The Marathon's mechanician, wise in knowledge of his pilot, at this juncture leaned over and thrust between Jim's lips a lighted cigar.
"Buck up! We're losin'," he urged roughly.
The driver's teeth sullenly clamped shut upon the strong tobacco; he slammed viciously into a gear and hurled his machine down the course before the startled camp realized its victory. The stop had lasted exactly three minutes, but it cost the Marathon its hope of the race.
The morning advanced, gaining in sun-gilt beauty. In the next hour four racers were taken from the contest, three by mechanical difficulties, one as the result of an accident that sent both driver and mechanician to the hospital. The Mercury continued to run steadily and evenly, keeping a consistent pace.
"How much longer?" Flavia anxiously questioned, once. "Do you think everything can stay right to the very end, Allan?"
Gerard laid his warm left hand over her cold one, as it rested on the cushions, his loving eyes caressing her.
"Two hours more, my Flavia. Most surely I believe everything can stay right; why not? Remember Corrie delights in this. He is happier now than when he is what we call at rest. If," again that singular expression of blended shadow and inward illumination rose over his face, "if I were to be made myself and wholly cured, it would not change Corrie's position in Corrie's eyes. I cannot help him there in that hard part, but I have given him a way to forget for a while."
Her soft mouth bent grievedly; Flavia's attention was effectually distracted from contemplation of her brother's bodily peril.
Gerard turned aside. He had heard the reports arrive of one accident after another, he saw driver after driver come in gray-lipped and savage under the strain of racing on the crowded path, and he knew what Flavia did not—that this was proving the most disastrous affair ever held on the Cup course.