"I guess this 'old car,' as you call it, could give yours a tussle if it comes down to it," he said sharply.
Peggy tugged his sleeve. She saw where this would lead too. She saw, too, that Fanning was anxious to provoke Roy into a race. Presumably he was anxious to humiliate the boy in Regina Mortlake's eyes.
"Well, do you want to race then?" asked Regina, provokingly, her fine eyes flashing, "there's a bit of road beyond here that's quite broad and one hardly ever meets anything."
Now Roy was averse, as are most boys, to being thought a "'fraid cat," and the almost openly taunting air with which the girl looked at him angered him almost to desperation.
"Very well," he said, "we'll race you when we get to that bit of road."
"Oh, Roy, what are you saying," pleaded Peggy, "it's all a trick to humiliate us. The Blue Bird can't possibly keep up with their car, and——." But Roy checked her impatiently.
"You don't think I'm going to allow Fanning Harding to scare me out of anything, do you?" he demanded in as near to a rough tone of voice as he had ever used to his sister.
Poor Peggy felt the stinging tears rise. But she said nothing. The next moment the cars began to glide off, running side by side on the broad country road. Faster and faster they went. The speed got into Roy's head. He began to let the Blue Bird out, and then Fanning Harding, for the first time seemingly, realized what a formidable opponent he was placed in contact with.
As they reached the bit of road previously agreed upon as a race course, the banker's son stopped his machine and hailed Roy to do the same.
"Tell you what we'll do to make this interesting," he said, "we'll change machines. Or are you afraid to drive mine?"