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 HE FLYING MERCURY
 
 THE 
 
 FLYING 
 MERCURY 
 
 ELfcANOR M INGRAM 
 
 Author of 
 THL GAME AND THE CANDLE, 
 
 With Illustrations ty 
 EDMUND FREDERICK 
 
 Decorations by 
 BERTHA STUART 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1910 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
 
 MY MOST DELIGHTFUL COMRADES AND 
 
 INDULGENT MOTOR INSTRUCTORS 
 
 MY TWO BROTHERS 
 
 2136-171
 
 THE FLYING MERCURY
 
 THE roaring reports of the motor 
 fell into abrupt silence, as the 
 driver brought his car to a halt. 
 "You signaled?" he called across the 
 grind of set brakes. 
 
 In the blending glare of the search- 
 lights from the two machines, the gray 
 one arriving and the limousine drtwn to 
 the roadside, the young girl stood, her 
 hand still extended in the gesture which 
 had stopped the man who now leaned 
 across his wheel. 
 
 "Oh, please," she appealed again. 
 On either side stretched away the Long 
 Island meadows, dark, soundless, appar- 
 i
 
 ently uninhabited. Only this spot of light 
 broke the monotony of dreariness. A 
 keen, chill, October wind sighed past, 
 stirring the girl's delicate gown as its 
 folds lay unheeded in the dust, fluttering 
 her fur-lined cloak and shaking two or 
 three childish curls from the bondage of 
 her velvet hood. The driver swung him- 
 self down and came toward her with the 
 unhasting swiftness of one trained to the 
 unexpected. 
 
 "I beg pardon can I be of some use?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "We are lost," she confessed hurriedly. 
 "If you could set us right, I should be 
 grateful. I we must get home soon. I 
 have been a guest at a house somewhere 
 here, and started to return to New York 
 this afternoon. The chauffeur does not 
 know Long Island; we can not seem to 
 
 2
 
 find any place. And now we have lost a 
 tire. I was afraid " 
 
 She broke off abruptly, as her compan- 
 ion descended from the limousine. 
 
 "We only want to know the way ; we're 
 all right," he explained. "This is my 
 cousin; I came out after her, you see. 
 Don't get so worried, Emily we'll go 
 straight on as soon as Anderson changes 
 the tire." 
 
 He huddled his words slightly and 
 spoke too rapidly, the round, good-hu- 
 mored face he turned to the white light 
 was too flushed; otherwise there was 
 nothing unusual in his appearance. And 
 his caste was evident and unquestionable, 
 in spite of any circumstance. There was 
 no anger in the girl's dark eyes as she 
 gazed straight before her, only pity and 
 helpless distress. 
 
 3
 
 "I can tell your chauffeur the road," 
 the driver of the gray car quietly said. 
 "Have you far to go?" 
 
 "To the St. Royal," she answered, look- 
 ing at him. "My uncle is there. Is that 
 far?" 
 
 "No; you can reach there by ten 
 oclock. I will speak to your chauffeur." 
 
 "Do, like a good fellow," the other man 
 interposed. "Awfully obliged. You're 
 not angry, Emily," he added, lowering 
 his voice, and moving nearer her. "Since 
 we're engaged, why should you get fright- 
 ened simply because I proposed we get 
 married to-night instead of waiting for a 
 big wedding? I thought it was a good 
 idea, you know. It isn't my fault Ander- 
 son got lost instead of getting us home 
 for dinner, is it?" 
 
 "Hush, Dick," she rebuked, hot color 
 
 4
 
 sweeping her face. "You, you are not 
 well. And we are not engaged; you for- 
 get. Just because people want us to 
 be Too proud to let her steadiness 
 quiver, she broke the sentence. 
 
 If the driver had heard, and it was 
 scarcely possible that he had not, he made 
 no sign. By the acetylene light he pro- 
 duced an envelope and pencil, and pro- 
 ceeded to sketch a map, showing the route 
 to the limousine's chauffeur. 
 
 "Understand it?" he queried, conclud- 
 ing. He had a certain decision of man- 
 ner, not in the least arrogant, but the re- 
 sult of a serene self-surety that somehow 
 accorded with his lithe, trained grace of 
 movement. A judge of men would have 
 read him an athlete, perhaps in an unusual 
 line. 
 
 "Yes, sir," the chauffeur replied. "I'll 
 
 5
 
 get Miss Ffrench home in no time after 
 I get the tire on." 
 
 The indiscretion of the spoken name 
 was ignored, except for a slight lift of 
 the hearer's eyebrows. 
 
 "How long does it take you to change 
 a tire?' 7 
 
 "About half an hour; it's night, of 
 
 course." 
 
 An odd, choking gurgle sounded from 
 the gray machine, where a dark figure 
 had sat until now in quiescent muteness. 
 
 "Half an hour!" echoed the gray ma- 
 chine's driver, and faced toward the 
 chuckle. "Rupert, it isn't in your con- 
 tract, but do you want to come over and 
 change this tire?" 
 
 "I'll do it for you, Darling," was the 
 sweet response; the small figure rolled 
 over the edge of the car with a cat-like 
 6
 
 celerity. "Where are your tools, you 
 chauffeur? Quick!" 
 
 The bewildered chauffeur mechanic- 
 ally reached for a box on the running- 
 board, as the young assistant came up, 
 grinning all over his malign dark face. 
 
 "Oh, quicker! What's the matter, 
 rheumatism? They wouldn't have you 
 in a training camp for motor trucks on 
 Sunday. Hustle, please." 
 
 There never had been anything done 
 to that sedate limousine quite as this was 
 done. Even the preoccupied girl looked 
 on in fascination at a rapidity of unwasted 
 movement suggesting a conjuring feat. 
 
 "By George!" exclaimed her escort. 
 "A splendid man you've got there! Re- 
 ally, a splendid chauffeur, you know." 
 
 The driver smiled with a gleam of 
 irony, but disregarded the comment 
 7
 
 "Would you like to get into your car?" 
 he asked the girl. "You will be able to 
 start very soon." 
 
 "I see that," she acknowledged grate- 
 fully. "Thank you ; I would rather wait 
 here." 
 
 "Is your chauffeur trustworthy?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; he has been in my uncle's 
 employ for three years. But he was 
 never before out here, in this place." 
 
 There was a pause, filled by the soft 
 monotone of insults drifting from the side 
 of the limousine, for Rupert talked while 
 he worked and his fellow-worker did not 
 please him. 
 
 "Wrench, baby hippo! Oh, look be- 
 hind you where you put it you need a 
 memory course. You ought to be pass- 
 ing spools to a lady with a sewing-ma- 
 chine. Did you ever see a motor-car be- 
 8
 
 fore? There, pump her up, do." He 
 rose, drew out his watch and glanced at 
 it. "Five minutes; I'll have to beat that 
 day after to-morrow." 
 
 The driver looked over at him and 
 their eyes laughed together. Now, for 
 the first time, the girl noticed that across 
 the shoulders of both men's jerseys ran 
 in silver letters the name of a famous 
 foreign automobile. 
 
 "I am very grateful, indeed," she said 
 bravely and graciously. "I wish I could 
 ay more, or say it better. The journey 
 will be short, now." 
 
 But all her dignity could not check the 
 frightened shrinking of her glance, first 
 toward the interior of the limousine and 
 then toward the man who was to enter 
 there with her. And the driver of the 
 gray machine saw it. 
 9
 
 "We have done very little," he re- 
 turned. "May I put you in your car?" 
 
 The chauffeur was gathering his tools, 
 speechlessly outraged, and making ready 
 to start. Seated among the rugs and 
 cushions, under the light of the luxurious 
 car, the girl deliberately drew off her 
 glove and held out her small uncovered 
 hand to the driver of the gray machine. 
 
 "Thank you," she said again, meeting 
 his eyes with her own, whose darkness 
 contrasted oddly with the blonde curls 
 clustered under her hood. 
 
 "You are not afraid to drive into the 
 city alone?" he asked. 
 
 "Alone! Why, my cousin " 
 
 "Your cousin is going to stay with' 
 
 me." 
 
 She flung back her head; amazement, 
 question, relief struggled over her sensi- 
 10
 
 tive face, and finally melted into irre- 
 pressible mirth under the fine amusement 
 of his regard. 
 
 "You are clever and kind, to do that! 
 No, I am not afraid." 
 
 He closed the door. 
 
 "Take your mistress home," he bade 
 the chauffeur. "Crank for him, Rupert." 
 
 "Why, why " stammered the limou- 
 sine's other passenger, turning as the mo- 
 tor started. 
 
 No one heeded him. 
 
 "By-by, don't break any records," Ru- 
 pert called after the chauffeur. "Hold 
 yourself in, do. If you shed any more 
 tires, telegraph for me, and if I'm within 
 a day's run I'll come put them on for you 
 and save you time." 
 
 Silence closed in again, as the red tail- 
 light vanished around a bend. The gray 
 ii
 
 car's driver nodded curtly to the stupefied 
 youth in the middle of the road. 
 
 "Unless you want to stay here all night, 
 you'd better get in the machine," he sug- 
 gested. "My name's Lestrange I sup- 
 pose yours is Ffrench?" 
 
 "Dick Ffrench. But, see here, you 
 mean well, but I'm going with my cousin. 
 I'd like a drive with you, but I'm busy." 
 
 "You're not fit to go with your cousin." 
 
 "Not" 
 
 "Fit," completed Lestrange definitely. 
 "Can you hang on somewhere, Rupert?" 
 
 "I can," Rupert assured, with an in- 
 flection of his own. "Get your friend 
 aboard." 
 
 Lestrange was already in his seat, wait- 
 ing. 
 
 "What's that for?" asked the dazed 
 guest, as, on taking his place, a strap was 
 12
 
 slipped around his waist, securing him to 
 the seat. 
 
 "So you won't fall out," soothed the 
 grinning Rupert. "You ain't well, you 
 know. Not that I'd care if you did, but 
 somebody might blame Darling." 
 
 The car leaped forward, gathering 
 speed to an extent that was a revelation 
 in motoring to Ffrench. The keen air, 
 the giddy rush through the dark, were a 
 sobering tonic. After a while he spoke 
 to the man beside him, nervously embar- 
 rassed by a situation he was beginning to 
 appreciate. 
 
 "This is a racing car?" 
 
 "It was." 
 
 "Isn't it now?" 
 
 "If I were going to race it day after 
 to-morrow, I wouldn't be risking it over a 
 country road to-night. A racing machine 
 
 13
 
 is petted like a race-horse until it is 
 wanted." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "It takes its chances. If you are con- 
 nected with the Ffrenches who manufac- 
 ture the Mercury car, you should know 
 something of automobile racing your- 
 self. I noticed your limousine was of 
 that make." 
 
 "Yes, that is my uncle's company. I 
 did see a race once at Coney Island. A 
 car turned over and killed its driver and 
 made a nasty muss. I I didn't fancy 
 it." 
 
 A wheel slipped off a stone, giving the 
 car a swerving lurch which was as instantly 
 .corrected with a second lurch by its 
 pilot. The effect was not tranquilizing; 
 the shock swept the last confusion from 
 Ffrench's brain. 
 
 14
 
 "Where are you taking me?" he pres- 
 ently asked. 
 
 "Where do you want to go? I will set 
 you down at the next village we come to; 
 you can stay there to-night or you can get 
 a trolley to the city." 
 
 The question remained unanswered. 
 Several times Ffrench glanced, rather 
 diffidently, at his companion's clear, firm 
 profile, and looked away again without 
 speaking. 
 
 "I went out to get my cousin to-day, 
 and my host gave me a couple of high- 
 balls," he volunteered, at last. "I don't 
 know what you thought " 
 
 Lestrange twisted his car around a be- 
 lated farm-wagon. 
 
 "How old are you?" he inquired 
 calmly. 
 
 "Twenty-three." 
 
 '5
 
 "I'm nearly twenty-seven. That's what 
 I thought." 
 
 The simpler mind considered this for 
 a space. 
 
 "Some men are born awake, some awake 
 themselves, and some are shaken into 
 awakening," paraphrased Lestrange, in 
 addition. "If I were you, I'd wake up; 
 it comes easier and it's sure to arrive any- 
 how. There is the village ahead shall 
 I stop?" 
 
 "It looks terribly dull," was the doleful 
 verdict. 
 
 "Then come with me," flashed the other 
 unexpectedly; for a fractional instant his 
 eyes left the road and turned to his com- 
 panion's face. "Did you ever see race 
 practice at dawn? Come try a night in 
 a training camp." 
 
 "You'd bother with me?" 
 16
 
 "Yes." 
 
 A head bobbed up by Ffrench's knee, 
 where Rupert was clinging in some inex- 
 plicable fashion. 
 
 "Once I rode eight miles out there by 
 the hood, head downward, holding in a 
 pin," he imparted, by way of entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 Ffrench stared at the reeling perch 
 indicated, and gasped. 
 
 "What for?" he asked. 
 
 "So we could keep on to our control 
 instead of being put out of the running, 
 of course. Did you guess I was curing a 
 headache?" 
 
 "But you might have been killed 1" ex- 
 claimed Ffrench. 
 
 Even by the semi-light of the lamps 
 there was visible the mechanician's droll 
 twist of lip and brow. 
 
 '7
 
 "I'd drive to hell with Lestrange," he 
 explained sweetly, and settled back in his 
 place. 
 
 Ffrench drew a long breath. After a 
 moment he again looked at the driver. 
 
 "I'll come," he accepted. "And, thank 
 you." 
 
 It was Lestrange who smiled this time, 
 with a sudden and enchanting warmth of 
 mirth. 
 
 "We'll try to amuse you," he promised. 
 
 18
 
 II 
 
 IT was a business consultation that was 
 being held in Mr. Ffrench's firelit 
 library, in spite of the presence of 
 a tea-table and the young girl behind it 
 A consultation between the two partners 
 who composed the Mercury Automobile 
 Company, of whom the lesser was speak- 
 ing with a certain anecdotal weight. 
 
 "And he said he was losing too much 
 time on the turns; so the next round he 
 took the bend at seventy-two miles an 
 hour. He went over, of course. The 
 third car we've lost this year; I'm glad 
 the season's closed." 
 
 Emily Ffrench gave an exclamation, 
 her velvet eyes widening behind their 
 black lashes. 
 
 19
 
 "But the driver! Was the poor driver 
 hurt, Mr. Bailey?" 
 
 "He wasn't killed, Miss Emily," an- 
 swered Bailey, with a tinge of pensive re- 
 gret. He was a large, ruddy, white- 
 haired man, with the slow and careful 
 habit of speech sometimes found in those 
 who live much with massive machinery. 
 "No, he wasn't killed ; he's in the hospital. 
 But he wrecked as good a car as ever was 
 built, through sheer foolishness. It costs 
 money." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench responded to the indirect 
 appeal with more than usual irritation, 
 his level gray eyebrows contracting. 
 
 "We ought to have better drivers. 
 Why do you not get better men, Bailey? 
 You wanted to go into this racing busi- 
 ness; you said the cars needed advertis- 
 ing. My brother always attended to that 
 20
 
 side of the factory affairs, while he lived, 
 with you as his manager. Now it is alto- 
 gether in your hands. Why do you not 
 find a proper driver?" 
 
 "Perhaps my hands are not used to 
 holding so much," mused Bailey unresent- 
 f ully. "A man might be a good manager, 
 maybe, and weak as a partner. It isn't 
 the same job. But a first-class driver 
 isn't easy to get, Mr. Ffrench. There's 
 Delmar killed, and George tied up with 
 another company, and Dorian retired, all 
 this last season ; and we don't want a for- 
 eigner. There's only one man I like " 
 
 "Well, get him. Pay him enough." 
 
 Bailey hunched himself together and 
 crossed his legs. 
 
 "Yes, sir. He's beaten our cars and 
 others every race lately, with poorer ma- 
 chines, just by sheer pretty driving. He 
 
 21
 
 drives fast, yet he don't knock out his car. 
 But there's a lot after him there's just 
 one way we could get him, and get him 
 for keeps." 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 "He's ambitious; he wants to get into 
 something more solid than racing. If we 
 offered to make him manager, he'd come 
 and put some new ideas, maybe, into the 
 factory, and race our cars wherever we 
 chose to enter them. I know him pretty 
 well." 
 
 The proposition was advanced tenta- 
 tively, with the hesitation of one ventur- 
 ing in unknown places. But Ethan 
 Ffrench said nothing, his gray eyes fixed 
 on the hearth. 
 
 "He understands motor construction 
 and designing, and he's been with big for- 
 eign firms," Bailey resumed, after wait- 
 22
 
 ing. "He'd be useful around; I can't be 
 everywhere. What he'd do for us in rac- 
 ing would help a whole lot. It's very 
 well to make a fine standard car, but it 
 needs advertising to keep people remem- 
 bering. And men like to say 'my ma- 
 chine is the same as Lestrange won the 
 Cup race with.' They like it." 
 
 "I don't know," said Mr. Ffrench 
 slowly, "that it is dignified for the man- 
 ager of the Mercury factory to be a rac- 
 ing driver." 
 
 "The Christine cars are driven by the 
 son of the man who makes them," was the 
 response. "Some drive their own." 
 
 "The son of the man who makes them," 
 repeated the other. He turned his face 
 still more to the quivering fire, his always 
 severe expression hardening strangely and 
 bitterly. "The son" 
 23
 
 The girl rose to draw the crimson cur- 
 tains before the windows and to push an 
 electric switch, rilling the room with a 
 subdued golden glow in place of the late 
 afternoon grayness. Her delicate face, 
 as she regarded her uncle, revealed most 
 strongly its characteristic over-earnestness 
 and a sensitive reflection of the moods of 
 those around her. Emily Ffrench's 
 childhood had been passed in a Canadian 
 convent, and something of its mysticism 
 clung about her. As the cheerful change 
 she had wrought flashed over the room, 
 Mr. Ffrench held out his hand in a ges- 
 ture of summons, so that she came across 
 to sit on the broad arm of his chair during 
 the rest of the conference, her soft gaze 
 resting on the third member. 
 
 "My adopted son and nephew having 
 no such talents, we must do the best we 
 
 24
 
 can," Mr. Ffrench stated, with his most 
 precise coldness. "Being well-born and 
 well-bred, he has no taste for a mechanic's 
 labor or for circus performances with au- 
 tomobiles in public. Who is your man, 
 Bailey?" 
 
