Part 63

Gerard stopped her, pointing to the white hill. The roar of an approaching car filled the air; as Flavia looked, the Mercury shot past, running faultlessly, but carrying two spare tires where she had started with four.

"They will be in, next lap," Gerard predicted. "Rupert won't want to run with only two extra tires on board, and I don't think Corrie will overrule him."

He went forward to give some directions to prepare for the flying visit, Flavia watching. She made no demand for attention, no betrayal of feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into which she had been brought. Men looked curiously at the delicate, serious girl who sat so quietly in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information crept out that she was Rose's sister and Gerard's fiancée, so that wonder became merely admiration.

True to expectation, the Mercury halted before her repair pit, on the next circuit.

"Cases," commanded Rupert, tersely, out of his seat before the stop. "Move quick! Who's nailed fast now?"

The slur was undeserved; the waiting tires were flung on and secured by hurrying hands.

"Drink it," Gerard ordered, thrusting a cup at Corrie, as that young driver leaned wearily back. "I don't care whether you want it or not."

"It's the people," Corrie explained, his blue eyes seeking Gerard's across the goggles. "I don't mind anything else. They're over the course so you can't see ahead. Jim hit a woman, on the back stretch, as we passed."

He put the heavy china cup to his lips, but dropped it with a crash to seize his levers as Rupert bounded in beside him.

"Have the people cleared off," he petitioned over his shoulder, while sending his car forward.

Gerard went to the judges' stand.

Corrie Rose was not the first or only driver to complain of the packed course. The Mercury had scarcely departed when the Marathon car came in, its experienced and steel-fibred pilot on the brink of nervous breakdown.

"I won't drive if the mob isn't put off the road," he defied his manager. "I've killed a woman back there--do you hear? A woman! There are women and kids right against the wheels on the worst turns. Get 'em off!"

The Marathon force flocked around him in consternation, while his manager ran to the judges and the owner of the car implored and adjured the recalcitrant driver to go on without further loss of time. But it was Gerard who saved the situation for his rival.

"It's all right, Jim," he called across, issuing from the official stand and comprehending the deadlock at sight. "You only broke her leg--a telephone report came. Go on; everyone's with you, man!"

The Marathon's mechanician, wise in knowledge of his pilot, at this juncture leaned over and thrust between Jim's lips a lighted cigar.

"Buck up! We're losin'," he urged roughly.

The driver's teeth sullenly clamped shut upon the strong tobacco; he slammed viciously into a gear and hurled his machine down the course before the startled camp realized its victory. The stop had lasted exactly three minutes, but it cost the Marathon its hope of the race.

The morning advanced, gaining in sun-gilt beauty. In the next hour four racers were taken from the contest, three by mechanical difficulties, one as the result of an accident that sent both driver and mechanician to the hospital. The Mercury continued to run steadily and evenly, keeping a consistent pace.

"How much longer?" Flavia anxiously questioned, once. "Do you think everything can stay right to the very end, Allan?"

Gerard laid his warm left hand over her cold one, as it rested on the cushions, his loving eyes caressing her.

"Two hours more, my Flavia. Most surely I believe everything can stay right; why not? Remember Corrie delights in this. He is happier now than when he is what we call at rest. If," again that singular expression of blended shadow and inward illumination rose over his face, "if I were to be made myself and wholly cured, it would not change Corrie's position in Corrie's eyes. I cannot help him there in that hard part, but I have given him a way to forget for a while."

Her soft mouth bent grievedly; Flavia's attention was effectually distracted from contemplation of her brother's bodily peril.

Gerard turned aside. He had heard the reports arrive of one accident after another, he saw driver after driver come in gray-lipped and savage under the strain of racing on the crowded path, and he knew what Flavia did not--that this was proving the most disastrous affair ever held on the Cup course.

"I don't mind risking my own neck, I'm used to that," gritted an old-time comrade to Gerard, during a pause for refilling tanks. "It's the people under foot; ---- them! Haven't they any sense? Jim's Marathon hit a man, ten minutes ago; he's still driving, half crazy, because he can't stop. Damn the country police!"

"Rose----?"

"Rose is changing tires at the Westbury turn. I'm off."

That bit of news spared a bad quarter-hour to the two who loved Corrie.