Part 67

Alarmed and remorseful, Gerard sprang to him.

"Corrie--don't take it like that! It is all right; I've been fighting for this ten months under a French surgeon's orders."

"You never told me. Oh, Gerard, Gerard!"

"I did not want to tell you until I was sure the cure was real and permanent. And I was not sure until I met the surgeon in New York, yesterday."

"You could have told me last night. I might have been killed to-day and never have known."

Gerard exchanged with Mr. Rose a glance of very sad understanding, a mutual acknowledgment of mutual error.

"Would you have driven the Mercury to-day against your father's wish, if you had known that I should be able to drive my own car next year? I think not. If you were to be taken from me and this life, I wanted you to take with you the memory of this race instead of the humiliation of a withdrawal. And I believed that I was dealing with an unsteadied boy who needed the sharp tonic of work and danger--ah, Corrie, forgive me!--instead of the strongest man in endurance I ever knew. But I would tell no one else until I did you, although," he turned to the radiant girl, "although it was hard not to hold out both hands to Flavia."

She put her hands in both his, then, and felt them close on hers for all time.

"Rupert knew," Corrie presently divined, as the unsurprised mechanician lounged toward them.

"Yes, Rupert knew," Gerard confirmed. "He helped me go through the treatment each day. One reason I did not tell you what we were doing, was that the process was not very pleasant, and it used to leave me rather upset and sick for a while--you caught me too soon after it that morning you signed the contracts. Don't wince; you had nothing to do with my smash."

"But I blamed myself, always!" Corrie stood up, thrusting his hands into his pockets and squaring his shoulders with the sturdy responsibility so easily read now. "I had no business to take Isabel there, and I put the mischief into her head by pitching bolts at you. She couldn't tell it was in fun. I--I would rather have known you'd get well, Gerard, than have known I was cleared."

"Didn't it ever occur to you, Corrie, to blame us, when we were so ready to convict you and pass judgment?" countered Gerard.

Checked, Corrie surveyed the three with the ingenuous astonishment of a new point of view.

"Blame you people?" he marvelled. "Why, when I thought what a low brute you had every right to believe I was, I used to feel like thanking you for staying in the same room with me. I--Well, I guess it's time to go home, isn't it? I'll leave you to start."

"Leave us?" exclaimed Flavia.

"You'll make a line for that limousine right now, Corwin B.," pronounced Mr. Rose, with the familiar easy mastery that was a caress.

His son laughingly shook his fair head.

"No, thanks, sir. I'm going to drive the Mercury Titan home and put it in the garage. Unless," he looked over his shoulder, "unless Rupert is afraid to trust himself to ride with a punk chauffeuse and a no-class fake?"

"I ain't real nervous to-day," drawled the mechanician graciously. "Nor I ain't supposing but what you're entitled to a chauffeur's license, Rose."

XVII

THE END OF THE ROAD

In the golden afternoon sunlight, when tree-shadows stretched long and velvet-soft across the lawns and terraces of Mr. Rose's park, amid all October's blending fragrances and mellow tints, Corrie Rose came home. After all, it was Jack Rupert who put the Mercury Titan in the garage, opposite the house; Corrie yielding his seat to his mechanician.

"I believe I'll let you take her around; I want to go in with my people," the driver explained. "You might as well get established here, you know, since you are going to stay some time. I," it was so long since anyone had seen that teasing mischief sparkling in Corrie's unclouded eyes, "I have grown so used to your gentle, winning ways that I don't know how to get along without you, Rupert."

Rupert settled himself in the great machine, regarding his companion with dry intelligence.

"I've got more respect for your morals than I had, Rose, and less for your sense," he issued final judgment above the clamor of the motor, before sending the car away.

"Right again," Corrie agreed. He turned and looked up at the house.

The three from the limousine were waiting for him upon the columned veranda. Weary, stiff and aching from long exertion, soiled with the dust of course and road, Corrie, victor of that day and of many days, climbed the broad rose-colored steps to them. There was nothing adequate to say, had they been a demonstrative family; as it was, no one considered speech. But at the open door Corrie stopped, turning his bright, clear glance to his father. And Thomas Rose closed his hand on his son's shoulder, so that they crossed the threshold together.

Gerard detained Flavia a pace behind.