"I surely am. Want to engage a man?" was the grave response.
The boy's arch glance swept the other's face, so definitely stamped with the habit of mastery.
"If I did I'd ask you to recommend one," he retorted mirthfully. "I'm not as much mixed as I sounded; I wasn't thinking of hiring you. But I did want to ask if you would ride into the city with me. My mechanician is busy over there, I can't find any one else to go with me, and I've got to get my car down to the Renard shop to-night."
"Now I wonder," Gerard mused aloud, "why you want any one with you."
"Because I won't be eighteen for a month," he gave prompt explanation. "Under the latest law freak turned out at Albany, I'm too young to drive a motor vehicle safely on the public roads unless I have a licensed chauffeur alongside of me. Oh, of course you'd laugh!"
"I was only recalling what I've just been watching you do on the track," apologized Gerard, steadying his countenance. "And speculating upon how the average chauffeur would like to try your feats. I shall appreciate the honor of riding into town with Mr. Rose and his rose."
The driver colored and laughed together, as his guest took the seat beside him.
"They're always ragging me—I mean the professional racers and motor men," he avowed, in a burst of resentful confidence. "They called me kid amateur, and rosebud, and girlie, until I just had my car painted pink and bought these pink suits and told them to go ahead getting all the fun they could. I'll get my turn to-morrow night." He twisted his car through the curved gateway, viciously expert.
"You are planning to win?"
There was no trace of mockery in the level intonation of the inquiry, yet Rose flushed again.