From the Car Behind. Eleanor M. Ingram

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      "Beside me, Rupert," he blithely invited, when the mechanician came up.

      Rupert looked at Gerard, received his gesture of corroboration, and lifting his cap to Flavia, took the designated seat without comment.

      "Don't you care where you're going?" presently demanded Corrie, moving up a speed. He respected Allan Gerard's little mechanician almost as much as he did Allan Gerard, knowing his reputation in racing circles; the glance he gave to accompany the query was an invitation to friendship.

      Rupert braced one small tan shoe against the floor, as the car wrenched itself out of a tenacious sand rut.

      "I ain't worrying," he kindly assured. "Any place that ain't New York is off the map, anyhow."

      "I thought you belonged out west with Mr. Gerard."

      "I guess I belong to the Mercury racer. But I'm officially chief tester at the eastern factory, up the Hudson, except when there's a race on. Since Darling French got married, I've raced with Gerard. Were you aiming to collect that horseshoe with a nail in it, ahead there on the course, or will it be an accident?"

      "It's going to be an escape," smiled the driver, swerving deftly. "Tell me about the first part of the ball game, won't you? I missed it, going after my father and sister."

      "Who, me? I ain't qualified. The curves I'm used to judging belong to a different game. I guess, if you listen to what's being said behind us, you'll get the better record. I'm enjoying the novelty of the automobile ride, myself."

      "You must be," Corrie agreed ironically. "You get so little of it. They are not talking real ball."

      But he settled back to listen. In fact, it was the recent game that was being discussed in the tonneau, with Mr. Rose as chief speaker and Flavia as auditor. The party was of enchanting congeniality.

      They drove first to the hotel where Gerard had been stopping.

      It was quite six o'clock when the touring car rolled through Mr. Rose's lawns and landscape-garden scenery, to come to a stop before the large, pink stone house of many columns. Mr. Rose had a passion for columns. Across the rug-strewn veranda a girl advanced to meet the arriving motorists; an auburn-haired, high-colored girl who wore a tweed ulster over her light evening gown.

      "I thought you were never coming," she reproached, imperiously aggrieved. "I hate waiting. And I want uncle to send Lenoir after my runabout——"

      The sentence broke as she saw the man beside Flavia, her gray eyes widened in astonished interest.

      "My niece Isabel Rose, Mr. Gerard," presented Mr. Rose. "And now you have met all of us. Come on, Corwin B."

      Isabel Rose gave her hand to the guest. She had the slightly hard beauty of nineteen years and exuberant health; contrasted with Flavia, there was almost a boyishness in her air of assurance and athletic vigor. But in the studied coquetry of her glance at Gerard, the instant desire to allure in response to the allure of this man's good looks, she showed femininity of a type that her cousin never would understand.

      "I should not have minded waiting," she declared, in her high-pitched, clear-cut speech, "if I had known something pleasant was going to happen."

      "If that means me, Miss Rose——" Gerard laughingly doubted.

      "I don't see anyone else who happens; the rest of them are just always here," she confirmed, shrugging her shoulders.

      He regarded her with the gay indulgence one shows an agreeable child. "Then, all thanks for the welcome. I shall try to live up to it, if you will not expect too much."

      "Oh, but I shall!"

      "Then perhaps I had better retreat at once?"

      "You might try, first. Don't you think so, Flavia?"

      "I think we might go in," Flavia smilingly suggested from the threshold. "We could assume Mr. Gerard's safety so far."

      "Come on, Corwin B.," his father summoned again.

      But Corrie sat still in his place, leaning on his steering-wheel and gazing curiously at his cousin and Gerard. Nor did he follow the group into the house; instead, he took the car and Jack Rupert around to the garage.

      A little later, when Flavia Rose went upstairs to make ready for dinner, Isabel followed her, frankly inquisitive.

      "Is this Mr. Gerard the real Gerard, the Gerard who races cars?" the examination commenced, as soon as the cousins were alone.

      "He is Allan Gerard," Flavia stated. "Did you have a nice game, this afternoon?"

      The distraction was put aside.

      "Oh, pretty fair. I walked home across the links and left the runabout at the club. Did you ever meet Mr. Gerard before? You seem to know each other pretty well."

      Flavia's delicate color flushed over her face; for an instant she again felt Gerard's firm arm around her and encountered his concerned eyes bent upon her own, as they stood on the stairs of the grand-stand. Truthfulness was the atmosphere of the household, the truthfulness born of fearless affection and cordial sympathy of feeling, but now she used an evasion, almost for the first time in her life.

      "It is Corrie who knows Mr. Gerard, Isabel," she explained, a trifle slowly. "You remember that race when he helped Corrie, last summer? To-day Corrie saw him playing ball, and brought him to meet us."

      "Oh! Yes, I remember the race, of course; I was there. But I did not know Allan Gerard was—well, looked like that. How long will he be here?"

      "Papa and Corrie asked him to stay until the Cup race is over."

      There was a pause. Isabel walked over to one of the long mirrors and studied her own vigorously handsome image, then turned her head and regarded Flavia with the perfect complacency and mischievous malice of a young kitten.

      "Good sport," she anticipated.

      Flavia carefully laid her brush upon the dressing table and proceeded to gather into a coil the shimmering mass of her fair hair. Suddenly she was afraid, quiveringly afraid of herself, of Gerard and the next two weeks, but most afraid of showing any change in expression to Isabel's sharp scrutiny.

III

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THE HOUSEHOLD OF ROSES

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      "If there is one thing meaner than another, it's rain," Corrie announced generally. "I'm going out. Won't you come, Gerard?"

      "If rain is the meanest thing there is, it shows real sense to go out in it," Isabel commented, from the window-seat opposite. "That is just like you, Corrie Rose. When I ask you to take me out on a perfectly fair day, you won't do it."

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