Part 49

Gerard laid down the card and regarded, troubled, his companion's straight shoulders and the back of his erect head, the only view afforded as Corrie stood before his mirror employing a pair of military brushes upon his unruly blond hair.

"I did not know that the affair--that matters were so far arranged between you and your cousin," he said.

He spoke with hesitation, uncertain of how to venture upon a subject never before broached between them, yet feeling speech tacitly invited. In the stress of his own suffering at the time following the accident, preoccupied by the witnessing of Corrie's hard punishment of dishonor and grief and his struggle to fall no lower under it, he had forgotten that the boy-man also had to bear the loss of the girl upon whom he had spent his first love. For it required no deep insight to recognize that Isabel Rose was not the type of woman who is a refuge in time of disaster.

But the embarrassment was his alone; Corrie answered without confusion:

"We were engaged, yes. But that is ended. She had no need to write. She might have known, or have taken it for granted."

Gerard studied the view presented of his companion, striving to draw some conclusion from pose or tone. He had no mind to have his work of months marred and his driver distracted by an interlude of useless sentimentality; the temptation to congratulate Corrie upon his freedom from an unsuitable marriage was almost too strong. But what he actually said was quite different, and escaped from his lips without consideration of its effect.

"I should not have supposed your cousin had so fine and strict a sense of honor."

The oval brush slipped through Corrie's fingers and fell to the floor, rolling jerkily away with the light glinting on its silver mounting in a series of heliographic flashes. The owner stooped to recover it, groping for the conspicuous object as if the room were dark instead of flooded with the brightness of late afternoon.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "What did you say? Her sense of honor----?"

"I beg your pardon," Gerard promptly apologized, aware of worse than indiscretion. "I, really, Corrie, I hardly realized what I was saying. Certainly I did not mean that the way it sounded. I only intended to say----"

What had he intended to say? What could he substitute for the spoken truth that would not wound the hearer either for himself or for the girl he loved?

"I only meant," he recommenced, "that her asking your formal release showed a careful punctiliousness not common."

Corrie had recovered his brush, now. He laid it on the chiffonier before answering.

"How do we know what is common? What is honor, anyway; what other people see or what you are? I fancy she wouldn't have written if she hadn't been sure of what I'd say," he retorted, with the first cynicism Gerard ever had seen in him. "She likes me to take the responsibility, that's about all. Well, I've done it. Did you say I was keeping dinner waiting?"

This of the once-adored Isabel! However much relief the older man felt, there came with it a sensation of shock and regret. Had Corrie lost so much of his youth, unsuspected by his daily companion? Where were the old illusions which should have blurred this sharp judgment? He made some brief reply, and presently they went downstairs.

The dinner was rather a silent affair.

"Do you want to drive me into town?" Gerard inquired, at its conclusion. "I find that I must see Carruthers before he leaves for the East, and he is stopping at the Hotel Marion. If you are tired, I will get my chauffeur."

"I should like it," Corrie exclaimed, rising eagerly. "I'll get the car. Your car?"

"I should think so. I am not exactly anxious to drive into town with your racing machine, although we have got to make fair time in order to catch him before his train leaves."

Corrie laughed, turning away.

"I'll make the time, all right," he promised. "Your roadster isn't so pretty slow, considering. I'll be at the door in three minutes."

He was, driving hatless and without a motor-mask in the fresh spring air.

"No overcoat?" Gerard disapproved. "What would Rupert say?"

Corrie flushed like a complimented girl; that the mechanician should have admitted him to any intercourse, however cold and slight, moved him so deeply that even Gerard's allusion was too much.

"I have it with me; I don't need it," he evaded hurriedly. "Ready?"

"Ready."

The car sprang forward.

The yellow country road merged into macadam, the macadam into asphalt. They were in the city, presently, slowly rolling through streets filled with playing children who garnered the last daylight moments. On one corner a hand-organ was performing, and the group disporting itself to the flat, tinkling music broke apart to shout after the car, waving grimy hands.