 "Lestrange, sir. You must have heard 
 of him often," 
 
 "I never read racing news." 
 
 "I read ours," said Bailey darkly. 
 "We've been licked often enough by him. 
 And he's straight he's one of the few 
 men who'll stop at the grand-stand and 
 lose time reporting a smash-up and send- 
 ing help around. Every man on the 
 Crack likes Darling Lestrangc." 
 
 "Likes whom?" 
 
 Bailey flushed brick-red. 
 
 "I didn't mean to call him that He 
 signs himself D. Lestrange, and some of 
 
 25
 
 them started reading it Darling, joking 
 because he was such a favorite and because 
 they liked him anyhow. It's just a nick- 
 
 name." 
 
 Emily laughed out involuntarily, sur- 
 prised. 
 
 "I beg pardon," she at once apologized, 
 "but it sounded so frivolous." 
 
 "If you try this man, you had better 
 keep that nickname out of the factory," 
 Mr. Ffrench advised stiffly. "What re- 
 spect could the workmen feel for a man- 
 ager with such a title? If possible, you 
 would do well to prevent them from rec- 
 ognizing him as the racing driver." 
 
 Bailey, who had risen at the chime of 
 a clock, halted amazed. 
 
 "Respect for him!" he echoed. "Not 
 recognize him! Why, there isn't a man 
 on the place who wouldn't give his ears 
 26

 
 to be seen on the same side of the street 
 with Lestrange, let alone to work under 
 him. They do read the racing news. 
 That part of it will be all right, if I can 
 have him." 
 
 "If it is necessary " 
 
 "I think it is, sir." 
 
 Emily moved slightly, pushing back 
 her yellow-brown curls under the ribbon 
 that banded them. On a sudden impulse 
 her uncle looked up at her. 
 
 "What is your opinion?" he questioned. 
 "If Dick had been listening I should have 
 asked his, and I fancy yours is fully as 
 valuable. Come, shall we have this rac- 
 ing manager?" 
 
 Astonished, she looked from her uncle 
 to the other man. And perhaps it was 
 the real anxiety and suspense of Bailey's 
 expression that drew her quick reply. 
 27
 
 "Let us, uncle. Since we need him, 
 let us have him." 
 
 "Very well," said Mr. Ff rench. "You 
 hear, Bailey." 
 
 There was a long silence after the jun- 
 ior partner's withdrawal. 
 
 "Come where I can see you, Emily," 
 her uncle finally demanded. "I liked 
 your decided answer a few moments ago; 
 you can reason. How long have you been 
 a daughter in my house?" 
 
 "Six years," she responded, obediently 
 moving to a low chair opposite. "I was 
 fifteen when you took me from the con- 
 vent to make me very, very happy, 
 dear." 
 
 "I sent for you when I sent for Dick, 
 and for the same reason. I have tried 
 three times to rear one of my name to fit- 
 ness to bear it, and each one has failed 
 28
 
 except you. I wish you were a man, 
 Emily; there is work for a Ffrench to 
 do." 
 
 "When you say that, I wish I were. 
 But I'm not, I'm not." She flung out 
 her slender, round arms in a gesture of 
 helpless resignation. "I'm not even a 
 strong-minded woman who might do in- 
 stead. Uncle Ethan, may I ask it was 
 Mr. Bailey who made me think my 
 cousin whom I never saw, will he never 
 come home?" 
 
 Her voice faltered on the last words, 
 frightened at her own daring. But her 
 uncle answered evenly, if coldly: 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "He offended you so?" 
 
 "His whole life was an offense. School, 
 college, at home, in each he went wrong. 
 At twenty-one he left me and married a 
 29
 
 woman from the vaudeville stage. It is 
 not of him you are to think, Emily, but 
 of a substitute for him. For that I de- 
 signed Dick; once I hoped you would 
 marry him and sober his idleness." 
 
 "Please, no," she refused gently. "I 
 am fond of Dick, but please, no." 
 
 "I am not asking it of you. He is well 
 enough, a good boy, not overwise, but not 
 what is needed here. Failed, again; I 
 am not fortunate. There is left only you." 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 Her startled dark eyes and his deter- 
 mined gray ones met, and so remained. 
 
 "You, and your husband. Are you go- 
 ing to marry a man who can take my 
 place in this business, in the factory and 
 the model village my brother and I built 
 around it; a man whose name will be fit 
 to join with ours and so in a fashion pre- 
 30
 
 serve it here? Will you wait until such 
 a one is found and will you aid me to find 
 him? Or will you too follow selfish, idk 
 fancies of your own?" 
 
 "No!" she answered, quite pale. "I 
 would not do that! I will try to help." 
 
 "You will take up the work the men 
 of your name refuse, you will provide a 
 substitute for them?" 
 
 Her earnestness sprang to meet his 
 strength of will, she leaned nearer in her 
 enthusiasm of self-abnegation, scarcely 
 understood. 
 
 "I will find a substitute or accept yours. 
 I, indeed I will try not to fail." 
 
 It was characteristic that he offered 
 neither praise nor caress. 
 
 "You have relieved my mind," said 
 Ethan Ffrench, and turned his face once 
 more to the fire.
 
 Ill 
 
 IT was October when the consultation 
 was held in the library of the old 
 Ff rench house on the Hudson ; De- 
 cember was very near on the sunny morn- 
 ing that Emily drove out to the factory 
 and sought Bailey in his office. 
 
 "I wanted to talk with you," she ex- 
 plained, as that gentleman rose to receive 
 her. "We have known each other for a 
 long time, Mr. Bailey; ever since I came 
 from the Sacred Heart to live with Uncle 
 Ethan. That is a very long time." 
 
 "It's a matter of five or six years," 
 agreed the charmed Bailey, contemplat- 
 ing her with affectionate pride in her pret- 
 tiness and grace. "You used to drive out 
 here with your pony and spend many an 
 32
 
 hour looking on and asking questions. 
 You'll excuse me, Miss Emily, but there 
 was many a man passed the whisper that 
 you'd have made a fine master of the 
 works." 
 
 She shook her head, folding her small 
 gloved hands upon the edge of the desk 
 at the opposite sides of which they were 
 seated. 
 
 "At least I would have tried. I am 
 quite sure I would have tried. But I am 
 only a girl. I came to ask you something 
 regarding that," she lifted her candid 
 eyes to his, her soft color rising. "Do 
 you know have you ever met any men 
 who cared and understood about such fac- 
 tories as this? Men who could take 
 charge of a business, the manufacturing 
 and racing and selling, like my uncles? 
 I have a reason for asking." 
 
 33
 
 "Sure thing," said Bailey, unexpectedly 
 prompt. "I've met one man who knows 
 how to handle this factory better than I 
 do, and I've been at it twelve years. And 
 there he is " he turned in his revolving 
 chair and rolled up the shade covering 
 the glass-set door into the next room, "my 
 manager, Lestrange." 
 
 The scene thus suddenly opened to the 
 startled Emily was sufficiently matter-of- 
 fact, yet not lacking in a certain sober 
 animation of its own. Around a draft- 
 ing table central in the bare, systematic 
 disorder of the apartment beyond, three 
 or four blue-shirted men were grouped, 
 bending over a set of drawings, which 
 Lestrange was explaining. Explaining 
 with a vivid interest in his task that spar- 
 kled over his clear face in a changing play 
 of expression almost mesmeric in its com- 
 34
 
 mand of attention. The men watched 
 and listened intently; they themselves no 
 common laborers, but the intelligent 
 workmen who were to carry out the ideas 
 here set forth. Wherever Lestrange had 
 been, he was coatless and the sleeves of 
 his outing shirt were rolled back, leaving 
 bare the arms whose smooth symmetry 
 revealed little of the racing driver's 
 strength ; his thick brown hair was rum- 
 pled into boyish waves and across his 
 forehead a fine black streak wrote of re- 
 cent personal encounter with things prac- 
 tical. 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Emily faintly. And 
 after a moment, "Close the curtain, 
 please." 
 
 None of the group in the next room 
 had noticed the movement of the shade, 
 absorbed in one another; any sound being 
 
 35
 
 muffled by the throb of adjacent machin- 
 ery. Bailey obeyed the request, and 
 leaned back in his chair. 
 
 "That's Darling Lestrange," he stated 
 with satisfaction. "That's his own de- 
 sign for an oiling system he's busy with, 
 and it's a beauty. He's entered for every 
 big race coming this season, starting next 
 week in Georgia, and meantime he over- 
 sees every department in every building as 
 it never was done before. The man for 
 me, he is.*' 
 
 Emily made an unenthusiastic sign of 
 agreement. 
 
 "I meant very different men from Mr. 
 Lestrange," she replied, her dignity alto- 
 gether Ffrench. "I have no doubt that 
 he is all you say, but I was thinking of 
 another class. I meant well, I meant a 
 gentleman." 
 
 36
 
 "Oh, you meant a gentleman," replied 
 Bailey, surveying her oddly. "I didn't 
 know, you see. No; I don't know any 
 one like that." 
 
 "Thank you. Then I will go. I it 
 does not matter." 
 
 She did not go, however, but remained 
 leaning on the arm of her chair in 
 troubled reverie, her long lashes lowered. 
 Bailey sat as quietly, watching her and 
 waiting. 
 
 The murmur of voices came dully 
 through the closed door, one, lighter and 
 clearer in tone, most frequently rising 
 above the roar pervading the whole build- 
 ing. It was not possible that Emily's 
 glimpse of Lestrange across the glass 
 should identify him absolutely with the 
 man she had seen once in the flickering 
 lights and shadows cm ths Long Island 
 
 37
 
 road ; but he was not of a type easily for- 
 gotten, and she had been awakened to a 
 doubting recognition. 
 
 Now, many little circumstances re- 
 curred to her; a strangeness in Dick's 
 manner when the new manager was al- 
 luded to, the fact that her rescuer on that 
 October night had been driving a racing 
 car and had worn a racing costume ; and 
 lastly, when Bailey spoke of "Darling" 
 Lestrange there had flashed across her 
 mind the mechanician's ridiculous answer 
 to the request to aid her chauffeur in 
 changing a tire: "I'll do it for you, 
 Darling." And listening to that dom- 
 inant voice in the next room, she slowly 
 grew crimson before a vision of herself 
 in the middle of a country road, appeal- 
 ing to a stranger for succor, like the her- 
 oine of melodramatic fiction. Decid- 
 
 38
 
 edly, she would never see Lestrange, 
 never let him discover Miss Ff rench. 
 
 "I will go," she reiterated, rising im- 
 petuously. 
 
 The glass-set door opened with un- 
 warning abruptness. 
 
 "I'll see Mr. Bailey," declared some 
 one. "He'll know." 
 
 Helpless, Emily stood still, and 
 straightway found herself looking di- 
 rectly into Lestrange's gray eyes as he 
 halted on the threshold. 
 
 It was Bailey who upheld the moment, 
 all unconsciously. 
 
 "Come in," he invited heartily. "Miss 
 Ffrcnch, this is our manager, Mr. Le- 
 strange; the man who's going to double 
 our sales this year." 
 
 Emily moved, then straightened herself 
 proudly, lifting her small head. Le- 
 
 39
 
 strange had recognized her, she felt; the 
 call was to courage, not flight. 
 
 "I think I have already met Mr. Le- 
 strange," she said composedly. "I am 
 pleased to meet him again." 
 
 "Met him I" cried Bailey. "Met him? 
 Why" 
 
 Neither heeded him. A gleaming sur- 
 prise and warmth lit Lestrange's always 
 brilliant face. 
 
 "Thank you," he answered her. "You 
 arc more than good to recall me, Miss 
 Ffrench. I owe an apology for break- 
 ing in this way, but I fancied Mr. Bailey 
 alone and he spoils me." 
 
 "It is nothing; I was about to go." 
 She turned to give Bailey her hand, smil- 
 ing involuntarily in her relief. With a 
 glance, an inflection, Lestrange had 
 stripped their former meeting of its em- 
 40
 
 barrassment and unconventionality, how, 
 she neither analyzed nor cared. 
 
 "Good morning," said Bailey. "Shall 
 I take you through, or " 
 
 But Lestrange was already holding 
 open the door, with a bright unconcern 
 as to his workmanlike costume which 
 impressed Emily pleasantly. She won- 
 dered if Dick would have borne the sit- 
 uation as well, in the impossible event of 
 his being found at work. 
 
 The two walked together down an aisle 
 of the huge, machinery-crowded room, 
 the grimy men lifting their heads to gaze 
 after Emily as she passed. Once Le- 
 strange paused to speak to a man who sat, 
 note-book and pencil in hand, beside an- 
 other who manipulated under a grinding 
 wheel a delicate aluminum casting. 
 
 "Pardon," he apologized to Emily,
 
 who had lingered also. "Mathews 
 would have let that go wrong in another 
 moment. He," his smile glanced out, 
 "he is not a Rupert at changing his tires, 
 so to speak, but just a good chauffeur." 
 
 The gay and natural allusion delighted 
 her. For the first time in her life Emily 
 Ffrench laughed out in a genuine, mis- 
 chievous sense of adventure. 
 
 "Yes? I wonder you could separate 
 yourself from that Rupert to come here ; 
 he was a most bewildering person," she 
 retorted. 
 
 "Separate from Rupert? Why, I 
 would not think of racing a taxicab, as 
 he would say, without Rupert beside me. 
 He is here taking a post-graduate course 
 in this type of car, in order to be up to 
 his work when we go down to Georgia 
 next week." 
 
 42
 
 "Next week? You expect to win that 
 race?" 
 
 "No. We are running a stock car 
 against some heavy foreign racing ma- 
 chines; the chance of winning is slight. 
 But I hope to outrun any other American 
 car on the course, if nothing goes 
 wrong." 
 
 She looked up. 
 
 "And if something does?" she won- 
 dered. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Pray be careful of those moving belts 
 behind you, Miss Ffrench. If some- 
 thing does there is a chance in every 
 game worth playing." 
 
 "A chance!" her feminine nerves re- 
 coiled from the implied consequences. 
 "But only a chance, surely. You were 
 never in an accident, never were hurt?" 
 
 43
 
 Lestrange regarded her in surprise 
 mingled with a dawning raillery infi- 
 nitely indulgent. 
 
 "I had no accidents last season," he 
 guardedly responded. "I've been quite 
 lucky. At least Rupert and I play our 
 game unhampered; there will be no 
 broken hearts if we are picked up from 
 under our car some day." 
 
 They had reached the door while he 
 spoke ; as he put his hand on the knob to 
 open it, Emily saw a long zigzag scar run- 
 ning up the extended arm from wrist to 
 elbow, a mute commentary on the conver- 
 sation. In silence she passed out across 
 the courtyard to where her red-wheeled 
 cart waited. But when Lestrange had 
 put her in and given her the reins, she 
 held out her hand to him with more grav- 
 ity. 
 
 44
 
 "I shall wish you good luck for next 
 week," she said. 
 
 Lestrange threw back his head, draw- 
 ing a quick breath ; here in the strong 
 sunlight he showed even younger than 
 she had thought him, young with a prim- 
 itive intensity of just being alive. 
 
 "Thank you. I would like if it were 
 possible to win this race." 
 
 "This one, especially?" 
 
 "Yes, because it is the next step toward 
 a purpose I have set myself, and which I 
 shall accomplish if I live. Not that I 
 will halt if this step fails, no, nor for a 
 score of such failures, but I am anxious 
 to go on and finish." 
 
 Up to Emily's face rushed the answer- 
 ing color and fire to his; drawn by the 
 bond of mutual earnestness, she leaned 
 nearer. 
 
 45
 
 "You live to do something? So do 
 I, so do I ! And every one else plays" 
 
 However Lestrange would have re- 
 plied, he was checked by the crash of the 
 courtyard gate. Abruptly recalled to 
 herself, Emily turned, to see Dick 
 Ff rench coming toward them. 
 
 Remembering how the three had last 
 met, the situation suggested strain. But 
 to Emily's astonishment the young men 
 exchanged friendly nods, although Dick 
 flushed pink. 
 
 "Good morning, Lestrange," he 
 greeted. "I've just come up from the 
 city, Emily, and there wasn't any car- 
 riage at the station, so when one of the 
 testers told me you were here I came over 
 to get a ride." 
 
 "I've been to see Mr. Bailey," she re- 
 sponded. "Get in." 
 46
 
 As Dick climbed in beside her, she bent 
 her head to Lestrange; if she had re- 
 gretted her impulsive confidence, again 
 the clear sanity and calm of the gray eyes 
 she encountered established self-content. 
 
 When they were trotting down the road 
 toward home, in the crisp air, Emily 
 glanced at her cousin. 
 
 "I did not know you and Mr. Lestrange 
 were so well acquainted," she remarked. 
 
 "I see him now and then," Dick an- 
 swered uneasily. "He's too busy to want 
 me bothering around him much. You 
 remembered him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He absently took the whip from its 
 socket, flecking the horse with it as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "It was awfully square of you, Emily, 
 not to mention that night to Uncle Ethan. 
 
 47
 
 It wasn't like a girl, at all. I made an 
 idiot of myself, and youVe never said any- 
 thing to me about it since. I never told 
 you where Lestrange took me, because 
 I didn't like to* talk of the thing. I'm 
 really awfully fond of you, cousin." 
 
 "Yes, Dickie," she said patiently. 
 
 "Well, Lestrange rubbed it in. Oh, 
 he didn't say much. But he carried me 
 down to where they were practising for a 
 road race. Such a jolly lot of fellows, 
 like a bunch of kids; teasing and calling 
 jokes back and forth at one another half 
 the night until daybreak, everything raw 
 and chilly. Busy, and their mechanics 
 busy, and one after another swinging into 
 his car and going off like a rocket. By 
 the time Lestrange went off, I was as 
 much stirred up as anybody. When he 
 made a record circuit at seventy-seven
 
 miles an hour average, I was shouting 
 over the rail like a good one. And then, 
 while he was off again, a big blue car 
 rolled in and its driver yelled that Le- 
 strange had gone over on the Eastbury 
 turn, and to send around the ambulance. 
 It was like a nightmare; I sat down on 
 a stone and felt sick." 
 
