"I will not. Gerard, I cannot. To go back as the millionaire amateur of the pink car, to stand the toleration of the professional drivers, who cannot really handle their machines better than I can mine, to know that the story of how you were wrecked is being whispered after me—I'm not big enough to face it all! I might be challenged and sent off the track, for all I know."
"You will not go back as an amateur," Gerard corrected. "You are entered and registered as a professional automobile racer, enrolled on the books of the A.M.A., under their protection and subject to their rules and authority for the future. You will find your certificate of the fact lying on your table. Yes, I did it without consulting you. You signed the necessary papers yourself, without reading them, and you cannot undo this without a formal resignation—unless you contrive to get yourself suspended."
Corrie's fingers gripped the wheel, the varying expressions changing his face like storm-swept water, while the hunger of his gaze besought Gerard.
"You—it's true? Gerard, you've done that for me? They, the A.M.A. officers, they accepted me?"
"Yes. Once for all, there are no whispers connecting you with my accident. That matter is dead. You go back to the racing as a recognized driver in the employ of the Mercury Company, I acting as your manager and Jack Rupert as your mechanician. Do you think it probable that anyone would credit the idea of trouble between us, Corrie?"
"Give me a moment, or I'll lose the only honor I've kept," said Corrie Rose, and turned away his face. "I shall do whatever you bid me, of course."
XIV
VAL DE ROSAS
On the day that Corrie in his American home consented to drive the Mercury Titan through the racing season, Flavia and Mr. Rose arrived at the tiny Spanish village of Val de Rosas—arrived, not so much through design as through the bursting of a tire on their motor car.