"Allan, have you thought that we are going home?" Flavia asked, lifting her happy face to her lover, as he stood over her. "Home; papa and Corrie, and you and I, who were so far apart."
"I have thought that you would put on that lace frock you wore the last evening I saw you there, only this time you will come where I can touch you. Shall I tell you what you looked like that night? You were a golden rose in a sheath of snow, quite out of reach. And you played your dainty music so calmly and smoothly, while I was on fire and seeing rose-color as I listened to your father's stories. I was like poor Cyrano de Bergerac: I had gazed so long at your sun-bright little head that when I looked away my dazzled eyes still saw gold."
Her red mouth dimpled into soft mischief and daring.
"Shall I tell you what I saw while I was playing, Allan? I watched you under my eyelashes—this way—and I wondered whether anyone else ever looked quite so nice even from behind, and, and what it would be like to touch your crinkly hair with one's finger."
"Do it now!"
She declined with an eloquent gesture. Around their enclosure the vast crowds were streaming back to New York, the course was filled from edge to edge with a solid procession of homing automobiles of every type and age. Amid noise and congestion and merriment, Long Island's guests were trouping out.
But comparative quietness had descended upon the row of pits when, half an hour later, Mr. Rose and Corrie strolled casually up to join the other two members of the party.
"I don't know how long you propose to stay here," observed the senior, tolerantly. "Lenoir is waiting with the limousine, and it strikes us it's about time to start for home."
"Chilly wind blowing, too," Corrie suggested, his hands in the pockets of his long gray motor-coat. "Fancy Lenoir lugging this old coat of mine around in the car, Other Fellow, until now. It's a wonder the butterflies haven't eaten it—moths, I mean."
Gerard and Flavia exchanged a glance of infinitely tender comprehension of these two.