 "He" 
 
 "He shook me up half an hour later, 
 and stood laughing at me. 'Upset?' he 
 said. 'No; we shed a tire and went off 
 into a field, but it didn't hurt the machine, 
 so we righted her and came in.' He was 
 limping and bruised and scratched, but 
 he was laughing, while a crowd of people 
 were trying to shake hands with him and 
 say things. I felt funny; as if I wasn't 
 much good. I never felt like that before. 
 'This is only practise,' he said, when I 
 
 49
 
 was about to go. 'The race to-morrow 
 will do better. We find it more excit- 
 ing than cocktails.' That was all, but I 
 knew what he meant, all right. I've been 
 careful ever since. He won the race next 
 day, too." 
 
 "Dick, didn't it ever occur to you that 
 you as well as Mr. Lestrange might do 
 real things?" she asked, after a moment. 
 
 He turned his round, good-humored 
 face to her in boundless amazement. 
 
 "I? I race cars and break my neck 
 and call it fun, like Lestrange? You're 
 laughing at me, Emily." 
 
 "No, no," in spite of herself the picture 
 evoked brought her smile. "Not like 
 that. But you might be interested in the 
 factory. You might learn from Mr. 
 Bailey and take charge of the business 
 with Uncle Ethan. It would please 
 50
 
 uncle, how it would please him, if you 
 did!" 
 
 Dick stirred unhappily. 
 
 "It would take a lot of grind," he ob- 
 jected. "I haven't the head for it, really. 
 I'm not such an awfully bad lot, but I 
 hate work. Let's not be serious, cousin. 
 How pretty the frosty wind makes you 
 look!" 
 
 Emily tightened the reins with a brief 
 sigh of resignation. 
 
 "Never mind, Dickie. I uncle will 
 find a substitute. Things must go on 
 somehow, I suppose, even if we do not 
 like the way." 
 
 But the way loomed distasteful that 
 morning as never before.
 
 IV 
 
 MR. FFRENCH and his niece 
 were at breakfast, on the Sun- 
 day when the first account of 
 the Georgia race reached Ffrenchwood. 
 "You will take fresh coffee," Emily 
 was saying, the little silver pot poised in 
 her hand, when the door burst open and 
 Dick hurried, actually hurried, into the 
 room. 
 
 "He's won! He's got it!" he cried, 
 brandishing the morning newspaper. 
 "The first time for an American car with 
 an American driver. And how he won 
 it! He distanced every car on the track 
 except the two big Italian and French 
 machines. Those he couldn't get, of 
 course; but the Frenchman went out in 
 52
 
 the fourth hour with a broken valve. 
 Then he was set down for second place 
 second place, Emily, with every other 
 big car in the country entered. They say 
 he drove like, like I don't know what. 
 A hundred and some miles an hour on the 
 straight stretches." 
 
 "Oh," Emily faltered, setting down the 
 coffee-pot in her plate. 
 
 He stopped her eagerly, half turning 
 toward Mr. Ffrench, who had put on his 
 pince-nez to contemplate his nephew in 
 stupefaction, not at his statement, but at 
 his condition. 
 
 "Wait. In the last hour, the Italian 
 car lost its chain and went over into a 
 ditch on a back stretch, three miles from 
 a doctor. People around picked the men 
 out of the wreck, and Lestrange came up 
 to find that the driver was likely to die 
 
 53
 
 from a severed artery before help got 
 there. Emily, he stopped, stopped, with 
 victory in his hands, had the Italian lifted 
 into the mechanician's seat, and Rupert 
 held him in while they dashed around the 
 course to the hospital. He got him there 
 fifteen minutes before an ambulance 
 could have reached him, and the man 
 will get well. But Lestrange had lost six 
 minutes. He had rushed straight to the 
 doctor's, given them the man, and gone 
 right on, but he had lost six minutes. 
 When people realized what he'd done, 
 they went wild. Every one thought he'd 
 lost the race, but they cheered him until 
 they couldn't shout. And he kept on 
 driving. It's all here," he waved the 
 gaudy sheet. "The paper's full of it. 
 He had half an hour to make up six min- 
 utes, and he did it. He came in nine- 
 54
 
 teen seconds ahead of the nearest car. 
 The crowd swarmed out on the course 
 and fell all over him. Old Bailey's 
 nearly crazy." 
 
 To see Dick excited would have been 
 marvel enough to hold his auditors mute, 
 if the story itself had not possessed a qual- 
 ity to stir even non-sporting blood. 
 Emily could only sit and gaze at the head- 
 lines of the extended newspaper, her dark 
 eyes wide and shining, her soft lips apart. 
 
 "He telegraphed to Bailey," Dick 
 added, in the pause. "Ten words: 'First 
 across line in Georgia race. Car in fine 
 shape. Lestrange.' That was all." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench deliberately passed his 
 coffee-cup to Emily. 
 
 "You had better take your breakfast," 
 he advised. "It is unusual to see you 
 noticing business affairs, Dick; I might 
 
 55
 
 say unprecedented. I am glad if 
 Bailey's new man is capable of his work, 
 at least. I suppose for the rest, that he 
 could scarcely do less than take an injured 
 person to the hospital. Why are you 
 putting sugar in my cup, Emily?" 
 
 "I don't know," she acknowledged 
 helplessly. 
 
 "I didn't mean to disturb any one," said 
 Dick, sulky and resentful. "It'll be a 
 big thing though for our cars, Bailey 
 says. I didn't know you disliked Le- 
 strange." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench stiffened in his chair. 
 
 "I have not sufficient interest in the 
 man to dislike him," was the cold rebuke. 
 "We will change the subject." 
 
 Emily bent her head, remedying her 
 mistake with the coffee. She compre- 
 hended that her uncle had conceived one 
 
 56
 
 of his strong, silent antipathies for the 
 young manager, and she was sorry. 
 Sorry, although, remembering Bailey's 
 unfortunate speech the night Lestrange's 
 engagement was proposed, she was not 
 surprised. But she looked across to Dick 
 sympathetically. So sympathetically, that 
 after breakfast he followed her into 
 the library, the colored journals in his 
 hand. 
 
 "What's the matter with the old gentle- 
 man this morning?" he complained. 
 "He wants the business to succeed, 
 doesn't he? If he does, he ought to like 
 what Lestrange is doing for it. What's 
 the matter with him?" 
 
 Emily shook back her yellow curls, 
 turning her gaze on him. 
 
 "You might guess, Dickie. He is 
 lonely." 
 
 57
 
 "Lonely! He!" 
 
 All the feminine impulse to defend 
 flared up. 
 
 "Why not?" she exclaimed with pas- 
 sion. "Who has he got? Who stands 
 with him in his house? No wonder he 
 can not bear the man who is hired to do 
 what a Ffrench should be doing. It is 
 not the racing driver he dislikes, but the 
 manager. And do not you blame him, 
 Dick Ffrench." 
 
 Quite aghast, he stared after her as she 
 turned away to the nearest window. But 
 presently he followed her over, still hold- 
 ing the papers. 
 
 "Don't you want to read about the 
 race?" he ventured. 
 
 Smiling, though her lashes were damp, 
 Emily accepted the peace offering. 
 
 "Yes, please." 
 
 58
 
 "You're not angry? You know I'm 
 a stupid chump sometimes; I don't mean 
 
 it." 
 
 This time she laughed outright 
 "No; I am sorry I was cross. It is I 
 who would like to shirk my work. 
 Never mind me; let us read." 
 
 They did read, seated opposite each 
 other in the broad window-seat and pass- 
 ing the sheets across as they finished 
 them. Dick had not exaggerated, on 
 the contrary he had not said enough. 
 Lestrange and his car were the focus of 
 the hour's attention. The daring, the 
 reckless courage that risked life for vic- 
 tory, the generosity which could throw 
 that victory away to aid a comrade, and 
 lastly the determination and skill which 
 had won the conquest after all the whole 
 formed a feat too spectacular to escape 
 
 59
 
 public hysteria. It was very doubtful 
 indeed whether Lestrange liked his idol- 
 izing, but there was no escape. 
 
 The two who read were young. 
 
 "It was a splendid fight," sighed Dick, 
 when they dropped the last page. 
 
 "Yes," Emily assented. "When he 
 comes back, when you see him, give him 
 my congratulations." 
 
 "When I see him? Why don't you tell 
 him yourself?" 
 
 Something like a white shadow wiped 
 the scarlet of excitement from her cheeks, 
 as she averted her face. 
 
 "I shall not see him ; I shall not go to 
 the factory any more. It will be better, 
 I am sure." 
 
 Vaguely puzzled and dismayed, Dick 
 sat looking at her, not daring to question. 
 
 Emily kept her word during the weeks 
 60
 
 that followed. Through Dick and Bailey 
 she heard of factory affairs ; of the sudden 
 increase of orders for the Mercury auto- 
 mobiles, the added prestige gained, and 
 the public favor bestowed on the car. 
 But she saw nothing of the man who was 
 responsible for all this. Instead she went 
 out more than ever before. Their social 
 circle was too painfully exclusive to be 
 large or gay. 
 
 Three times a week it was Mr. 
 Ffrench's stately custom to visit the fac- 
 tory and inspect it with Bailey. At other 
 times Bailey came up to the house, where 
 affairs were conducted. But in neither 
 place did Mr. Ffrench ever come in con- 
 tact with his manager, during all the 
 months while winter waxed and waned 
 again to spring. 
 
 "That's Bailey's doing," chuckled 
 61
 
 Dick, when Emily finally wondered 
 aloud at the circumstance. "He isn't 
 going to risk losing Lestrange because our 
 high and mighty uncle falls out with him. 
 And it would be pretty likely to happen 
 if they met. Lestrange has a temper, 
 you know, even if it doesn't stick out all 
 over him like a hedgehog; and a dozen 
 other companies would give money to 
 get him." 
 
 Emily nodded gravely. It was a sunny 
 morning in the first of March, and the 
 cousins were at the end of the old park 
 surrounding Ffrenchwood, where they 
 had strolled before breakfast. 
 
 "Mr. Bailey likes Mr. Lestrange," she 
 commented. 
 
 "Likes him! He loves him. You 
 know Lestrange lives with him; a bache- 
 lor household, cozy as grigs." 
 62
 
 Just past here ran the road, beyond a 
 high cedar hedge. While he was speak- 
 ing, the irregular explosive reports of a 
 motor had sounded down the valley, un- 
 mistakable to those familiar with the 
 testing of the stripped cars, and rapidly 
 approaching. Now, as Emily would 
 have answered, the roar suddenly changed 
 in character, an appalling series of ex- 
 plosions mingled with the grind of out- 
 raged machinery suddenly braked, and 
 some one shouted above the din. The 
 next instant a huge mass shot past the 
 other side of the hedge and there followed 
 a dull crash. 
 
 "That's one of our men!" gasped Dick, 
 and plunged headlong through the shrub- 
 bery. 
 
 Dazed momentarily, Emily stood, then 
 caught up her skirts and ran after him. 
 
 63
 
 She knew well enough what the testers of 
 the cars risked. 
 
 "Dick!" she appealed. "Dick!" 
 But it was not the wreck she anticipated 
 that met her eyes as she came through the 
 hedge. On the opposite side of the road 
 a long low skeleton car was standing, one 
 side lurched drunkenly down with two 
 wheels in the gutter. Still in his seat, 
 the driver was leaning over the steering- 
 wheel, out of breath, but laughing a 
 greeting to the astonished Dick. 
 
 "A break in the steering-gear," he de- 
 clared, by way of explanation. "I told 
 Bailey it was a weak point; now perhaps 
 he'll believe me and strengthen it." 
 "You're not hurt," Dick inferred 
 "I think she's not a tire gone. Find 
 anything wrong, Rupert?" 
 
 "Two tires off," said the laconic me-
 
 chanician. "Two funerals postponed. 
 That was a pretty stop, Darling." 
 
 "Very," coolly agreed Lestrange, rising 
 and removing his goggles. "What's the 
 matter, Ffrench?" 
 
 "You frightened us out of our five 
 senses, that's all. Do you usually prac- 
 tise for races out here?" 
 
 "Us?" repeated Lestrange, and turning, 
 saw the girl at the edge of the park. 
 "Miss Ffrench, I beg your pardon!" 
 
 The swift change in his tone, the ease 
 of deference with which he bared his 
 head and, motor caps not being readily 
 donned or doffed, so remained bare- 
 headed in the bright sunlight, savored of 
 the Continent. 
 
 "It is too commonplace to say good 
 morning," Emily replied, her color rising 
 with her smile. "I am very glad you 
 6s
 
 escaped. But that is commonplace, too, 
 I'm afraid." 
 
 "Every one is commonplace before 
 breakfast," reassured her cousin. "Hon- 
 estly, Lestrange, do you practise racing 
 here?" 
 
 "Hardly. I'm trying out the car; 
 every car has to go through that before it 
 is used. Don't you know that we've re- 
 cently secured from the local authorities 
 a permit to run at any speed over this 
 road between four o'clock and eight in 
 the morning? I thought all the country- 
 side knew that." 
 
 "But we have a regiment of men to test 
 
 cars." 
 
 Lestrange passed a caressing glance 
 over the dingy-gray machine in its state 
 of bareness that suggested indecorum. 
 
 "This is my car, the one I'll race this 
 66
 
 spring and summer. No one drives it 
 but me. Besides, I have to have some 
 diversion." 
 
 He stepped to the ground with the last 
 word, and went around to where Rupert 
 was on his knees beside the machine. 
 
 "Can you fix it here?" he demanded. 
 
 "Not precisely," was the drawled reply. 
 "Back to camp for it with a horse in 
 front." 
 
 "All right. You'll have to walk down 
 and get a car from Mr. Bailey to tow it 
 home." 
 
 Rupert got up, his dark, malign little 
 face twisted. 
 
 "If I'd broken a leg they'd have sent a 
 cart for me," he mourned. "Now I'll 
 have to walk, and I ain't used to it. 
 Hard luck!" 
 
 "If you go around to the stables they 
 
 67
 
 will give you my pony cart," Emily 
 offered impulsively. "You," her dim- 
 pling smile gleamed out, "you once put a 
 tire on for me, you know. Please let me 
 return the service." 
 
 Rupert's black eyes opened, a slow 
 grin of appreciation crinkled streaks of 
 dust and oil as he surveyed the young girl. 
 
 "I'll put tires on every wheel you run 
 into control, day and night shifts," he ac- 
 knowledged with sweet cordiality. "But 
 I'm no horse-chauffeur, thanks; I guess 
 I'll walk." 
 
 "He is a gentle pony," she remon- 
 strated. "Any one can drive him." 
 
 He turned a side glance toward the 
 motionless car. 
 
 "That's all right, but I'm used to being 
 killed other ways. I'll be going." 
 
 "Jack Rupert, do you mean to tell me 
 68
 
 that you will race with Lestrange every 
 season, and yet you're afraid to drive a 
 fat cob?" cried the delighted Dick. 
 
 "I'm not telling anything. I had a 
 chum who was pitched out by a horse he 
 lost control of, and broke his neck. I'm 
 taking no chances." 
 
 "How many men have you seen break 
 their necks out of autos?" 
 
 "That's in business," pronounced Ru- 
 pert succinctly. "I'm going on, Darling; 
 it's only a two-mile run." 
 
 "Here, wait," Dick urged. "Emily, 
 I'll stroll around to the stables with him 
 and make one of the men drive him down. 
 You don't mind my leaving you?" 
 
 "No," Emily answered. "I will wait 
 for you." 
 
 She might have walked back alone, if 
 she had chosen. But instead she sat 
 69
 
 down on a boulder near the hedge, fold- 
 ing her hands in her lap like a demure 
 child. The house was so dull, so hope- 
 lessly monotonous contrasted with this 
 fresh, wind-tossed outdoors and Lestrange 
 in his vigor of life and glamour of ultra- 
 modern adventure. 
 
 "You and Mr. Ff rench are very good," 
 Lestrange said presently. "I am afraid 
 I appreciate it more than Rupert, 
 though." 
 
 "Is he really afraid of horses?" 
 
 "I should not wonder; I never tried 
 him. But he is amazingly truthful." 
 
 Their eyes met across the strip of sunny 
 road as they smiled ; again Emily felt the 
 sudden confidence, the falling away of all 
 constraint before the direct clarity of his 
 regard. 
 
 "You won your race," she said irrele- 
 70
 
 vantly. "I was glad, since you wanted 
 it." 
 
 "Thank you," he returned with equal 
 simplicity. "But I did not want it that 
 way, so far as I was concerned." 
 
 "Yet, it was the next step?" 
 
 "Yes, it was the next step. I meant 
 that one does not care to be victor because 
 the leading cars were wrecked. There 
 is no elation in defeating a driver who 
 lies out on the course. But, as you say, 
 it helped my purpose. You," he hesi- 
 tated for the right phrase, "you are most 
 kind to recall that I have a purpose." 
 
 It was the convent-bred Emily who 
 looked back at him, earnest-eyed, exalt- 
 edly serious. 
 
 "I have thought of it often. Every 
 one else that I know just lives the way 
 things happen there are only a few peo- 
 
 7'
 
 pie who grasp things and make them 
 happen. That is real work; so many of 
 us are just given work we do not want " 
 she broke off. 
 
 "If we do not want the work, it is prob- 
 ably not our own," said Lestrange. "Un- 
 less we have brought it on ourselves by a 
 fault we must undo I need not speak of 
 that to you. One must not make the 
 mistake of assuming some one else's 
 work." 
 
 He spoke gently, almost as if with a 
 clairvoyant reading of her tendency to 
 self-immolation. 
 
 "But may not some one else's fault be 
 given us to undo?" she asked eagerly. 
 "May not their work be forced on us?" 
 
 "No," he answered. 
 
 "No?" bewildered. 
 
 "I don't think so. Each one of us has 
 72
 
 enough with his own, at least so it seems 
 to me. Most of us die before we finish 
 it." 
 
 Emily paused, contending with the 
 loneliness and doubts which impelled her 
 to speech, the feminine yearning to let 
 another decide her problems. This 
 other's nonchalant strength of decision 
 allured her uncertainty. 
 
