Part 66

"Tanks full," shouted a score of voices.

Men scattered from around the car's wheels in expectation of the start, Gerard stepped back. But Corrie turned in his seat and held out his hand to the speechless Rupert.

"You heard--now do it," he required.

Still dumb, the mechanician dragged off his glove and gave for the race's finish the hand-clasp that he had denied for its start.

The Mercury sprang from her camp with a roar of unloosed power and speed-lust. Car and driver splendid mates, they fled in pulsating vigor down their white path where the sun was shining.

During the rest of the hour, people stood up in seats and automobiles, watching the Mercury Titan. Not before had they witnessed driving like that, never again could the driver himself equal that inspired flight.

Just sixty-nine seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Corrie Rose brought his car across the line. As he halted the Mercury before the judges, the people burst out over the course and overwhelmed the victors. Music, clicking cameras, cheers and congratulations--the current of gayety swirled around the winning racer. The first to grasp Corrie's hand was the official starter who had sent him out six hours before, the second was the driver of the barely-defeated Marathon. After that, there was no record possible.

It was some time before Corrie and Rupert could be rescued from the enthusiastic press of admirers. When at last the Mercury came over to its own camp, Gerard was first able to bring Flavia to her brother.

Stiff, weary and dishevelled, Corrie descended from his car, tripping impatiently over the flowers someone had placed in it. There was a perfunctory quality in the tenderness with which he kissed Flavia, as there had been a restive haste in his acceptance of his present ovation. Now, he turned his candid eyes full to Gerard's, baring his inmost need to the one who always understood.

"I want my father," said Corrie Rose.

Very lovingly Gerard put his arm around the slim shoulders and drew his master-driver to a tent behind the repair pit, there left him to enter alone and went back to Flavia.

"I put twelve ham sandwiches and my will in the locker, there," he found Rupert sweetly explaining to the young girl. "I guessed I'd have use for one or the other by this time. And I guess I guessed right. Oh, no--I'll be able to take my regular nourishment just the same, when we get back; this won't count. I," he sent Gerard a glance of saturnine intelligence, "I've got myself all tired out here lately trying to keep on disliking Rose."

"Allan, have you thought that we are going home?" Flavia asked, lifting her happy face to her lover, as he stood over her. "Home; papa and Corrie, and you and I, who were so far apart."

"I have thought that you would put on that lace frock you wore the last evening I saw you there, only this time you will come where I can touch you. Shall I tell you what you looked like that night? You were a golden rose in a sheath of snow, quite out of reach. And you played your dainty music so calmly and smoothly, while I was on fire and seeing rose-color as I listened to your father's stories. I was like poor Cyrano de Bergerac: I had gazed so long at your sun-bright little head that when I looked away my dazzled eyes still saw gold."

Her red mouth dimpled into soft mischief and daring.

"Shall I tell you what I saw while I was playing, Allan? I watched you under my eyelashes--this way--and I wondered whether anyone else ever looked quite so nice even from behind, and, and what it would be like to touch your crinkly hair with one's finger."

"Do it now!"

She declined with an eloquent gesture. Around their enclosure the vast crowds were streaming back to New York, the course was filled from edge to edge with a solid procession of homing automobiles of every type and age. Amid noise and congestion and merriment, Long Island's guests were trouping out.

But comparative quietness had descended upon the row of pits when, half an hour later, Mr. Rose and Corrie strolled casually up to join the other two members of the party.

"I don't know how long you propose to stay here," observed the senior, tolerantly. "Lenoir is waiting with the limousine, and it strikes us it's about time to start for home."

"Chilly wind blowing, too," Corrie suggested, his hands in the pockets of his long gray motor-coat. "Fancy Lenoir lugging this old coat of mine around in the car, Other Fellow, until now. It's a wonder the butterflies haven't eaten it--moths, I mean."

Gerard and Flavia exchanged a glance of infinitely tender comprehension of these two.

"I want to show you all something, first," Gerard detained them. "We don't want to take any worries home that we can leave here. Give me that ball of tape you put in your pocket this morning, Corrie."

Astonished, Corrie obeyed.

"Hello, Rupert!" Gerard sent his clear voice across to where that black-eyed mechanician leaned against the Mercury Titan, a hundred feet away. "Catch!"

Rupert promptly turned. The improvised ball in his fingers, Gerard slowly raised both arms above his head in the old graceful gesture, his brilliant amber eyes smiling at his companions, then launched the sphere straight to its goal.

It was not Flavia who found overtaxed nerves give way.

"Gerard! Gerard!" Corrie's cry rang out; he sank down on a camp-chair and covered his face.