Part 5

It was a time and a scene where over-tense nerves not infrequently snapped. But if Gerard was not surprised to see it, Rose certainly was both amazed and humiliated to feel his own eyes suddenly stinging like a girl's.

"If ever I can do anything for you," he stammered fervently.

"I'll give you the chance," promised Gerard, tactfully gay. "Now hurry up your men with the car while I find my mechanician."

The comrade aid had been given to Rose, without the least relation to Rose's sister. But nevertheless Gerard directed a curious look toward the teeming grand-stand, as he turned to make ready. Was she there, he wondered, the flower-like girl with the name of a flower, who had rested in his arms just so long as a blossom might flutter against one in passing? Would her gaze follow the pink racer, still?

CORRIE AND HIS OTHER FELLOW

The touring car rolled slowly through the October leaves rustling and swirling down the road in jovial wind-eddies, came up to a knoll beside the field, and stopped. The driver turned in his seat to face the two occupants of the tonneau, pushing his goggles up above the line of his fair hair.

"Look," he urged eagerly. "Look at the pitcher of our home team. There, just crossing the diamond--it's a new inning."

"It's not the first baseball game you've brought us out to see, Corrie," observed Mr. Thomas Rose, setting his own goggles on his cap above the line of his reddish-gray hair. "Is it, my girl?"

His daughter laughed, shaking her small head in its crimson hood and glancing roguishly at her brother.

"Nor the twenty-first, papa," she amplified.

"Well, but I haven't brought you to see the game, but the pitcher," the boy protested. "He's a new one; you never saw him before. Look."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to."

Flavia Rose obediently turned her gaze toward the players, and upon the indicated man it halted, arrested.

"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, and sat still.

The men were in their places, alert in poised expectation, the attention of the whole field concentrating upon the central figure of the pitcher at whom the young girl also looked. A slim, straight statue he stood during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon sun struck across his wind-ruffled brown hair and smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the catcher and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement and turn of his whole body. The white ball shot across, swerving almost at the plate, and crashed into the catcher's mitt.

"He's got speed!" Mr. Rose approved loudly, standing up in the car. "That's pitching! Who's your friend, Corwin B.?"

His son did not answer. The ball was back in the pitcher's hands; again he was lifting his arms in the pose his physical beauty made classic. There was repeated the quick nod, the abruptly swift movement, and the ball sped across, dropping oddly.

"Strike two!" was called.

Amid the applause and shouts of encouragement, Flavia laid her small, urgent hand on her brother's sleeve.

"Corrie, who is he? Tell us, please."

He moved to see her more directly.

"Do you remember the Beach twenty-four-hour race, last summer, where I finished third? Do you remember how I told you about the big driver, Allan Gerard, who drove my machine for two hours until I could hold the wheel again myself?"

"Of course."

"Strike three--you're out!" rang the umpire's announcement; again the joyous shouts interrupted speech.

"Well, then, that's who."

"That's Gerard, playing ball?" interrogated Mr. Rose, incredulous. "What for? Lost his racing job?"

Laughing, Corrie shook his head.