 "I am discouraged," she confessed. 
 "And tired. I there is no reason why 
 I should not speak of it. You know 
 Dick, how he can do nothing in the fac- 
 tory or business, or in the places where 
 a Ffrench should stand. All this must 
 fall into the hands of strangers, to be 
 broken and forgotten, when my uncle 
 dies, for lack of some one who would care. 
 And Uncle Ethan seems severe and hard, 
 but it grieves him all the time. His only 
 
 73
 
 son was not a good man; he lives abroad 
 with his wife, who was an actress before 
 he married her. You knew that?" as he 
 moved. 
 
 "I heard something of it in the vil- 
 lage," Lestrange admitted gravely. 
 "Please do not think me fond of gossip ; 
 I could not avoid it. But I should not 
 have imagined this a family likely to 
 make low marriages." 
 
 "It never happened before. I never 
 saw that cousin, nor did Dick; but he 
 was always a disappointment, always, 
 Uncle Ethan has told me. And since 
 he failed, and Dick fails, there is only 
 me." 
 
 "You!" 
 
 She nodded, her lip quivering. 
 
 "Only me. Not as a substitute I am 
 not fit for that but to find a substitute. 
 74
 
 I have promised my uncle to marry the 
 first one who is able to be that." 
 
 The silence was absolute. Lestrange 
 neither moved nor spoke, gazing down at 
 her bent head with an expression blend- 
 ing many shades. 
 
 "It is a 'duty; there is no one except 
 me," she added. "Only sometimes I 
 grow to dislike it too much. I am so 
 selfish that sometimes I hope a substitute 
 will never come." 
 
 Her voice died away. It was done; 
 she, Emily Ff rench, had deliberately con- 
 fided to this stranger that which an hour 
 before she would have believed no one 
 could force from her lips in articulate 
 speech. And she neither regretted nor 
 was ashamed, although there was time 
 for full realization before Lestrange an- 
 swered. 
 
 75
 
 "I did not believe," he said, "that such 
 things could be done. It is nonsense, of 
 course, but such magnificent nonsense! 
 It is the kind of situation, Miss Ffrench, 
 where any man is justified in interfer- 
 ing. I beg you will leave the affair in 
 my hands and think no more of such mor- 
 bid self-sacrifice." 
 
 Stupefied, Emily flung back her head, 
 staring at him. 
 
 "In your hands?" 
 
 "Since there are none better, it appears. 
 Why," his vivid face questioned her full 
 and straightly, "you didn't imagine that 
 any man living could hear what you are 
 doing, and pass on?" 
 
 "My uncle knows " 
 
 "Your uncle is not for me to criti- 
 cize. But do not ask any other man to 
 let you go on."
 
 Her ideas reeling, she struggled for 
 comprehension. 
 
 "You, what could you do?" she mar- 
 veled. 'The substitute" 
 
 "There won't be any substitute," re- 
 plied Lestrange with perfect coolness. 
 "I shall train Dick Ffrench to do his 
 work." 
 
 "You" 
 
 "I can, and I will." 
 
 "He can not" 
 
 "Oh, yes, he can; he is just idle and 
 spoiled," the firm lips set more firmly. 
 "He shall take his place. I can handle 
 him." 
 
 Emily sat quite helplessly, her eyes 
 black with excitement. Slowly recollec- 
 tion flowed back to her of a change in 
 Dick since his light contact with Le- 
 strange; his avoidance of even occasional 
 
 77
 
 highballs, his awakening interest in the 
 clean sport of the races, and his half- 
 wistful admiration for the virile driver- 
 manager. 
 
 "I almost believe you could," she con- 
 ceded. 
 
 "I can," repeated Lestrange. "Only," 
 he openly smiled, "it will be hard on 
 Dickie." 
 
 It was the touch needed, the antidote 
 to sentiment. Emily laughed with him, 
 laughed in sheer mischief and relief and 
 leap of youth. 
 
 "You will be gentle poor Dickie 1" 
 
 "I'll be gentle. He is coming now, I 
 think." He took a step nearer her. 
 "You will leave this in my care, wholly? 
 You will not trouble about a substi- 
 tute?" 
 
 "I will leave it with you. But you are 
 
 78'
 
 forgetting your own doctrine; you are 
 taking some one else's work to do." 
 
 "Pardon, I am merely making Ffrench 
 do his work. I have seen a little more of 
 him than you perhaps know; I under- 
 stand what I am undertaking. More- 
 over, I would forget a great many doc- 
 trines to set you free." 
 
 "Free?" she echoed; she had the sen- 
 sation of being suddenly confronted with 
 an open door into the unexpected. 
 
 "Free," he quietly reasserted. "Free 
 to live your own life and draw unham- 
 pered breath, and to decide the great ques- 
 tion when it comes, with thought only 
 of yourself." 
 
 She drew back; a prescient dismay fell 
 sharply across her late relief, a panic 
 crossed with strange delight. 
 
 "He's off," called Dick, emerging 
 
 79
 
 from the park. "I made Anderson take 
 him down with the limousine. At least, 
 Rupert is driving while Anderson sits 
 alongside and holds on ; when they came 
 to the turn in the avenue, your precious 
 mechanician took it full speed and then 
 apologized for going so slowly because, 
 as he said, he was an amateur and likely 
 to upset. Is he really a good driver, 
 Lestrange." 
 
 "Pretty fair," returned Lestrange se- 
 renely, from his seat on the edge of the 
 ditched machine. "When I'm not using 
 him, he's employed as one of the factory 
 car testers ; and when we're racing I give 
 him the wheel if I want to fix anything. 
 However, I'm obliged to that steering- 
 knuckle for breaking here, instead of leav- 
 ing me to a long wait in the wilds. Come 
 down to the shop to-morrow at six, and 
 80
 
 Rupert and I will even up by taking you 
 for a run." 
 
 "Who; me? You're asking me?" 
 
 "Why not? It's exhilarating." 
 
 Dick removed his hat and ran his fin- 
 gers through his hair, gratification and 
 alarm mingling in his expression with 
 somewhat the effect of the small boy who 
 is first invited into a game with his older 
 brother's clique. 
 
 "You er, wouldn't smash me up?" he 
 hesitated. 
 
 "I haven't smashed up Rupert or my- 
 self, so far. If you feel timid, never 
 mind, of course; I'll take my usual com- 
 panion." 
 
 Dick flushed all over his plump face, 
 the Ffrench blood up at last. 
 
 "I was only joking," he hastily ex- 
 plained. "I'll come. It's only that 
 81
 
 you're so confoundedly reckless some- 
 times, Lestrange, and But I'll come." 
 
 Lestrange gave his fine, glinting smile 
 as he rose to salute Emily. 
 
 "All right. If you don't get down to 
 the factory in time, I'll call for you," he 
 promised. 
 
 82
 
 THERE was a change in the 
 Ffrench affairs, a lightening of 
 the atmosphere, a vague quicken- 
 ing and stir of healthful cheer in the days 
 that followed. The somber master of 
 the house met it in Bailey's undisguised 
 elation and pride when they discussed 
 the successful business now taxing the fac- 
 tory's resources, met it yet again in 
 Emily's pretty gaiety and content. But 
 most strikingly was he confronted with 
 an alteration in Dick. 
 
 It was only a week after his first morn- 
 ing ride with Lestrange, that Dick elec- 
 trified the company at dinner, by turning 
 down the glass at his plate. 
 
 "I've cut out claret, and that sort of 
 
 83
 
 thing," he announced. "It's bad for the 
 
 nerves." 
 
 His three companions looked up in 
 complete astonishment. It was Satur- 
 day night and by ancient custom Bailey 
 was dining at the house. 
 
 "What has happened to you? Have 
 you been attending a revival meeting?" 
 the young man's uncle inquired with sar- 
 casm. 
 
 "It's bad for the nerves," repeated Dick. 
 "There isn't any reason why I shouldn't 
 like to do anything other fellows do. 
 Les that is, none of the men who drive 
 cars ever touch that stuff, and look at their 
 
 nerve." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench contemplated him with 
 the irritation usually produced by the dis- 
 play of ostentatious virtue, but found no 
 comment. Emily gazed at the table, her
 
 red mouth curving in spite of all effort at 
 seriousness. 
 
 "You're right, Mr. Dick," said Bailey 
 dryly. "Stick to it." 
 
 And Dick stuck, without as much as 
 a single lapse. Ffrenchwood saw com- 
 paratively little of him, as time went on, 
 the village and factory much. He lost 
 some weight, and acquired a coat of red- 
 dish tan. 
 
 Emily watched and admired in silence. 
 She had not seen Lestrange again, but it 
 seemed to her that his influence overlay 
 all the life of both house and factory. 
 Sometimes this showed so plainly that 
 she believed Mr. Ffrench must see, must 
 feel the silent force at work. But either 
 he did not see or chose to ignore. And 
 Dick was incautious. 
 
 "Pm going to buy one of our roadsters
 
 myself," he stated one day. "Can I have 
 it at cost?" 
 
 Mr. Ffrench felt for his pince-nez. 
 
 "You? Why do you not use the 
 limousine?" 
 
 "Because I don't want to go around in 
 a box driven by a chauffeur. I want a 
 classy car to run myself. I've been driv- 
 ing some of the stripped cars, lately, and I 
 like it." 
 
 "I will give you a car, if you want 
 one," answered his uncle, quite kindly. 
 "Go select any you prefer." 
 
 "Thank you," Dick sat up, beaming. 
 "But I'll have to wait my turn, we've 
 orders ahead now. Lestrange says I've 
 no right to come in and make some other 
 fellow wait." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench slowly stiffened. 
 
 "We do not require lessons in ethics 
 86
 
 from this Lestrange," was the cold re- 
 buke. "I shall telephone Bailey to send 
 up your car at once." 
 
 Rupert brought the sixty-horse-power 
 roadster to the door, three hours later. 
 And Emily appreciated that Lestrange 
 was discreet as well as compelling, when 
 she found the black-eyed young mechani- 
 cian was detailed to accompany Dick's 
 maiden trips; which duty was fulfilled, 
 incidentally, with the fine tact of a Rich- 
 elieu. 
 
 In May there was a still greater acces- 
 sion of work at the factory. In addition, 
 the first of June was to open with a 
 twenty-four hour race at the Beach track, 
 and Lestrange was entered for it. Ex- 
 citement was in the air; Dick came in the 
 house only to eat and sleep. 
 
 The day before the race, Mr. Ffrench 
 
 87
 
 walked into the room where his niece was 
 reading. 
 
 "I want to see Bailey," he said briefly. 
 "Do you wish to drive me down to the 
 factory, or shall I have Anderson bring 
 around the limousine?" 
 
 "Please let us drive," she exclaimed, 
 rising with alacrity. "I have not been 
 to the factory for months." 
 
 "Very good. You are looking well, 
 Emily, of late." 
 
 Surprised, a soft color swept the face 
 she turned to him. 
 
 "I am well. Dear, I think we are all 
 better this spring." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Ethan Ffrench. His 
 bitter gray eyes passed deliberately over 
 the large room with all its traces of a 
 family life extending back to pre-Colo- 
 nial times, but he said no more.
 
 It was an exquisite morning, too vir- 
 ginal for June, too richly warm for May. 
 When the two exchanged the sunny road 
 for the factory office, a north room none 
 too light, it was a moment before their 
 dazzled eyes perceived no one was pres- 
 ent. This was Bailey's private office^ 
 and its owner had passed into the room 
 beyond. 
 
 "I will wait," conceded Mr. Ffrench, 
 dismissing the boy who had ushered them 
 in. "Sit down, Emily; Bailey will re- 
 turn directly, no doubt." 
 
 But Emily had already sat down, for 
 she knew the voice speaking beyond the 
 half-open door, and that the long-pre- 
 vented meeting was now imminent. 
 
 "It will not do," Lestrange was stating 
 definitely. "It should be reinforced." 
 
 "It's always been strong enough," Bai-
 
 ley's slower tones objected. "For years. 
 It's not a thing likely to break." 
 
 "Not likely to break? Look at last 
 year's record, Mr. Bailey, and tell me 
 that. A broken steering-knuckle killed 
 Brook in Indiana, another sent Little to 
 the hospital in Massachusetts, the same 
 thing wrecked the leader at the last Beach 
 race and dashed him through the fence. 
 Do you know what it means to the driver 
 of a machine hurling itself along the nar- 
 row verge of destruction, when the steer- 
 ing-wheel suddenly turns unless in his 
 grasp? Can you feel the sick helpless- 
 ness, the confronting of death, the com- 
 pressed second before the crash? Is it 
 worth while to risk it for a bit of costless 
 steel?" 
 
 The clear realism of the picture forced 
 a pause, filled by the dull roar and throb 
 90
 
 through the machinery-crowded build- 
 ing. 
 
 "They were not our cars that broke, any 
 of them," Bailey insisted. 
 
 "Not our cars, no. But the steering- 
 knuckle of my own machine broke under 
 my hands last March, on the road, and 
 if I had been on a curve instead of a 
 straight stretch there would have been a 
 wreck. As it was, I brought her to a stop 
 in the ditch. There is no other thing 
 that may not leave a fighting chance after 
 it breaks, but this leaves absolutely none. 
 I know, you both know, that the steering- 
 wheel is the only weapon in the driver's 
 grasp. If it fails him, he goes out and 
 his mechanician with him." 
 
 Emily paled, shrinking. She remem- 
 bered the road under the maples and 
 Lestrange's laughing face as he leaned
 
 breathless across his useless wheel. That 
 was what it had meant, then, the lightly 
 treated episode! 
 
 "You'd better fix it like he wants it," 
 advised Dick's disturbed tones. "Re- 
 member, he's got to drive the car Friday 
 and Saturday, Bailey, not us." 
 
 "It's not alone for my racer I'm speak- 
 ing, but for every car that leaves the 
 shop," Lestrange caught him up. "I'm 
 not flinching; I've driven the car before 
 and I will again. It may hold for ever, 
 that part, but I've tested it and it's a weak 
 point take the warning for what it's 
 worth." 
 
 There was a movement as if he rose 
 with the last word. Emily laid her hand 
 on the arm of the chair, turning her ex- 
 cited dark eyes on her uncle. Surely if 
 ever Mr. Ffrench was to meet his man- 
 92
 
 ager, this was the moment; when 
 Lestrange's ringing argument was still in 
 their ears, his splendid force of earnest- 
 ness still vibrant in the atmosphere. And 
 suddenly she wanted them to meet, pas- 
 sionately wanted Ethan Ffrench's liking 
 for this man. 
 
 "Uncle," she began. "Uncle" 
 
 But it was not Lestrange's light step 
 that halted on the threshold. 
 
 "Why, I didn't know " exclaimed 
 Bailey. "Excuse me, Mr. Ffrench, they 
 didn't tell me you were down." 
 
 He glanced over his shoulder; as he 
 pulled shut the door Emily fancied she 
 heard an echo, as if the two young men 
 left the next room. Bitterly disap- 
 pointed, she sank back. 
 
 "That was your manager with you?" 
 Mr. Ffrench frigidly inquired. 
 
 93
 
 THE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 "Yes ; he went up-stairs to see how the 
 new drill is acting." Bailey pulled out 
 a handkerchief and rubbed his brow. 
 "Excuse me, it's warm. Yes, he wants 
 me to strengthen a knuckle he's spoken 
 considerable about it. I guess he's right; 
 better too much than too little." 
 
 "I do not see that follows. I should 
 imagine that you understood building 
 chassis better than this racing driver. 
 You had best consult outside experts in 
 construction before making a change." 
 
 "Uncle!" Emily cried. 
 
 "There's a twenty-four hour race starts 
 to-morrow night," Bailey suggested un- 
 easily. "It's easy fixed, and we might be 
 wrong." 
 
 "We have always made them this 
 way?" 
 
 "Yes, but" 
 
 94
 
 "Consult experts, then. I do not like 
 your manager's tone; he is too assuming. 
 Now let me see those papers." 
 
 Emily's parasol slipped to the floor 
 with a sharp crash as she stood up, quite 
 pale and shaken. 
 
 "Uncle, Mr. Lestrange knows," she ap- 
 pealed. "You heard him say what would 
 happen please, please let it be fixed." 
 
 Amazed, Mr. Ffrench looked at her, 
 his face setting. 
 
 "You forget your dignity," he retorted 
 in displeasure. "This is mere childish- 
 ness, Emily. Men will be consulted 
 more competent to decide than this 
 Lestrange. That will do." 
 
 From one to the other she gazed, then 
 turned away. 
 
 "I will wait out in the cart," she said. 
 "I I would rather be outdoors." 
 
 95
 
 Dick Ffrench was up-stairs, standing 
 with Lestrange in one of the narrow aisles 
 between lines of grimly efficient machines 
 that bit or cut their way through the steel 
 and aluminum fed to them, when Rupert 
 came to him with a folded visiting card. 
 
 "Miss Ffrench sent it," was the ex- 
 planation. "She's sitting out in her 
 horse-motor car, and she called me off 
 the track to ask me to demean myself by 
 acting like a messenger boy. All right?" 
 
 "All right," said Dick, running an as- 
 tonished eye over the card. 
 
 "No answer?" 
 
 "No answer." 
 
 'Then I'll hurry back to my embroid- 
 ery. I'm several laps behind in my work 
 already." 
 
 "See here, Lestrange," Dick began, as 
 the mechanician departed, sitting down
 
 on a railing beside a machine steadily en- 
 gaged in notching steel disks into gear- 
 wheels. 
 
 "Don't do that!" Lestrange exclaimed 
 sharply. "Get up, Ffrench." 
 
 "It's safe enough." 
 
 "It's nothing of the kind. The least 
 slip" 
 
 "Oh, well," he reluctantly rose, "if 
 you're going to get fussy. Read what 
 Emily sent up." 
 
 Lestrange accepted the card with a 
 faint flicker of expression. 
 
 "Dick, uncle is making the steering- 
 knuckle wait for expert opinion," the leg- 
 end ran, in pencil. "Have Mr. Bailey 
 strengthen Mr. Lestrange's car, anyhow. 
 Do not let him race so." 
 
