She was so beautifully and expensively gowned as to draw even masculine notice of the fact, the veil that fell from her silk hood to the hem of her cloak would alone have purchased the motor costume of the average woman. Against this filmy drapery her intent face showed as a study in concentration; her dark-blue eyes wide behind their black lashes, her soft lips apart, she too was watching the pink racer. But there was no laughter in her expression, instead there was the most deep and earnest tenderness, a blending of the childish and the maternal that made Gerard catch his breath and glance enviously at the driver of the gaudy car.
The afternoon was almost ended; as Gerard looked, the pink machine finished its last circuit and plunged through the paddock entrance, to come to a halt before its own tent in the "white city" of training camps. Simultaneously the girl in the upper rows of seats arose, catching up her swirl of pale silk and lace garments and hurrying precipitately down the stairway aisle. So great was her haste that, coming suddenly to the last step, one small, high-heeled suède shoe slipped from the iron edge and flung her violently against a column of the stand. Gerard reached her just in time to prevent further fall.
"Stand still," he cautioned, quietly steady. "There is a second flight of stairs. You are not hurt, I hope?"
Giddy, for a moment she willingly suffered his support, then drew back on the narrow landing, her color returning vividly.
"No," she answered. "I am not hurt. I thank you very much."
Thick waves of fair hair lay across her forehead above the delicate dark line of her brows, her candid regard met his with the dignity of utter naturalness and a young confidence in the goodness of all men. The impression Gerard received was original; he fancied that her home life must have been singularly happy and innocent, and that he should like to know her father.
"You will let me take you down the rest of the way, at least," he offered, accepting the situation as simply as she had done.
She glanced down the stairs with a slight shiver, still shaken and unnerved.
"You are very good. My car is beyond the corner, there. I—I am in haste to reach it."