Part 52

Corrie's movement was swiftly accurate and uncalculated as the leap of some enraged primitive creature. His ungloved fist struck with an impact sounding like the slap of an open hand, and flung the man crashing through the hedge of lilac-bushes to roll over and over on the ground, clutching blindly at the turf strewn with broken leaf-buds.

"Corrie!" Gerard cried stern warning, too late, starting from his seat.

Corrie swung about, his blue eyes blazing in his flushed face, his lips parted in a scarlet line across the white gleam of his set teeth.

"If he comes near me again, I'll kill him!" he panted savagely.

"It seems to me you have done enough of that sort of thing, already," Gerard retorted, equally angered.

The biting reminder was not premeditated; it leaped out of brief wrath and all the aching memories stirred by the episode. But it was none the less effective. Gerard himself did not realize how effective until he saw all the color and animation wiped from the young face and saw Corrie put his hand across his eyes.

"Corrie!" he exclaimed, cut deeply by his own cruelty, amazedly furious with himself. "Corrie----"

Corrie had turned his back to him, not in offence, but as a woman would cover her face. He answered without moving.

"It's--all right. I understand; it is--all right."

Gerard left the car, more humiliated in his own sight than he ever had been in his life. For the moment his own lack of self-control loomed larger than Corrie's, past or present.

"Corrie, I said what I did not mean," he appealed, laying his hand on the other's shoulder. "Forgive me. Don't take it like this!"

Corrie slowly turned to him.

"There isn't anything you can say to me, that I can complain of," he checked apology, quietly serious. "It is all right, of course. I--no one can understand just what it was like to hear him talk that way to me, no one can, ever. But I should not have struck him."

The expression in his eyes as they encountered Gerard's was not of remorse or shame, or resentment, was not any mingling of these, but simply of utter loneliness patiently accepted. Gerard stood back in silence, helplessly aware of having inflicted a hurt no contrition could heal.

The man was sitting up, dazed and bruised, his stupid gaze following his assailant. To him Corrie went, dragging forth a handful of paper money.

"Keep away from me," the victor cautioned with harsh dislike. "I mean it. Here, take this and go. I'm giving it to you because I knocked you down and not because of anything you claim, understand."

The man grasped the money eagerly, peering up with more admiration than sullenness.

"You've got a good punch, mister," he conceded. "I'll get out. I wouldn't have come, only I thought you'd really done what they said, that time."

Corrie drew back sharply, staring at the other. His right hand was cut and bleeding from the blow he had dealt, red drops trickled and fell as he stood, but he did not seem aware of the fact, either then or when he turned away to take his place at the steering-wheel. Gerard took the seat beside him without comment; he fancied he could imagine very exactly what Corrie Rose, gentleman, was enduring.

But whatever Corrie had to endure then or at any time, he was quite masculine enough to hurry it out of sight. At the house, he turned to Gerard his usual matter-of-fact glance.

"I will put the car in the garage and go over to the factory for a while," he said. "Mr. Edwards was going to examine that throttle which jarred open--on the Titan, I mean--so it would be ready for me to start early to-morrow. I told him I would be over, this evening."

"As you like. But do not stay too long; the house is lonely without you. And, do something for that cut hand, Corrie, or it may make you trouble."

They looked at each other.

"Thank you," acknowledged the younger.

The Titan was ready next morning, as due, and the early start was made.

The great machine had run for several days without especial incident, but this morning Devlin's nervous incompetency manifested itself in a new direction. He forgot to fill the oil-tank of the car he served as mechanician, before Corrie took it out. One of the testers drove into the busy courtyard, about ten o'clock, shouting the information that the Titan was stuck eight miles out on the back road and Rose wanted the emergency car to bring him oil.

Sardonic of eye, caustic of tongue, Rupert himself attended to the carrying out of the request and watched the rescuing car depart on its mission. Half an hour later the Titan rolled past, missing fire and running with a sound like a sick gatling gun. Bare-headed and without his mask, Corrie was driving with one hand and striving to aid his mechanician's efforts with the other, as they swept around the mile track. In gritting exasperation Rupert stared after them, then snatched up a red flag and ran to the edge of the road.

Gerard, notified of trouble with the big car, arrived from his office in time to see the Titan halt, flagged, and the lightning strike Devlin.