 Near them two men were engaged in 
 babbitting bearings, passing ladlefuls of 
 
 97
 
 molten metal carelessly back and forth, 
 and splashing hissing drops over the 
 floor; at them Lestrange gazed in silence, 
 after reading, the card still in his hand. 
 "Well?" Dick at last queried. 
 "Have Mr. Bailey do nothing at all," 
 was the deliberate reply. "There is an 
 etiquette of subordination, I believe 
 this is Mr. Ffrench's factory. I've done 
 my part and we'll think no more of the 
 matter. I may be wrong. But I am 
 more than grateful to Miss Ffrench." 
 "That's all you're going to do?" 
 "Yes. I wish you would not sit there." 
 "I'm tired; I won't fall in, and I want 
 to think. We've been a lot together this 
 spring, Lestrange; I don't like this busi- 
 ness about the steering-gear. Do you go 
 down to the Beach to-morrow?" 
 
 "To-night. To-morrow I must put in
 
 practising on the track. I would have 
 been down to-day if there had not been 
 so much to do here. Are you coming 
 with me, or not until the evening of the 
 start?" 
 
 Dick stirred uncomfortably. 
 
 "I don't want to come at all, thank you. 
 I saw you race once." 
 
 "You had better get used to it," Le- 
 strange quietly advised. "The day may 
 come when there is no one to take your 
 place. This factory will be yours and 
 you will have to look after your own in- 
 terests. I wish you would come down 
 and represent the company at this race." 
 
 "I haven't the head for it." 
 
 "I do not agree with you." 
 
 Their eyes met in a long regard. 
 Here, in the crowded room of workers, 
 the ceaseless uproar shut in their conver- 
 
 99
 
 sation with a walled completeness of 
 privacy. 
 
 "I'm not sure whether you know it, 
 Lestrange, but you've got me all stirred 
 up since I met you," the younger man 
 confessed plaintively. "You're different 
 from other fellows and you've made me 
 different. I'd rather be around the fac- 
 tory than anywhere else I know, now. 
 But honestly I like you too well to watch 
 you race." 
 
 "I want you to come." 
 
 T 
 
 One of the men with a vessel of white, 
 heaving molten metal was trying to pass 
 through the narrow aisle. Dick broke 
 his sentence to rise in hasty avoidance, 
 and his foot slipped in a puddle of oil on 
 the floor. 
 
 It was so brief in happening that only 
 100
 
 the workman concerned saw the accident. 
 As Dick fell backward, Lestrange sprang 
 forward and caught him, fairly snatching 
 him from the greedy teeth. There was 
 the rending of fabric, a gasping sob from 
 Dick, and reeling from the recoil Le- 
 strange was sent staggering against a fly- 
 ing emery wheel next in line. 
 
 The workman set down his burden with 
 a recklessness endangering further trou- 
 ble, active too late. 
 
 "Mr. Lestrange!" he cried. 
 
 But Lestrange had already recovered 
 himself, his right arm crossed with a 
 scorched and bleeding bar where it had 
 touched the glittering wheel, and the two 
 young men were standing opposite each 
 other in safety. 
 
 "You are not hurt?" was the first ques- 
 tion. 
 
 101
 
 "/? I ought to be, but I'm not. 
 Come to a surgeon, Lestrange Oh, 
 you told me not to sit there!" 
 
 Lestrange glanced down at the surface- 
 wound, then quickly back at the two pal- 
 lid faces. 
 
 "Go on to your work, Peters," he di- 
 rected. "I'm all right." And as the 
 man slowly obeyed, "Now will you take 
 my advice and come to the race with me, 
 Ffrench?" 
 
 "Race! You'd race with that arm?" 
 
 "Yes. Are you coming with me?" 
 
 Shaken and tremulous, Dick passed a 
 damp hand across his forehead. 
 
 "I think you're mad to stand talking 
 here. Come to the office, for heaven's 
 sake. And, I'd be ground up there, if 
 you hadn't caught me," he looked toward 
 the jaws sullenly shredding and reshred- 
 102
 
 ding a strip of cloth from his sleeve. 
 "I'll do anything you want." 
 
 "Will you?" Lestrange flashed quickly. 
 He flung back his head with the resolute 
 setting of expression the other knew so 
 well, his eyes brilliant with a resolve that 
 took no heed of physical discomfort. 
 "Then give me your word that you'll stick 
 to your work here. That is my fear; 
 that the change in you is just a mood 
 you'll tire of some day. I want you to 
 stand up to your work and not drop out 
 disqualified." 
 
 "I will," said Dick, subdued and earn- 
 est. "I couldn't help doing it your 
 arm" 
 
 Lestrange impatiently dragged out his 
 handkerchief and wound it around the 
 cut. 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 103
 
 "I can't help keeping on; I couldn't 
 go back now. You've got me awake. 
 No one else ever tried, and I was having 
 a good time. It began with liking you 
 and thinking of all you did, and feeling 
 funny alongside of you." He paused, 
 struggling with Anglo-Saxon shyness. 
 "I'm awfully fond of you, old fellow." 
 
 The other's gray eyes warmed and 
 cleared. Smiling, he held out his left 
 hand. 
 
 "It's mutual," he assured. "It isn't 
 playing the game to trap you while you 
 are upset like this. But I don't believe 
 you'll be sorry. Come find some one to 
 tie this up for me ; I can't have it stiff to- 
 
 morrow." 
 
 But in spite of his professed haste, Le- 
 strange stopped at the head of the 
 stairs and went back to recover some 
 104
 
 small object lying on the floor beneath 
 a pool of chilling metal. When he re- 
 joined Dick, it was to linger yet a mo- 
 ment to look back across the teeming 
 room. 
 
 "It's worth having, all this," he com- 
 mented, with the first touch of sadness 
 the other ever had seen in him. "Don't 
 throw it away, Ffrench." 
 
 There is usually a surgeon within reach 
 of a factory. When Mr. Ffrench passed 
 out to the cart where Emily waited, he 
 passed Dick and the village physician en- 
 tering. The elder gentleman put on his 
 glasses to survey his nephew's white face. 
 
 "An accident?" he inquired. 
 
 The casual curiosity was sufficiently ex- 
 asperating, and Dick's nerves were badly 
 gone. 
 
 "Nothing worth mentioning," he 
 105
 
 snapped. "Just that I nearly fell into the 
 machinery and Lestrange has done up his 
 arm pulling me out. That's all." 
 
 And he hurried the doctor on without 
 further parley or excuse. 
 
 Lestrange was in the room behind the 
 office, smoking one of Bailey's cigars and 
 listening to that gentleman's vigorous re- 
 marks concerning managers who couldn't 
 keep out of their own machinery, the pa- 
 tient not having considered it worth while 
 to explain Dick's share in the mischance. 
 An omission which Dick himself 
 promptly remedied in his anxious contri- 
 tion. 
 
 Later, when the arm was being swathed 
 in white linen, its owner spoke to his com- 
 panion of the morning: 
 
 "I hope you didn't annoy Miss Ffrench 
 with this trifling matter, as you came in." 
 106
 
 "I didn't speak to her at all, only to my 
 uncle." 
 
 "Very good." 
 
 Something in the too-indolent tone 
 roused Dick's usually dormant observa- 
 tion. Startled, he scrutinized Lestrange. 
 
 "Is that why you bothered yourself 
 with me?" he stammered. "Is that 
 why" 
 
 "Shut up!" warned Lestrange forcibly 
 and inelegantly. "That isn't tight 
 enough, Doc. You know I'm experi- 
 enced at this sort of thing, and I'm going 
 to use this arm." 
 
 But Dick was not to be silenced in his 
 new enlightenment. When the surgeon 
 momentarily turned away, he leaned 
 nearer, his plump face grim. 
 
 "If I brace up, it won't be for Emily, 
 but for you, Darling Lestrange," he whis- 
 107
 
 pered viciously. "She don't want me 
 and I don't want her, that way. I've got 
 over that. And, and oh, confound it, 
 I'm sorry, old man!" 
 
 "Shut up!" said Lestrange again. 
 
 But though Dick's very sympathy un- 
 consciously showed the hopeless chasm be- 
 tween the racing driver and Miss 
 Ffrench, the hurt did not cloud the cor- 
 dial smile Lestrange sent to mitigate his 
 command. 
 
 108
 
 VI 
 
 EMILY first heard the full story 
 of the accident that evening, 
 when Dick sat opposite her on 
 the veranda and gave the account in frank 
 anxiety and dejection. 
 
 "We're going down to-night on the nine 
 o'clock train," he added in conclusion. 
 "To-morrow morning he'll spend practis- 
 ing on the track, and to-morrow evening 
 at six the race starts. And Lestrange 
 starts crippled because I am a clumsy 
 idiot. He laughs at me, but he'd do 
 that anyhow." 
 
 "Yes," agreed Emily. "He would do 
 that anyhow." Her eyes were wide and 
 terrified, the little hands she clasped in 
 109
 
 her lap were quite cold. "I wish, I wish 
 he had never come to this place." 
 
 "Oh, you do?" Dick said oddly. 
 "Maybe he will, too, before he gets 
 through with us. We're a nasty lot, we 
 Ff reaches; a lot of blue-blooded snobs 
 without any red blood in us. Are you 
 going to say good-by to me? I won't be 
 home until it's over." 
 
 She looked at him, across the odorous 
 dusk slowly silvering as the moon rose. 
 
 "You are going to be with him?" 
 
 Dick smoothed his leggings before 
 standing up, surveying his strict motor 
 costume with a gloomy pride not to be 
 concealed. 
 
 "Yes; I'm representing our company. 
 
 Lestrange might want some backing if 
 
 any disputes turned up. Uncle Ethan 
 
 nearly had a fit when Bailey told him 
 
 no
 
 what I was going to do; he called me 
 Richard for the first time in my life. I 
 guess I'll be some good yet, if every one 
 except Lestrange did think I was a 
 chump." 
 
 "I am very sure you will," she answered 
 gently. "Good-by, Dick; you look very 
 
 nice." 
 
 When he reached the foot of the steps, 
 her voice recalled him, as she stood lean- 
 ing over the rail. 
 
 "Dick, you could not make him give it 
 up, not race this time?" 
 
 He stared up at her white figure. 
 
 "No, I could not. Don't you suppose 
 I tried?" 
 
 "I suppose you did," she admitted, and 
 went back to her seat. 
 
 The June night was very quiet. Once 
 a sleepy bird stirred in the honeysuckle 
 in
 
 vines and chirped through the dark. Far 
 below the throb of a motor passed down 
 the road, dying away again to leave si- 
 lence. Suddenly Emily Ffrench hid her 
 face on the arm of her chair and the tears 
 overflowed. 
 
 There was no consciousness of time 
 while that inarticulate passion of dread 
 spent itself. But it was nearly half an 
 hour later when she started up at the echo 
 of a light step on the gravel path, dashing 
 her handkerchief across her eyes. 
 
 It was incredible, but it was true: 
 Lestrange himself was standing before 
 her at the foot of the low stairs, the moon- 
 light glinting across his uncovered bronze 
 head and bright, clear face. 
 
 "I beg pardon for trespass, Miss 
 Ffrench," he said, "but your cousin tells 
 me he has been saying a great deal of non- 
 112
 
 sense to you about this race, and that you 
 were so very good as to feel some concern 
 regarding it. Really, I had to run up 
 and set that right; I couldn't leave you to 
 be annoyed by Mr. Ffrench's nerves. 
 Will you forgive me?" 
 
 Like sun through a mist his blithe voice 
 cleaved through her distress. Before the 
 tranquil sanity of his regard, her painted 
 terrors suddenly showed as the artificial 
 canvas scenes of a stage, unreal, untrue. 
 
 "It was like you to come," she an- 
 swered, with a shaking sigh that was half 
 sob. "I was frightened, yes." 
 
 "There is no cause. A dozen other 
 men take the same chance as Rupert and 
 I ; the driver who alternates with me, for 
 instance. This is our life." 
 
 "Your arm" 
 
 "Is well enough." He laughed a little. 
 
 "3
 
 "You will see many a bandaged arm be- 
 fore the twenty-four hours are up ; few of 
 us finish without a scratch or strain or 
 blister. This is a man's game, but it's 
 not half so destructive as foot-ball. You 
 wished me good luck for the Georgia 
 race; will you repeat the honor before I 
 go back to Ffrench?" 
 
 "I wish you," she said unsteadily, 
 "every kind of success, now and always. 
 You saved Dick to-day of all else you 
 have done for him and for me I have not 
 words to speak. But it made it harder 
 to bear the thought of your hurt and risk 
 from the hurt, when I knew that I had 
 sent Dick there, who caused it." 
 
 Lestrange hesitated, himself troubled. 
 
 Her soft loveliness in the delicate light 
 
 that left her eyes unreadable depths of 
 
 shadow, her timidity and anxiety for his 
 
 114
 
 safety, were from their very unconscious- 
 ness most dangerous. And while he 
 grasped at self-control, she came still 
 nearer to the head of the steps and held 
 out her small fair hand, mistaking his si- 
 lence for leave-taking. 
 
 "Good night; and I thank you for com- 
 ing. I am not used to so much consid- 
 eration." 
 
 Her accents were unsure when she 
 would have made them most certain, with 
 her movement the handkerchief fell from 
 her girdle to his feet. Mechanically Le- 
 strange recovered the bit of linen, and 
 felt it lie wet in his fingers. Wet 
 
 "Emily!" he cried abruptly, and sprang 
 the brief step between them. 
 
 Her white, terrified face turned to him 
 in the moonlight, but he saw her eyes. 
 And seeing, he kissed her.
 
 The moment left no time for speech. 
 Some one was coming down the drawing- 
 room toward the long windows. Dick's 
 impatient whistle sounded shrilly from 
 the park. Panting, quivering, Emily 
 drew from the embrace and fled within. 
 
 She had no doubt of Lestrange, no ques- 
 tion of his serious meaning he had that 
 force of sincerity which made his silence 
 more convincing than the protestations of 
 others. But alone in her room she laid 
 her cheek against the hand his had 
 touched. 
 
 "I wish I had died in the convent," she 
 cried to her heart. "I wish I had died be- 
 fore I made him unhappy too." 
 
 116
 
 VII 
 
 MORNING found a pale and 
 languid Emily across the break- 
 fast table from Mr. Ffrench. 
 Vet, by a contradiction of the heart, her 
 pride in loving and being loved so over- 
 bore the knowledge that only sorrow 
 could result to herself and Lestrange, 
 that her eyes shone wide and lustrous and 
 her lips curved softly. 
 
 Mr. Ffrench was almost in high spir- 
 its. 
 
 "The boy was merely developing," he 
 stated, over his grape-fruit. "I have 
 been unjust to Richard. For two months 
 Bailey has been talking of his interest in 
 the business and attendance at the factory, 
 but I was incredulous. Although I fan- 
 117
 
 cied I observed a change have you ob- 
 served a change in him, Emily?" 
 
 "Yes," Emily confirmed, "a very great 
 change. He has grown up, at last" 
 
 "Ah? I can not express to you how it 
 gratifies me to have a Ffrench represent- 
 ing me in public; have you seen the 
 morning journals?" 
 
 "I have just come down-stairs." 
 
 He picked up the newspaper beside 
 him and passed across the folded page. 
 
 "All in readiness for Beach Contest" 
 the head-lines ran. "Last big driver to 
 arrive, Lestrange is in Mercury camp 
 with R. Ffrench f representative of Com- 
 pany." 
 
 And there was a blurred picture of a 
 speeding car with driver and mechanician 
 masked to goblinesque non-identity, with 
 the legend underneath : ' 'Darling' Le- 
 nt
 
 strange, in his Mercury on the Georgia 
 
 course." 
 
 "Next year I shall make him part 
 owner. It was always my poor brother's 
 desire to have the future name still 
 Ffrench and Ffrench. He was not 
 thinking of Richard then; he had hope 
 of" 
 
 Emily lifted her gaze from the picture, 
 recalled to attention by the break. 
 
 "Of?" she echoed vaguely. 
 
 "Of one who is unworthy thought.' 
 Richard has redeemed our family from 
 extinction; that is at rest." He paused 
 for an instant. "My dear child, when 
 you are married and established, I shall 
 be content." 
 
 Her breathing quickened, her courage 
 rose to the call of the moment. 
 
 "If Dick is here, if he is instead of a 
 119
 
 substitute," she said, carefully quiet in 
 manner, "would it matter, since I am only 
 a girl, whom I married, Uncle Ethan?" 
 
 The recollection of that evening when 
 Emily had given her promise of aid, 
 stirred under Mr. Ffrench's self-absorb- 
 tion. He looked across the table at her 
 colorless, eager face with perhaps his first 
 thought of what that promise might have 
 cost her. 
 
 "No," he replied kindly. "It is part 
 of my satisfaction that you are set free to 
 follow your own choice, without thought 
 of utility or fortune. Of course, I need 
 not say provided the man is of your own 
 class and associations. We will fear no 
 more low marriages." 
 
 She had known it before, but it was 
 hard to hear the sentence embodied in 
 words. Emily folded her hands over the 
 1 20
 
 paper in her lap and the pleasant break- 
 fast-room darkened before her. Mr. 
 Ff rench continued speaking of Dick, un- 
 heard. 
 
 When the long meal was ended and her 
 uncle withdrew to meet Bailey in the li- 
 brary, Emily escaped outdoors. There 
 was a quaint summer-house part way 
 down the park, an ancient white pavilion 
 standing beside the brook that gurgled 
 by on its way to the Hudson, where the 
 young girl often passed her hours. She 
 went there now, carrying her little work- 
 basket and the newspaper containing the 
 picture of Lestrange. 
 
 "I will save it," was her thought. 
 "Perhaps I may find better ones this 
 does not show his face but I will have 
 this now. It may be a long time before 
 I see him." 
 
 121
 
 But she sat with the embroidery scis- 
 sors in her hand, nevertheless, without 
 cutting the reprint. Lestrange would re- 
 turn to the factory, she never doubted, 
 and all would continue as before, except 
 that she must not see him. He would 
 understand that it was not possible for 
 anything else to happen, at least for many 
 years. Perhaps, after Dick was mar- 
 ried 
 
 The green and gold beauty of the morn- 
 ing hurt her with the memory of that 
 other sunny morning, when he had so 
 easily taken from her the task she hated 
 and strove to bear. And he had suc- 
 ceeded, how he had succeeded! Who 
 else in the world could have so trans- 
 formed Dick? Leaning on the table, her 
 round chin in her palm as she gazed down 
 at the paper in her lap, her fancy slipped 
 
 122
 
 back to that night on the Long Island 
 road, when she had first seen his serene 
 genius for setting all things right. How 
 like him that elimination of Dick, instead 
 of a romantic and impracticable attempt 
 to escort her himself. 
 
