"A chance?" Gerard gravely echoed. "Why, several of our best drivers are thinking of withdrawing, since he is entered, because they feel it's no use trying to win if he is racing."
"Oh, you're making fun! But I mean it; I could race that car he is so vain of, with my own little runabout machine."
Corrie dragged a mandolin from beneath his chair and tinkled the opening chords of a popular melody.
"Get on your little girl's racer,
And I'll lead you for a chaser,
Down the good old Long Island course.
And before you're half through it,
Your poor car will rue it,
And you'll trade in the pieces for a horse."
The provoking improvisation ended abruptly, as Isabel's well-aimed sofa-pillow struck the singer.
"Do you call that a ladylike retort?" Corrie queried, freeing himself from the silken missile. "Tell her it isn't, Flavia."
"I am afraid," Flavia excused herself. "There are more cushions on that window-seat."
"It was a soft answer, at least," Gerard laughed. "And a good shot."
"Oh, I taught her to pitch, myself. Now I'm sorry," deplored her cousin.