"There's just one of the Rose family that ain't got any yellow streaks,"
he volunteered.

"Who?" was asked absently.

The response to his letter had left Gerard paler than usual and very
grave. He did not recognize in it the Flavia he knew; the girl who had
watched her brother with such rich lavishness of affection, the girl
whose most innocent eyes had held the possibilities of all Corrie's
ardent young passion without his impulsive faults, and whose warmth of
nature had drawn him as a fireside draws a wanderer. He would not doubt
her for such slight cause, he would wait for morning and her further
answer, but he felt a premonitory dread and discouragement. He had
expected so much more than he would now admit to himself. He even had
thought vaguely, unreasoningly eager as a wistful boy, that she might
come to him with Corrie that evening, that he might see and touch her.

"The lady you didn't write to," answered his mechanician. "Good night."

The next morning Corrie Rose went to the little railway station, alone.

XI

GERARD'S MAN

The hard, glittering macadam track that swept around the huge western
factory of the Mercury Automobile Company and curved off behind a mass
of autumn-gray woodland, was swarming with dingy, roaring, nakedly bare
cars. The spluttering explosions from the unmuffled exhausts, the voices
of the testers and their mechanics as they called back and forth, the
monotonous tones of the man who distributed numbers for identification
and heard reports from his force, all blended into the cheery
eight-o'clock din of a commencing work-day. Three brawny,
perspiration-streaked young fellows were engaged in loading bags of sand
on the stripped cars about to start out, to supply the weight of the
missing bodies, and whistling rag-time melodies to enliven their labors.

In the shadow of one of the arched doorways Corrie Rose stood to watch
the scene, drawing full, hungry breaths of the gasoline-scented,
smoke-murked air. There was more than frost this December morning; ice
glinted in the gutters and on the surface of buckets, the healthful
lash of the wind flecked color into the men's faces as they pulled on
heavy gloves and hooded caps. The spirit of the place was action; the
lusty vigor of it tugged with kindred appeal at the inactive, wistful
one who looked on.

The heavy throb of the machinery-crowded building smothered the sound of
steps; a touch was necessary to arouse the absorbed w