gesture cut off protest.

"There ain't any use! I mean it."

"You liked Corrie----"

"I ain't noticing it, now. When you were behind the steering-wheel, your say so was what happened--if you'd said to light the gasoline tank, I'd have struck a match. That's business. This ain't. Rose stands for what he did, for I'm free to put it through."

"Very true; I am helpless," Gerard acquiesced, his white lips compressed, and averted his head on the pillow.

Checked, Rupert stared at the other with many shifting expressions twitching his own angry dark face.

"Do you know what the doctors say?" he demanded, at last. "Are you knowing, when you ask me to let Rose off, what he's done to you?"

"Yes," was the laconic answer.

There was no retort to that all-sufficient brevity. None was attempted.

The windows had gradually paled from gray to white, streaks of gold caught and reflected in the glass panes as the sun drew up above the horizon. All night the air had been filled with a steady murmur and dull flow of sound, unobserved because of its very continuity. Now, across the hush of the sick room unexpectedly crashed a roar of rapid explosions, growing thunderous as it approached nearer; cheers of joyous excitement pealed from many throats. Gerard started, his eyes blazing wide.

"The race," flung the mechanician bitterly. "It's on."

Gerard slowly raised his left arm and dropped it across his face as those who yesterday were his mates rushed past the house. With the movement a spot of crimson sprang into view against the linen swathing his shoulder, enlarging ominously, but even the alarmed Rupert knew this was no time to summon doctor or nurse, whatever the physical cost.

"Don't you think?" Gerard presently asked, quite gently and naturally, "that I've got enough to stand, Rupert?"

The sound that broke from the vanquished mechanician was less cry than curse.

"I'll shut up!" he cast his submission before the victor. "I ain't going to lie--I'd choke--but I'll hold my tongue. Don't ask more or I'll take back that. You've got me down; I'll shut up."

VIII

AFTERMATH

The newspapers were mercifully brief upon the subject of the unsupported accusation brought against Corrie Rose, although diffuse enough in accounts of the much-known Gerard's disaster. The driver's own explanation of his accident was accepted; his attitude towards the young amateur fixed the attitude of the public. Moreover, Jack Rupert was stricken suddenly dumb; no reportorial blandishments could obtain from him, on the second day, so much as an admission of the charges made by him on the day previous. Rupert surrendered like a gentleman: he laid down all his weapons. Dean's appearance at his usual duties and explanation of his absence from the pink car quashed the last rumor, for the finding of a wrench beside a motor course meant nothing, considered alone.

The first things for which Mr. Rose looked each morning were the daily papers. After which, he invariably shot a glance of blended relief and smarting humiliation into the wide, earnest eyes of Flavia, as she sat opposite him behind the gold coffee-service, and addressed himself to his breakfast. He never looked towards his son at that moment, nor did Corrie ever break the ensuing silence. The change that had fallen upon Allan Gerard's life was scarcely more absolute and strange than that which had come upon the Rose household of innocent ostentation and intimate gayety.

But the greatest outward alteration was in Isabel. Flavia and Mr. Rose maintained the usual calm routine of events at home and abroad, Corrie rigidly obeyed his father's command to live so as to provoke no comment. But Isabel's boasted, perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control. She moped all day in her own room, rejecting Flavia's companionship, and fled from Corrie with unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as the days passed, but rather grew worse in condition.

It was in the sixth week after the accident whose echoes threatened to linger so long, that Isabel entered her cousin's study, one afternoon.