 A bush crackled stiffly at some one's 
 passage ; a shadow fell across her. 
 
 "Caught!" laughed Lestrange's glad, 
 exultant voice. "Since you look at the 
 portrait, how shall the original fear to 
 present himself? See, I can match." 
 He held out a card burned at the corners 
 and streaked with dull red, "The first 
 time I saw your writing, and found my 
 own name there." 
 
 Amazed, Emily sat up, and met in his 
 glowing face all incarnate joy of life and 
 youth. 
 
 "Oh!" she gasped piteously.
 
 "You are surprised that I am here? 
 My dear, my dear, after last night did you 
 think I could be anywhere else?" 
 
 "The race" 
 
 "I know that track too well to need 
 much practise, and I had the machine out 
 at dawn. My partner is busy practising 
 this morning, and I'll be back in a couple 
 of hours. I was afraid," the gray eyes 
 were so gentle in their brilliancy, "I was 
 afraid you might worry, Emily." 
 
 Serenely he assumed possession of her, 
 and the assumption was very sweet. He 
 had not touched her, yet Emily had the 
 sensation of brutally thrusting him away 
 when she spoke : 
 
 "How could I do anything else," she 
 
 asked with desolation, "since we must 
 
 never meet each other any more? Only, 
 
 you will not go far away you will stay 
 
 124
 
 where I can sometimes see you as we 
 pass? I I think I could not bear it to 
 have you go away." 
 
 "Emily!" 
 
 The scissors clinked sharply to the 
 floor as she held out her white hands in 
 deprecation of his cry; the tears rushed 
 to her eyes. 
 
 "You know, you know I I am not free ; 
 I am Emily Ffrench. I can not fail my 
 uncle and grieve him as his son did. Oh, 
 I will never marry any one else, and we 
 will hear of each other; I can read in 
 the papers and Dick will tell me of you. 
 It will be something to be so close, down 
 there and up here." 
 
 "Emily!" 
 
 "You are not angry? You will not be 
 angry? You know I can do nothing else, 
 please say you know." 
 125
 
 He came nearer and took both cold lit- 
 tle hands in his clasp, bending to her the 
 shining gravity of his regard. 
 
 "Did you think me such a selfish ani- 
 mal, my dear, that I would have kissed 
 you when I could not claim you?" he 
 asked. "Did you think I could forget 
 you were Emily Ffrench, even by moon- 
 light?" 
 
 Her fair head fell back, her dark eyes 
 questioned his. 
 
 "You mean " 
 
 "I mean that even your uncle can not 
 deny my inherited quality of gentleman. 
 I am no millionaire incognito. I have 
 driven racing cars and managed this fac- 
 tory to earn my living, having no other 
 dependence than upon myself, but my 
 blood is as old as yours, little girl, if that 
 means anything." 
 
 126
 
 "Not to me," she cried, looking up into 
 his eyes. "Not to me, but to him. I 
 cared for you " 
 
 He drew her toward him, unresisting, 
 their gaze still on each other. As from 
 the first, there was no shyness between 
 them, but the strange, exquisite under- 
 standing now made perfect. 
 
 "I was right to come to you," he de- 
 clared, after a time. "Right to fear that 
 you were troubled, conscientious lady. 
 But I must go back, or there will be a 
 fine disturbance at the Beach. And I have 
 shattered my other plans to insignificant 
 fragments, or you have. If I did not for- 
 get by moonlight that you were Emily 
 Ffrench, I certainly forgot everything 
 else." 
 
 She looked up at him, her softly tinted 
 face bright as his own, her yellow hair 
 127
 
 rumpled into flossy tendrils under the 
 black velvet ribbon binding it. 
 
 "Everything else?" she echoed. "Is 
 there anything else but this?" 
 
 "Nothing that counts, to me. You for 
 my own, and this good world to live in 
 I stand bareheaded before it all. But 
 yet, I told you once that I had a purpose 
 to accomplish; a purpose now very near 
 completion. In a few months I meant to 
 leave Ff renchwood." 
 
 Emily gave a faint cry. 
 
 "Yes, for my work would have been 
 done. Then I fell in love and upset 
 everything. When I tell Mr. Ffrench 
 that I want you, I will have to leave at 
 
 once." 
 
 "Why? You said " 
 "How brave are you, Emily?" he 
 asked. "I said your uncle could not 
 128
 
 question my name or birth, but I did not 
 say he would want to give you to me. 
 Nor will he; unless I am mistaken. Are 
 you going to be brave enough to come to 
 me, knowing he has no right to complain, 
 since you and I together have given him 
 Dick?" 
 
 "He does not know you; how can you 
 tell he does not like you?" she urged. 
 
 "Do you think he likes 'Darling' Le- 
 strange of the race course?" 
 
 The sudden keen demand disconcerted 
 her. 
 
 "I hear a little down there," he added. 
 "I have not been fortunate with your kins- 
 man. No, it is for you to say whether 
 Ethan Ffrench's unjust caprice is a bar 
 between us. To me it is none." 
 
 "I thought there was to be no more 
 trouble," she faltered, distressed. 
 129
 
 Lestrange looked down at her steadily, 
 his gray eyes darkening to an expression 
 she had never seen. 
 
 "Have I no right?" was his question. 
 "Is there no cancelling of a claim, is there 
 no subsequent freedom? Is it all no use, 
 Emily?" 
 
 Vaguely awed and frightened, her fin- 
 gers tightened on his arm in a panic of 
 surrender. 
 
 "I will come to you, I will come! You 
 know best what is right I trust you to 
 tell me. Forgive me, dear, I wanted 
 to" 
 
 He silenced her, all the light flashing 
 back to his face. 
 
 "A promise; hush! Oh, I shall win 
 
 to-night with that singing in my ears. I 
 
 have more to say to you, but not now. I 
 
 must see Bailey, somehow, before I go." 
 
 130
 
 "He is at the house; let me send him 
 here to you." 
 
 "If you come back with him." 
 
 They laughed together. 
 
 "I will Do you know," her color 
 deepened rosily, "they all call you 
 'Darling'; I have never heard your own 
 
 name." 
 
 "My name is David," Lestrange said 
 quietly, and kissed her for farewell. 
 
 The earth danced under Emily's feet 
 as she ran across the lawns, the sun glowed 
 warm, the brook tinkled over the cascades 
 in a very madness of mirth. At the head 
 of the veranda steps she turned to look 
 once more at the roof of the white pavil- 
 ion among the locust trees. 
 
 "Uncle will like you when he knows 
 you," she laughed in her heart. "Any 
 one must like you." 
 
 '3 1
 
 The servant she met in the hall said that 
 Mr. Bailey had gone out, and Mr. 
 Ffrench also, but separately, the former 
 having taken the short route across toward 
 the factory. That way Emily went in 
 pursuit, intending to overtake him with 
 her pony cart. 
 
 But upon reaching the stables, past 
 which the path ran, she found Bailey 
 himself engaged in an inspection of the 
 limousine in company with the chauffeur. 
 
 "You'll have to look into her differen- 
 tial, Anderson," he was pronouncing, 
 when the young girl came beside him. 
 
 "Come, please," she urged breathlessly. 
 
 "Come?" repeated Bailey, wheeling, 
 with his slow benevolent smile. "Sure, 
 Miss Emily; where?" 
 
 She shook her head, not replying until 
 they were safely outside ; then : 
 132
 
 "To Mr. Lestrange; he is in the pavil- 
 ion. He wants to see you." 
 
 "To Lestrange!" he almost shouted, 
 halting. "Lestrange, here?" 
 
 "Yes. There is time; he says .there is 
 time. He is going back as soon as he 
 sees you." 
 
 "But what's he doing here? What does 
 he mean by risking his neck without any 
 practise?" 
 
 "He came to see me," she whispered, 
 and stood confessed. 
 
 "God!" said Bailey, quite reverently, 
 after a moment of speechless stupefaction. 
 "You, and him!" 
 
 She lifted confiding eyes to him, mov- 
 ing nearer. 
 
 "It is a secret, but I wanted you to 
 know because you like us both. Dick 
 said you loved Mr. Lestrange." 
 
 133
 
 "Yes," was the dazed assent. 
 
 "Well, then But come, he is wait- 
 ing." 
 
 She was sufficiently unlike the usual 
 Miss Ffrench to bewilder any one. Bai- 
 ley dumbly followed her back across the 
 park, carrying his hat in his hand. 
 
 A short distance from the pavilion 
 Emily stopped abruptly, turning a 
 startled face to her companion. 
 
 "Some one is there," she said. "Some 
 one is speaking. I forgot that Uncle 
 Ethan had gone out." 
 
 She heard Bailey catch his breath 
 oddly. Her own pulses began to beat 
 with heavy irregularity, as a few steps 
 farther brought the two opposite the open 
 arcade. There they halted, frozen. 
 
 In the place Emily had left, where all 
 her feminine toys still lay, Mr. Ffrench 
 
 134
 
 was seated as one exhausted by the force 
 of overmastering emotion; his hands 
 clenched on the arms of the chair, his face 
 drawn with passion. Opposite him stood 
 Lestrange, colorless and still as Emily had 
 never conceived him, listening in absolute 
 silence to the bitter address pouring from 
 the other's lips with a low-toned violence 
 indescribable. 
 
 "I told you then, never again to come 
 here," first fell upon Emily's conscious 
 hearing. "I supposed you were at least 
 Ffrench enough to take a dismissal. 
 What do you want here, money? I 
 warned you to live upon the allowance 
 sent every month to your bankers, for I 
 would pay no more even to escape the in- 
 tolerable disgrace of your presence here. 
 Did you imagine me so deserted that I 
 would accept even you as a successor? 
 
 135
 
 Wrong ; you are not missed. My nephew 
 Richard takes your place, and is fit to 
 take it. Go back to Europe and your 
 low-born wife; there is no lack in my 
 household." 
 
 The voice broke in an excess of savage 
 triumph, and Lestrange took the pause 
 without movement or gesture. 
 
 "I am going, sir, and I shall never 
 come back," he answered, never more 
 quietly. "I can take a dismissal, yes. If 
 ever I have wished peace or hoped for an 
 accord that never existed between us, I 
 go cured of such folly. But hear this 
 much, since I am arraigned at your bar : 
 I have never yet disgraced your name or 
 mine unless by the boy's mischief which 
 sent me from college. The money you 
 speak of, I have never used; ask Bailey 
 136
 
 of it, if you will." He hesitated, and in 
 the empty moment there came across the 
 mile of June air the roaring noon whistle 
 of the factory. Involuntarily he turned 
 his head toward the call, but as instantly 
 recovered himself from the self-betrayal. 
 "There is another matter to be arranged, 
 but there is no time now. Nor even in 
 concluding it will I come here again, 
 
 sir." 
 
 There was that in his bearing, in the 
 dignified carefulness of courtesy with 
 which he saluted the other before turn- 
 ing to go, that checked even Ethan 
 Ffrench. But as Lestrange crossed the 
 threshold of the little building, Emily 
 ran from the thicket to meet him, her eyes 
 a dark splendor in her white face, her 
 hands outstretched. 
 
 137
 
 "Not like this!" she panted. "Not 
 without seeing me! Oh, I might have 
 guessed " 
 
 His vivid color and animation returned 
 as he caught her to him, heedless of wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 "You dare? My dear, my dear, not 
 even a question? There is no one like 
 you. Say, shall I take you now, or send 
 Dick for you after the race?" 
 
 Mr. Ffrench exclaimed some inarticu- 
 late words, but neither heard him. 
 
 "Send Dick," Emily answered, her 
 eyes on the gray eyes above her. "Send 
 Dick I understand, I will come." 
 
 He kissed her once, then she drew back 
 and he went down the terraces toward 
 the gates. As Emily sank down on the 
 bench by the pavilion door, Bailey 
 brushed past her, running after the 
 
 138
 
 straight, lithe figure that went steadily on 
 out of sight among the huge trees planted 
 and tended by five generations of 
 Ffrenches. 
 
 When the vistas of the park were 
 empty, Emily slowly turned to face her 
 uncle. 
 
 "You love David Ffrench?" he asked, 
 his voice thin and harsh. 
 
 "Yes," she answered. She had no 
 need to ask if Lestrange were meant. 
 
 "He is married to some woman of the 
 music-halls." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How do you know? He has told 
 you?" 
 
 She lifted to him the superb confidence 
 of her glance, although nervous tremors 
 shook her in wavelike succession. 
 
 "If he had been married, he would not 
 
 139
 
 THE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 have made me care for him. He has 
 asked me to be his wife." 
 
 They were equally strange to each 
 other in these new characters, and equally 
 spent by emotion. Neither moving, they 
 sat opposite each other in silence. So 
 Bailey found them when he came back 
 later, to take his massive stand in the door- 
 way, his hands in his pockets and his 
 strong jaw set. 
 
 "I think that things are kind of mixed 
 up here, Mr. Ffrench," he stated grimly. 
 "I guess I'm the one to straighten them 
 out a bit; I've loved Mr. David from the 
 time he was a kid and never saw him get 
 a square deal yet. You asked him what 
 he was doing here I'll tell you; he is 
 Lestrange." 
 
 There is a degree of amazement which 
 140
 
 precludes speech; Mr. Ffrench looked 
 back at his partner, mute. 
 
 "He is Lestrange. He never meant 
 you to know ; he'd have left without your 
 ever knowing, but for Miss Emily. I 
 guess I don't need to remind you of what 
 he's done; if it hadn't been for him we 
 might have closed our doors some day. 
 He understands the business as none of 
 us back-number, old-fashioned ones do; 
 he took hold and shook some life into it. 
 We can make cars, but he can make peo- 
 ple buy them. Advertising! Why, just 
 that fool picture he drew on the back of a 
 pad, one day, of a row of thermometers 
 up to one hundred forty, with the sign 
 'Mercuries are at the top/ made more 
 people notice." 
 
 Bailey cleared his throat. "He was al- 
 141
 
 ways making people notice, and laugh- 
 ing while he did it. He's risked his neck 
 on every course going, to bring our cars 
 in first, he's lent his fame as a racing 
 driver to help us along. And now 
 everything is fixed the way we want, he's 
 thrown out. What did he do it for? 
 He thought he needed to square accounts 
 with you, for being born, I suppose; so 
 when he heard how things were going 
 with us he came to me and offered his 
 help. At least, that's what he said. I 
 believe he came because he couldn't bear 
 to see the place go under." 
 
 There was a skein of blue silk swing- 
 ing over the edge of the table. Mr. 
 Ffrench picked it up and replaced it in 
 Emily's work-basket before replying. 
 
 "If this remarkable story is true," he 
 began, accurately precise in accent. 
 142
 
 "You don't need me to tell you it is," 
 retorted Bailey. "You know what my 
 new manager's been doing; why, you dis- 
 liked him without seeing him, but you 
 had to admit his good work. And I 
 heard you talking about his allowance, 
 Mr. Ffrench. He never touched it, not 
 from the first; it piled up for six years. 
 Last April, when we needed cash in a 
 hurry, he drew it out and gave it to me 
 to buy aluminum. When he left here 
 first he drove a taxicab in New York City 
 until he got into racing work and made 
 Darling Lestrange famous all over the 
 continent. I guess it went pretty hard 
 for a while; if he'd been the things you 
 called him, he'd have gone to the devil 
 alone in New York, But, he didn't." 
 
 An oriole darted in one arcade and out 
 again with a musical whir of wings. The 
 
 H3
 
 clink of glass and silver sounded from the 
 house windows with a pleasant cheeri- 
 ness and suggestion of comfort and 
 plenty. 
 
 "He made good," Bailey concluded 
 thoughtfully. "But it sounded queer to 
 me to hear you tell him you didn't want 
 him around because Mr. Dick took his 
 place. I know, and Miss Emily knows, 
 that Dick Ffrench was no use on earth 
 for any place until Mr. David took him 
 in hand and made him fit to live. That's 
 all, I guess, that I had to say; I'll get back 
 to work." He turned, but paused to 
 glance around. "It's going to be pretty 
 dull at the factory for me. And between 
 us we've sent Lestrange to the track with 
 a nice set of nerves." 
 
 His retreating footsteps died away to 
 leave the noon hush unbroken. As be- 
 144
 
 fore, uncle and niece were left opposite 
 each other, the crumpled newspaper 
 where Lestrange's name showed in heavy 
 type still lying on the floor between them. 
 
 The effect of Bailey's final sentence had 
 been to leave Emily dizzied by apprehen- 
 sion. But when Mr. Ffrench rose and 
 passed out, she aroused to look up at him 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Uncle," she faltered. 
 
 Disregarding or unseeing her out- 
 stretched hand, he went on and left her 
 there alone. And then Emily dared res- 
 cue the newspaper. 
 
 "A substitute," she whispered. "A 
 substitute," and laid her wet cheek against 
 the pictured driver. 
 
 No one lunched at the Ffrench home 
 that day, except the servants. Near three 
 o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Ffrench 
 
 HS
 
 came back to the pavilion where Emily 
 still sat. 
 
 "Go change your gown," he com- 
 manded, in his usual tone. "We will 
 start now. I have sent for Bailey and or- 
 dered Anderson to bring the automobile." 
 
 "Start?" she wondered, bewildered. 
 
 He met her gaze with a stately repel- 
 lence of comment. 
 
 "For the Beach. I understand this 
 race lasts twenty-four hours. Have you 
 any objection?" 
 
 Objection to being near David ! Emily 
 sprang to her feet. 
 
 146
 
 VIII 
 
 SIX o'clock was the hour set for the 
 start of the Beach race. And it 
 was just seventeen minutes past 
 five when Dick Ffrench, hanging in a 
 frenzy of anxiety over the paddock fence 
 circling the inside of the mile oval, 
 uttered something resembling a howl and 
 rushed to the gate to signal his recreant 
 driver. From the opposite side of the 
 track Lestrange waved gay return, mak- 
 ing his way through the officials and 
 friends who pressed around him to shake 
 hands or slap his shoulder caressingly, 
 jesting and questioning, calling directions 
 and advice. A brass band played noisily 
 in the grand-stand, where the crowd 
 H7
 
 heaved and surged ; the racing machines 
 were roaring in their camps. 
 
