He checked her with the warm brilliance of his smile.
"Not of myself," he denied. "If there was anything to regret, do you think I could remember it since I have you? No, I was thinking that Corrie is barely twenty, that I had trained him and sent him out there in that machine in defiance of his father's wish—in fact, I believe I had an attack of remorseful panic."
"You did it for Corrie," she gave swift comfort. "Can you suppose that papa and I do not understand that? You could have found drivers already skilled, for your car; instead you troubled to take him and make him what he is now. He is so different from the desperate boy we left, Allan. Whatever happens out there to-day, you have done the best for Corrie."
The feverish activity of the camps was swirling around them. Gerard gently drew the young girl to the place where his private roadster waited, somewhat aside from the centre of action, and put her in the scarlet-cushioned seat. After her paced Corrie's dog and took its place beside her in stately guardianship.
"You can see everything here, and it is not so rough for you," he explained. "Flavia, a year ago I bought this, when I bought the yellow roses on the night before my last drive. Will you let me take off your little glove and put it on your finger, now?"
Her lashes sparkling wet, Flavia bent to him, and in the face of crowds and camps Gerard set his ring on her hand.
Men were leaning over railings, holding ready watches open. At the repair pit next but one to the Mercury's, the mechanics and men in charge had drawn together in whispering groups.
"Car coming!" the word passed suddenly from lip to lip.
On the summit of the white hill a mile distant, a red signal flag went up. A dark shape darted up over the rise, glanced with incredible swiftness down the incline, disappearing momentarily behind the packed angle, then again shot into view and sped past the grand-stand like a humming projectile; the driver a fixed statue of concentration on the road before him, the mechanician half-turned in his seat to watch for cars behind.