“I believe I did say so—and, indeed, I think it wonderfully brave for any man to dash around a track at such an awful speed. You see. I know something about fast driving. I often go along the road, myself, at a mile a minute. But the worst of it all is that Victor Burnham pretends to believe that what I said about regarding a man as a ‘hero’ means that I will say ‘yes,’ if he asks me to marry him.”
“You mean if he wins the race?”
“Yes. But I’m afraid he will. You know that he is to drive a Columbiad car, and that that car is regarded as the most powerful and speediest machine that ever has been produced. Everybody is afraid of it.”
“I have heard that it is a good machine,” admitted Stanley. “But until it has been tried out in a real competition with the best cars that can be brought against it, that is only talk. No one knows for certain what the Columbiad can do, because it is a French machine, and has never been seen in action in America, except at the trial, a few days ago.”
“That was when Mr. Burnham qualified as a driver, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. He did his two miles in one minute and twenty seconds. Pretty good going. But I believe I can beat that in the Thunderbolt.”
“I am so glad you are going to drive, Mr. Downs. I happened to hear what you were saying over the telephone just now, and I hope you will win.”
“Thanks!”
“Oh, it isn’t only because I want you to be successful,” she confessed, with the candor that she inherited from her plainspoken father. “I want you to beat Mr. Burnham.”
“And all the others in the race, too, eh?” he rejoined, with a humorous curling of the lip. “He won’t be the only other driver, you know, Miss Ranfelt.”