 "What's the matter? Where were 
 you?" cried Dick, when at last Lestrange 
 crossed the course to the central field. 
 "The cars are going out now for the pre- 
 liminary run. Rupert's nearly crazy, 
 snarling at everybody, and the other man 
 has been getting ready to start instead 
 of you." 
 
 "Well, he can get unready," smiled 
 Lestrange. "Keep cool, Ffrench; IVe 
 got half an hour and I could start now. 
 I'm ready." 
 
 He was ready; clad in the close-fitting 
 khaki costume whose immaculate dain- 
 tiness gave no hint of the certainty that 
 before the first six hours ended it would 
 be a wreck of yellow dust and oil. As 
 he paused in running an appraising 
 148
 
 glance down the street-like row of tents, 
 the white-clothed driver of a spotless 
 white car shot out on his way to the track, 
 but halted opposite the latest arrival to 
 stretch down a cordial hand. 
 
 "I hoped a trolley-car had bitten you," 
 he shouted. "The rest of us would have 
 more show if you got lost on the way, 
 Darling." 
 
 The boyish driver at the next tent 
 looked up as they passed, and came over 
 grinning to give his clasp. 
 
 "Get a move on ; what you been doin' 
 all day, dear child? They've been givin' 
 your manager sal volatile to hold him 
 still." He nodded at the agitated Dick 
 in ironic commiseration. 
 
 "Go get out your car, Darling; I want 
 to beat you," chaffed the next in line. 
 
 " 'Strike up the band, here comes a 
 149
 
 driver,' " sang another, with an entranc- 
 ing French accent. 
 
 Laughing, retorting, shaking hands 
 with each comrade rival, Lestrange went 
 down the row to his own tent. At his 
 approach a swarm of mechanics from the 
 factory stood back from the long, low, 
 gray car, the driver who was to relieve 
 him during the night and day ordeal 
 slipped down from the seat and un- 
 masked. 
 
 "He's here," announced Dick super- 
 fluously. "Rupert where's Rupert? 
 Don't tell me he's gone now! Le- 
 strange " 
 
 But Rupert was already emerging 
 from the tent with Lestrange's gauntlets 
 and cap, his expression a study in the sar- 
 donic. 
 
 "It hurts me fierce to think how you 
 150
 
 must have hurried," he observed. "Did 
 you walk both ways, or only all three? 
 I'm no Eve, but I'd give a snake an 
 apple to know where youVe been all 
 day." 
 
 "Would you?" queried Lestrange pro- 
 vokingly, clasping the goggles before his 
 eyes. "Well, I've spent the last two 
 hours on the Coney Island beach, about 
 three squares from here, watching the 
 kiddies play in the sand. I didn't feel 
 like driving just then. It was mighty 
 soothing, too." 
 
 Rupert stared at him, a dry unwilling 
 smile slowly crinkling his dark face. 
 
 "Maybe, Darling," he drawled, and 
 turned to make his own preparations. 
 
 Fascinated and useless, Dick looked on 
 at the methodical flurry of the next few 
 moments; until Lestrange was in his seat
 
 and Rupert swung in beside him. Then 
 a gesture summoned him to the side of 
 the machine. 
 
 "I'll run in again before we race, of 
 course," said Lestrange to him, above the 
 deafening noise of the motor. "Be 
 around here ; I want to see you." 
 
 Rupert leaned out, all good-humor 
 once more as he pointed to the machine. 
 
 "Got a healthy talk, what?" he exulted. 
 
 The car darted forward. 
 
 A long round of applause welcomed 
 Lestrange's swooping advent on the track. 
 Handkerchiefs and scarfs were waved; 
 his name passed from mouth to mouth. 
 
 "Popular, ain't he?" chuckled a me- 
 chanic next to Dick. "They don't forget 
 that Georgia trick, no, sir." 
 
 It was not many times that the cars 
 could circle the track. Quarter of six 
 152
 
 blew from whistles and klaxons, signal 
 flags sent the cars to their camps for the 
 last time before the race. 
 
 "Come here," Lestrange beckoned to 
 Dick, as he brought his machine shudder- 
 ing to a standstill before the tent. "Here, 
 close we've got a moment while they 
 fill tanks." 
 
 He unhooked his goggles and leaned 
 over as Dick came beside the wheel, the 
 face so revealed bright and quiet in the 
 sunset glow of color. 
 
 "One never knows what may happen," 
 he said. "I'd rather tell you now than 
 chance your feeling afterward that I 
 didn't treat you quite squarely in keep- 
 ing still. I hope you won't take it as 
 my father did; we've been good chums, 
 you and I. I'm your cousin, David 
 Ffrench." 
 
 153
 
 The moment furnished no words. 
 Dick leaned against the car, absolutely 
 limp. 
 
 "Of course, I'm not going back to 
 Ffrenchwood. After this race I shall go 
 to the Duplex Company; I used to be 
 with them and they've wanted me back. 
 Your company can get along without me, 
 now all is running well indeed, Mr. 
 Ffrench has dismissed me." His firm 
 lip bent a little more firmly. "The work 
 I was doing is in your hands and Bailey's ; 
 see it through. Unless you too want to 
 break off with me, we'll have more time 
 to talk over this." 
 
 "Break off!" Dick straightened his 
 chubby figure. "Break off with you, 
 Les " 
 
 "Go on. My name is Lestrange now 
 and always." 
 
 154
 
 A shriek from the official klaxon sum- 
 moned the racers, Rupert swung back to 
 his seat. Dick reached up his hand to 
 the other in the first really dignified mo- 
 ment of his life. 
 
 "I'm glad you're my kin, Lestrange," 
 he said. "I've liked you anyhow, but 
 I'm glad, just the same. And I don't 
 care what rot they say of you. Take care 
 of yourself." 
 
 Lestrange bared his hand to return the 
 clasp, his warm smile flashing to his 
 cousin; then the swirl of preparation 
 swept between them and Dick next saw 
 him as a part of one of the throbbing, 
 flaming row of machines before the 
 judges' stand. 
 
 It was not a tranquilizing experience 
 for an amateur to witness the start, when 
 the fourteen powerful cars sprang simul- 
 
 '55
 
 taneously for the first curve, struggling 
 for possession of the narrow track in a 
 wheel to wheel contest where one mis- 
 touch meant the wreck of many. After 
 that first view, Dick sat weakly down on 
 an oil barrel and watched the race in a 
 state of fascinated endurance. 
 
 The golden and violet sunset melted 
 pearl-like into the black cup of night. 
 The glare of many searchlights made the 
 track a glistening band of white around 
 which circled the cars, themselves 
 gemmed with white and crimson lamps. 
 The cheers of the people as the lead was 
 taken by one favorite or another, the hum 
 of voices, the music and uproar of the 
 machines blended into a web of sound 
 indescribable. The spectacle was at once 
 ultramodern and classic in antiquity of 
 conception. 
 
 156
 
 At eight o'clock Lestrange came flying 
 in, sent off the track to have a lamp re- 
 lighted. 
 
 "Water," he demanded tersely, in the 
 sixty seconds of the stop, and laughed 
 openly at Dick's expression while he took 
 the cup. 
 
 "Why didn't you light it out there?" 
 asked the novice, infected by the speed 
 fever around him. 
 
 "Forgot our matches," Rupert flung 
 over his shoulder, as they dashed out 
 again. 
 
 An oil-smeared mechanic patroniz- 
 ingly explained: 
 
 "You can't have cars manicuring all 
 over the track and people tripping over 
 'em. You get sent off to light up, and if 
 you don't go they fine you laps made." 
 
 Machines darted in and out from their 
 
 157
 
 camps at intervals, each waking a frenzy 
 of excitement among its men. At ten 
 o'clock the Mercury car came in again, 
 this time limping with a flat tire, to be 
 fallen on by its mechanics. 
 
 "We're leading, but we'll lose by this," 
 said Lcstrange, slipping out to relax and 
 meditatively contemplating the alternate 
 driver, who was standing across the camp. 
 "Ffrench, at twelve I'll have to come in to 
 rest some, and turn my machine over to 
 the other man. And I won't have him 
 wrecking it for me. I want you, as 
 owner, to give him absolute orders to 
 do no speeding; let him hold a fifty- 
 two mile an hour average until I take 
 the wheel again." 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 "I can't do it. You, of course." 
 
 "You could," Dick answered. "IVe 
 
 158
 
 been thinking how you and I will run 
 that factory together. It's all stuff about 
 your going away ; why should you? You 
 and your father take me as junior part- 
 ner; you know I'm not big enough for 
 anything else." 
 
 "You're man's size," Lestrange as- 
 sured, a hand on his shoulder. "But it 
 won't do. I'll not forget the offer, 
 though, never." 
 
 "All on!" a dozen voices signaled; 
 men scattered in every direction as Le- 
 strange sprang to his place. 
 
 The hours passed on the wheels of ex- 
 citement and suspense. When Lestrange 
 came in again, only a watch convinced 
 Dick that it was midnight. 
 
 "You gave the order?" Lestrange 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 159
 
 He descended, taking off his mask and 
 showing a face white with fatigue under 
 the streaks of dust and grime. 
 
 "I'll be all right in half an hour," he 
 nodded, in answer to Dick's exclamation. 
 "Send one of the boys for coffee, will 
 you, please? Rupert needs some, too. 
 Here, one of you others, ask one of those 
 idle doctor's apprentices to come over 
 with a fresh bandage; my arm's a trifle 
 untidy." 
 
 In fact, his right sleeve was wet and 
 red, where the strain of driving had re- 
 opened the injury of the day before. But 
 he would not allow Dick to speak of it. 
 
 "I'm going to spend an hour or two 
 resting. Come in, Ffrench, and we'll 
 chat in the intervals, if you like." 
 
 "And Rupert? Where's he?" Dick 
 wondered, peering into the dark with a 
 160
 
 vague impression of lurking dangers on 
 every side. 
 
 "He's hurried in out of the night air," 
 reassured familiar accents; a small figure 
 lounged across into the light, making vig- 
 orous use of a dripping towel. "Tell 
 Darling I feel faint and I'm going over 
 to that grand-stand cafe a la car to get 
 some pie. I'll be back in time to read 
 over my last lesson from the chauffeurs' 
 correspondence school. Oh, see what's 
 here!" 
 
 A telegraph messenger boy had come 
 up to Dick. 
 
 "Richard Ffrench?" he verified. 
 "Sign, please." 
 
 The message was from New York. 
 
 "All coming down," Dick read. 
 "Limousine making delay. Wire me St. 
 Royal of race. Bailey." 
 161
 
 Far from pleased, young Ffrench hur- 
 riedly wrote the desired answer and gave 
 it to the boy to be sent. But he thrust 
 the yellow envelope into his pocket be- 
 fore turning to the tent where Lestrange 
 was drinking cheap black coffee while 
 an impatient young surgeon hovered 
 near. 
 
 The hour's rest was characteristically 
 spent. Washed, bandaged, and re- 
 freshed, Lestrange dropped on a cot in 
 the back of the tent and pushed a roll of 
 motor garments beneath his head for a 
 pillow. There he intermittently spoke 
 to his companion of whatever the moment 
 suggested ; listening to every sound of the 
 race and interspersing acute comment, 
 starting up whenever the voice of his own 
 machine hinted that the driver was dis- 
 obeying instructions or the shrill klaxon 
 162
 
 gave warning of trouble. But through 
 it all Dick gathered much of the family 
 story. 
 
 "My mother was a Californian," Le- 
 strange once said, coming back from a 
 tour of inspection. "She was twenty 
 times as much alive as any Ffrench that 
 ever existed, I've been told. I fancy she 
 passed that quality on to me you know 
 she died when I was born for I nearly 
 drove the family mad. They expected 
 the worst of me, and I gave the best worst 
 I had. But," he turned to Dick the clear 
 candor of his smile, "it was rather a 
 decent worst, I honestly believe. The 
 most outrageous thing I ever did was to 
 lead a set of seniors in hoisting a cow into 
 the Dean's library, one night, and so get 
 myself expelled from college." 
 
 "A cow-?" the other echoed.
 
 "A fat cow, and it mooed," he stuffed 
 the pillow into a more comfortable posi- 
 tion. "Is that our car running in? No, 
 it's just passing. If Frank doesn't wreck 
 my machine, I'll get this race. And 
 then, the same week, my chum and room- 
 mate ran away with a Doraflora girl of 
 some variety show and married her. I 
 was romantic myself at twenty-one, so I 
 helped him through with it. He was 
 wealthy and she was pretty; it seemed to 
 fit. I believe they've stayed married ever 
 since, by the way. But somehow the re- 
 porters got affairs mixed and published 
 me as the bridegroom. Have you got a 
 cigar? I smoke about three times a 
 year, and this is one of them. Yes, there 
 was a fine scene when I went home that 
 night, a Broadway melodrama. I lost my 
 temper easier then ; by the time my father 
 164
 
 and uncle gave me time to speak, I was 
 too angry to defend myself and set them 
 right. I supposed they would learn the 
 truth by the next day, anyhow. And I 
 left home for good in a dinner-coat and 
 raglan, with something under ten dollars 
 in odd change. What's that!" 
 
 "That" was the harsh alarm of the offi- 
 cial klaxon, coupled with the cry of 
 countless voices. The ambulance gong 
 clanged as Lestrange sprang to his feet 
 and reached the door. 
 
 "Which car?" he called. 
 
 Rupert answered first: 
 
 "Not ours. Number eight's burning 
 up after a smash on the far turn." 
 
 "Jack's car," identified Lestrange, and 
 stood for an instant. "Go flag Frank; 
 I'll take the machine again myself. It's 
 one o'clock, and I've got to win this race." 
 
 .65
 
 Several men ran across to the track in 
 compliance. Lestrange turned to make 
 ready, but paused beside the awed Dick 
 to look over the infield toward the flam- 
 ing blotch against the dark sky. 
 
 "He was in to change a tire ten minutes 
 ago," observed Rupert, beside them. 
 " 'Tell Lestrange I'm doin' time catchin' 
 him,' he yelled to me. Here's hoping 
 his broncho machine pitched him clear 
 from the fireworks." 
 
 When the Mercury car swung in, a few 
 moments later, Lestrange lingered for a 
 last word to Dick. 
 
 "I'm engaged to Emily," he said 
 gravely. "I don't know what she will 
 hear of me; if anything happens, I've 
 told you the truth. I'm old enough to 
 see it now. And I tried to square 
 things." 
 
 1 66
 
 IX 
 
 IN the delicate, fresh June dawn, the 
 Ffrench limousine crept into the 
 Beach inclosure. 
 
 "We're here," said Bailey, to his trav- 
 eling companions. "You can't park the 
 car front by the fence; Mr. David might 
 see you and kill himself by a misturn. 
 Come up to the grand-stand seats." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench got out in silence and as- 
 sisted Emily to descend; a pale and wide- 
 eyed Emily behind her veil. 
 
 "The boys were calling extras," she 
 suggested faintly. "They said three acci- 
 dents on the track." 
 
 Bailey turned to a blue and gold offi- 
 cial passing. 
 
 "Number seven all right?" he asked.
 
 "On the track, Lestrange driving," was 
 the prompt response. "Leading by thir- 
 ty-two miles." 
 
 A little of Emily's color rushed back. 
 Satisfied, Bailey lead the way to the tiers 
 of seats, almost empty at this hour. 
 Pearly, unsubstantial in the young light, 
 lay the huge oval meadow and the track 
 edging it. Of the fourteen cars starting, 
 nine were still circling their course, one 
 temporarily in its camp for supplies. 
 
 "I've sent over for Mr. Dick," Bailey 
 informed the other two. "He's been 
 here, and he can tell what's doing. Four 
 cars are out of the race. There's Mr. 
 David, coming 1" 
 
 A gray machine shot around the west 
 
 curve, hurtled roaring down the straight 
 
 stretch past the stand and crossed before 
 
 them, the mechanician rising in his seat 
 
 168
 
 to catch the pendant linen streamers and 
 wipe the dust from the driver's goggles 
 in preparation for the "death turn" 
 ahead. There was a series of rapid ex- 
 plosions as the driver shut off his motor, 
 the machine swerved almost facing the 
 infield fence and slid around the bend 
 with a skidding lurch that threw a cloud 
 of soil high in the air. Emily cried out, 
 Mr. Ffrench half rose in his place. 
 
 "What's the matter?" dryly queried 
 Bailey. "He's been doing that all night; 
 and a mighty pretty turn he makes, too. 
 He's been doing it for about five years, 
 in fact, to earn his living, only we didn't 
 see him. Here goes another." 
 
 Mr. Ffrench put on his pince-nez, 
 preserving the dignity of outward com- 
 posure. Emily saw and heard nothing; 
 she was following Lestrange around the 
 169
 
 far sides of the course, around until again 
 he flashed past her, repeating his former 
 feat with appalling exactitude. 
 
 It was hardly more than five minutes 
 before Dick came hurrying toward 
 them; cross, tired, dust-streaked and 
 gasolene-scented. 
 
 "I don't see why you wanted to come," 
 he began, before he reached them. "I'm 
 busy enough now. We're leading; if 
 Lestrange holds out we'll win. But he's 
 driving alone; Frank went out an hour 
 ago, on the second relief, when he went 
 through the paddock fence and broke his 
 leg. It didn't hurt the machine a bit, 
 except tires, but it lost us twenty-six laps. 
 And it leaves Lestrange with thirteen 
 steady hours at the wheel. He says he 
 can do it." 
 
 "He's fit?" Bailey questioned. 
 170
 
 Dick turned a peevish regard upon 
 him. 
 
 "I don't know what you call fit. He 
 says he is. His hands are blistered al- 
 ready, his right arm has been bandaged 
 twice where he hurt it pulling me away 
 from the gear-cutter yesterday, and he's 
 had three hours' rest out of the last eleven. 
 See that heap of junk over there; that's 
 where the Alan car burned up last night 
 and sent its driver and mechanician to the 
 hospital. I suppose if Lestrange isn't fit 
 and makes a miscue we'll see something 
 like that happen to him and Rupert." 
 
