There was a brief flurry in the official stand. One man seized the telephone while another went slowly to the lost car's camp. From lip to lip the news went.
"Harry was married last week," observed an oil-smeared mechanic, touching his cap to Gerard in going by. "I guess there's no show after that tumble; Rose might as well have saved his time."
"There is more than one prize in a contest," Gerard disagreed, meeting Flavia's awed eyes. "Corrie Rose may win better than a gold cup."
"Corrie——?" she faltered.
"Corrie has given his leading place and one of his hoarded fragments of time—these races are won or lost by scant minutes—for the bare chance that his report might send aid to the injured men a little sooner than if that task were left to the frightened witnesses of the disaster."
Flavia's small head lifted proudly, bright color flashed into the countenance whose loving faith had never failed Corrie in his hours of disgrace.
"I wish papa had seen," she longed wistfully. And after a moment: "You yourself have done the same; he told me so, once. Now you have taught him to do what you never can do any more, poor Allan."
A curious expression crossed Gerard's mobile face; hesitation and doubt blended with a luminous radiance shining from some inward thought that leaped up like a clear flame. He moved as if to speak impulsively, but Flavia had turned to watch the approach of a rushing car, and he remained silent.
In the next hour, the Mercury passed the grand-stand five times; sometimes alone, sometimes the quarry of a coursing group of speed-hounds whose flaming breath was close behind, sometimes itself curving around some slower rival amid the wave-like succession of cheers. The bulletin-board showed Corrie running in third place when he passed for the sixth time, with Rupert stretched along the edge of the car to relieve his cramped limbs in an ease that suggested imminent death by falling.
The seventh time the Mercury did not come around. Gerard, who had been in front, returned to Flavia with his steadying reassurance.