 "No!" Emily cried piteously. 
 
 Remorse clutched Dick. 
 
 "I forgot you, cousin," he apologized. 
 "Don't go off; Lestrange swears he feels 
 fine and gibes at me for worrying. Don't 
 look like that." 
 
 171
 
 "Richard, you will go down and order 
 our car withdrawn from the race," Mr. 
 Ffrench stated, with his most absolute 
 finality. "This has continued long 
 enough. If we had not been arrested in 
 New York for exceeding the speed limit, 
 I should have been here to end this scene 
 at midnight." 
 
 Stunned, his nephew stared at him. 
 
 "Withdraw!" 
 
 "Precisely. And desire David to come 
 here." 
 
 "I won't," said Dick flatly. "If you 
 want to rub it into Lestrange that way, 
 send Bailey. And I say it's a confounded 
 shame." 
 
 "Richard!" 
 
 His round face ablaze, Dick thrust his 
 hands in his pockets, facing his uncle 
 stubbornly. 
 
 172
 
 "After his splendid fight, to stop him 
 now? Do you know how they take being 
 put out, those fellows? Why, when the 
 Italian car went off the track for good, 
 last night, with its chain tangled up with 
 everything underneath, its driver sat 
 down and cried. And you'd come down 
 on Lestrange when he's winning I 
 won't do it, I won't! Send Bailey; I 
 can't tell him." 
 
 "If you want to discredit the car and its 
 driver, Mr. Ffrench, you can do it with- 
 out me," slowly added Bailey. "But it 
 won't be any use to send for Mr. David, 
 because he won't come." 
 
 The autocrat of his little world looked 
 from one rebel to the other, confronted 
 with the unprecedented. 
 
 "If I wish to withdraw him, it is to 
 place him out of danger," he retorted 
 
 173
 
 with asperity. "Not because I wish to 
 mortify him, naturally. Is that clear? 
 Does he want to pass the next thirteen 
 hours under this ordeal?" 
 
 "I'll tell you what he wants," an- 
 swered Dick. "He wants to be let alone. 
 It seems to me he's earned that." 
 
 Ethan Ffrench opened his lips, and 
 closed them again without speech. It 
 had not been his life's habit to let people 
 alone and the art was acquired with dif- 
 ficulty. 
 
 "I admit I do not comprehend the feel- 
 ings you describe," he conceded, at last. 
 "But there is one person who has the right 
 to decide whether David shall continue 
 this risk of his life. Emily, do you wish 
 the car withdrawn?" 
 
 There was a gasp from the other two 
 men. 
 
 174
 
 "I?" the young girl exclaimed, amazed. 
 "I can call him here safe " 
 
 Her voice died out as Lestrange's car 
 roared past, overtaking two rivals on the 
 turn and sliding between them with an 
 audacity that provoked rounds of ap- 
 plause from the spectators. To call him 
 in from that, to have him safe with her 
 the mere thought was a delight that 
 caught her breath. Yet, she knew Le- 
 strange. 
 
 The three men watched her in keen sus- 
 pense. The Mercury car had passed 
 twice again before she raised her head, 
 and in that space of a hundred seconds 
 Emily reached the final unselfishness. 
 
 "What David wants," she said. 
 "Uncle, what David wants." 
 
 "You're a brick!" cried Dick, in a pas- 
 sion of relief. "Emily, you're a brick!" 
 
 175
 
 She looked at him with eyes he never 
 forgot. 
 
 "If anything happens to him, I hope I 
 die too," she answered, and drew the silk 
 veil across her face. 
 
 "Go back, Mr. Dick, you're no good 
 here," advised Bailey, in the pause. "I 
 guess Miss Emily is right, Mr. Ffrench; 
 we've got nothing to do but look on, for 
 David Ffrench was wiped out to make 
 Darling Lestrange." 
 
 Having left the decision to Emily, it 
 was in character that her uncle offered no 
 remonstrance when she disappointed his 
 wish. Nor did he reply to Bailey's re- 
 minder of who had sent David Ffrench 
 to the track. But he did adopt the sug- 
 gestion to look on, and there was suffi- 
 cient to see. 
 
 176
 
 THE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 When Lestrange came into his camp 
 for oil and gasolene, near eight o'clock, 
 Dick seized the brief halt, the first in 
 three hours. 
 
 "Emily's up in the stand," he an- 
 nounced. "Send her a word, old man; 
 and don't get reckless in front of her." 
 
 "Emily?" echoed Lestrange, too weary 
 for astonishment. "Give me a pencil. 
 No, I can't take off my gauntlet; it's 
 glued fast. I'll manage. Rupert, go 
 take an hour's rest and send me the other 
 mechanician." 
 
 "I can't get off my car; it's glued fast," 
 Rupert confided, leaning over the back 
 of the machine to appropriate a sandwich 
 from the basket a man was carrying to 
 the neighboring camp. "Go on with 
 your correspondence, dearest." 
 177
 
 So resting the card Dick supplied on 
 the steering-wheel, Lestrange wrote a 
 difficult two lines. 
 
 He was out again on the track when 
 Dick brought the message to Emily. 
 
 "I just told him you were here, cousin," 
 he whispered at her ear, and dropped the 
 card in her lap. 
 
 "I'll enjoy this more than ever, with 
 you here," she read. "It's the right place 
 for my girl. I'll give you the cup for 
 our first dinner table, to-night. 
 
 "DAVID." 
 
 Emily lifted her face. The tragedy of 
 the scene was gone, Lestrange's eyes 
 laughed at her out of a mist. The sky 
 was blue, the sunshine golden; the merry 
 crowds commencing to pour in woke car- 
 nival in her heart.
 
 "He said to tell you the machine was 
 running magnificently," supplemented 
 Dick, "and not to insult his veteran rep- 
 utation by getting nervous. He's coming 
 by look." 
 
 He was coming by; and, although una- 
 ble to look toward the grand-stand, he 
 raised his hand in salute as he passed, to 
 the one he knew was watching. Emily 
 flushed rosily, her dark eyes warm and 
 shining. 
 
 "I can wait," she sighed gratefully. 
 "Dickie, I can wait until it ends, now." 
 
 Dick went back. 
 
 The hours passed. One more car went 
 out of the race under the grinding test; 
 there were the usual incidents of blown- 
 out tires and temporary withdrawals for 
 repairs. Twice Mr. Ffrench sent his 
 partner and Emily to the restaurant
 
 THE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 below, tolerating no protests, but he him- 
 self never left his seat. Perfectly com- 
 posed, his expression perfectly self-con- 
 tained, he watched his son. 
 
 The day grew unbearably hot toward 
 afternoon, a heat rather of July than 
 June. After a visit to his camp Le- 
 strange reappeared without the suffoca- 
 ting mask and cap, driving bareheaded, 
 with only the narrow goggles crossing his 
 face. The change left visible the drawn 
 pallor of exhaustion under stains of dust 
 and oil, his rolled-back sleeves disclosed 
 the crimson bandage on his right arm and 
 the fact that his left wrist was tightly 
 wound with linen where swollen and 
 strained muscles rebelled at the long 
 trial. 
 
 "He's been driving for nineteen 
 hours," said Dick, climbing up to his 
 1 80
 
 party through the excited crowd. "Two 
 hours more to six o'clock. Listen to the 
 mob when he passes!" 
 
 The injunction was unnecessary. As 
 the sun slanted low the enthusiasm grew 
 to fever. This was a crowd of connois- 
 seurs motorists, chauffeurs, automobile 
 lovers and drivers they knew what was 
 being done before them. The word 
 passed that Lestrange was in his twentieth 
 hour; people climbed on seats to cheer 
 him as he went by. When one of his 
 tires blew out, in the opening of the 
 twenty-first hour of his driving and the 
 twenty-fourth of the race, the great shout 
 of sympathy and encouragement that 
 went up shook the grand-stand to its ce- 
 ment foundations. 
 
 Neither Lestrange nor Rupert left 
 his seat while that tire was changed. 
 181
 
 THE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 "If we did I ain't sure we'd get back," 
 Rupert explained to Dick, who hovered 
 around them agitatedly. "If I'd thought 
 Darling's mechanician would get in for 
 this, I'd have taken in sewing for a living. 
 How much longer?" 
 
 "Half an hour." 
 
 "Well, watch us finish." 
 
 A renewed burst of applause greeted 
 the Mercury car's return to the track. 
 Men were standing watch in hand to 
 count the last moments, their eyes on the 
 bulletin board where the reeled-off miles 
 were being registered. Two of the 
 other machines were fighting desperately 
 for second place, hopeless of rivaling 
 Lestrange, and after them sped the 
 rest. 
 
 "The finish 1" some one suddenly called. 
 "THe last lap!" 
 
 182
 
 Dick was hanging over the paddock 
 fence when the car shot by amidst bray- 
 ing klaxons, motor horns, cheers, and the 
 clashing music of the band. Frantic, the 
 people hailed Lestrange as the black and 
 white checked flag dropped before him in 
 proclamation of his victory and the ended 
 race. 
 
 Rupert raised his arms above his head 
 in the signal of acknowledgment, as they 
 flew across the line and swept on to com- 
 plete the circle to their camp. Lestrange 
 slackened speed to take the dangerous, 
 deeply furrowed turn for the last time, his 
 car poised for the curving flight under 
 his guidance then the watching hun- 
 dreds saw the driver's hands slip from the 
 steering-wheel as he reached for the 
 brake. Straight across the track the ma- 
 chine dashed, instead of following the 
 
 83
 
 bend, crashed through the barrier, and 
 rolled over on its side in the green 
 meadow grass. 
 
 "The steering-knuckle 1" Bailey 
 groaned, as the place burst into uproar 
 around them. "The wheel I saw it 
 turn uselessly in his hands!" 
 
 "They're up!" cried a dozen voices. 
 "No, one's up and one's under." "Who's 
 caught in the wreck Lestrange or his 
 man?" 
 
 But before the people who surged over 
 the track, breaking all restraint, before 
 the electric ambulance, Dick Ffrench 
 reached the marred thing that had been 
 the Mercury car. It was Lestrange who 
 had painfully struggled to one knee be- 
 side the machine, fighting hard for 
 breath to speak. 
 
 "Take the car off Rupert," he panted,
 
 at Dick's cry of relief on seeing him. 
 "I'm all right take the car off Rupert." 
 
 The next instant they were surrounded, 
 overwhelmed with eager aid. The am- 
 bulance came up and a surgeon precipi- 
 tated himself toward Lestrange. 
 
 "Stand back," the surgeon com- 
 manded generally. "Are you trying to 
 smother him? Stand back." 
 
 But it was he who halted before a ges- 
 ture from Lestrange, who leaned on Dick 
 and a comrade from the camp. 
 
 "Go over there, to Rupert." 
 
 "You first" 
 
 "No." 
 
 There was nothing to do except yield. 
 Shrugging his shoulders, the surgeon 
 paused the necessary moment. A mo- 
 ment only; there was a scattering of the 
 hushed workers, a metallic crash. 
 '8s
 
 From the space the car had covered a 
 small figure uncoiled, lizardlike, and 
 staggered unsteadily erect. 
 
 "Where's Darling Lestrange?" was 
 hurled viciously across the silence. 
 "Gee, you're a slow bunch of workers! 
 Where's Lestrange?" 
 
 The tumult that broke loose swept all 
 to confusion. And after all it was Le- 
 strange who was put in the surgeon's care, 
 while Rupert rode back to the camp on 
 the driver's seat of the ambulance. 
 
 "Tell Emily I'll come over to her as 
 soon as I'm fit to look at," was the mes- 
 sage Lestrange gave Dick. "And when 
 you go back to the factory, have your 
 steering-knuckles strengthened." 
 
 Dick exceeded his commission by trans- 
 mitting the speech entire; repeating the 
 1 86
 
 IE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 first part to Emily with all affectionate 
 solicitude, and flinging the second cut- 
 tingly at his uncle and Bailey. 
 
 "The doctors say he ought to be in bed, 
 but he won't go," he concluded. "No, 
 you can't see him until they get through 
 patching him up at the hospital tent; they 
 put every one out except Rupert. He 
 hasn't a scratch, after having a ninety 
 Mercury on top of him. You're to come 
 over to our camp, Emily, and wait for 
 Lestrange. I suppose everybody had 
 better come." 
 
 It was a curious and an elevating 
 thing to see Dickie assume command of 
 his family, but no one demurred. An 
 official, recognizing in him Lestrange's 
 manager, cleared a way for the party 
 through the noisy press of departing peo- 
 
 ,8 7
 
 pie and automobiles. The very track 
 was blocked by a crowd too great for 
 control. 
 
 The sunset had long faded, night had 
 settled over the motordrome and the elec- 
 tric lamps had been lit in the tents, be- 
 fore there came a stir and murmur in the 
 Mercury camp. 
 
 "Don't skid, the ground's wet," cau- 
 tioned a voice outside the door. 
 "Steady!" 
 
 Emily started up, Dick sprang to open 
 the canvas, and Lestrange crossed the 
 threshold. Lestrange, colorless, his right 
 arm in a sling, his left wound with linen 
 from wrist to elbow, and bearing a heavy 
 purple bruise above his temple, but with 
 the brightness of victory flashing above 
 all weariness like a dancing flame. 
 
 "Sweetheart!" he laughed, as Emily 
 1 88
 
 ran to meet him, heedless of all things 
 except that he stood within touch once 
 more. "My dear, I told them not to 
 frighten you. Why, Emily " 
 
 For as he put his one available arm 
 about her, she hid her wet eyes on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I am so happy," she explained breath- 
 lessly. "It is only that." 
 
 "You should not have been here at all, 
 my dear. But it is good to see you. 
 Who brought you? Bailey?" catching 
 sight of the man beside Dick. "Good, I 
 wanted some one to help me ; Rupert and 
 I have got to find a hotel and we're not 
 very active." 
 
 Emily would have slipped away from 
 the clasp, scarlet with returning recollec- 
 tion, but Lestrange detained her to meet 
 his shining eyes.
 
 "The race is over," he reminded, for 
 her ears alone. "I'm going to keep you, 
 if you'll stay." 
 
 He turned to take a limping step, of- 
 fering his hand cordially to the speechless 
 Bailey, and faced for the first time the 
 other man present. 
 
 "I think," said Ethan Ffrench, "that 
 there need be no question of hotels. We 
 have not understood each other, but you 
 have the right to Ffrench wood's hospital- 
 ity. If you can travel, we will go there." 
 
 "No," answered David Ffrench, as 
 quietly. "Never. You owe me noth- 
 ing, sir. If I have worked in your fac- 
 tory, I took the workman's wages for it; 
 if I have won honors for your car, I also 
 won the prize-money given to the driver. 
 I never meant so to establish any claim 
 upon Ffrenchwood or you. I believe we 
 190
 
 stand even. Dick has taken my place, 
 happily; Emily and I will go on our own 
 road." 
 
 They looked at each other, the likeness 
 between them most apparent, in the sim- 
 ilar determination of mood which wiped 
 laughter and warmth from the younger 
 man's face. However coldly phrased 
 and dictatorially spoken, it was an apol- 
 ogy which Mr. Ffrench had offered and 
 which had been declined. But he had 
 watched Lestrange all day; he did not lift 
 the gauntlet. 
 
 "You are perfectly free," he conceded, 
 "which gives you the opportunity of be- 
 ing generous." 
 
 His son moved, flushing through his 
 pallor. 
 
 "I wish you would not put it that way, 
 sir," he objected. 
 
 191
 
 "There is no other way. I have been 
 wrong and I have no control over you; 
 will you come home?" 
 
 There was no other argument but that 
 that could have succeeded, and the three 
 who knew Lestrange knew that could not 
 fail. 
 
 "You want me because I am a 
 Ffrench," David rebelled in the final 
 protest. "You have a substitute." 
 
 "Perhaps I want you otherwise. And 
 we will not speak in passion ; there can be 
 no substitute for you." 
 
 "Ffrench and Ffrench," murmured 
 Dick coaxingly. "We can run that fac- 
 tory, Lestrange!" 
 
 "There's more than steering-knuckles 
 needing your eye on them. And you 
 love the place, Mr. David," said Bailey 
 from his corner. 
 
 192
 
 IE FLYING MERCURY 
 
 From one to the other David's glance 
 went, to rest on Emily's delicate, earnest 
 face in its setting of yellow-bronze curls 
 Full and straight her dark eyes answered 
 his, the convent-bred Emily's answer to 
 his pride and old resentment and new re- 
 luctance to yield his liberty. 
 
 "After all, you were born a Ffrench," 
 she reminded, her soft accents just au- 
 dible. "If that is your work?" 
 
 Very slowly David turned to his father. 
 
 "I never learned to do things by 
 halves," he said. "If you want me, 
 
 sir" 
 
 And Ethan Ffrench understood, and 
 first offered his hand. 
 
 Rupert was discovered asleep in a 
 camp-chair outside the tent, a few min- 
 utes later, when Dick went in search of 
 him. 
 
 193
 
 "The limousine's waiting," his awak- 
 ener informed him. "You don't feel bad, 
 do you?" 
 
 The mechanician rose cautiously, winc- 
 ing. 
 
 "Well, if every joint in my chassis 
 wasn't sore, I'd feel better," he admitted 
 grimly. "But I'm still running. What 
 did you kiss me awake for, when I need 
 my sleeps?" 
 
 "Did you suppose we could get Le- 
 strange home without you, Jack Rupert?" 
 
 "I ain't supposing you could. I'm 
 ready." 
 
 The rest of the party were already in 
 the big car, with one exception. 
 
 "Take a last look, Rupert," bade 
 David, as he stood in the dark paddock. 
 "We're retired; come help me get used 
 
 to it." 
 
 194
 
 Rupert passed a glance over the de- 
 serted track. 
 
 "I guess my sentiment-tank has given 
 out," he sweetly acknowledged. "The 
 Mercury factory sounds pretty good to 
 me, Darling. And I guess we can make 
 a joy ride out of living, on any track, if 
 we enter for it." 
 
 "I guess we can," laughed David 
 Ffrench. "Get in opposite Emily. 
 We're going home to try." 
 
 THE END
 
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