m, then walked away, every line of his body
reiterating the prediction he could not sustain argumentatively.

It was half an hour later that Corrie came into the room to join his
host, carrying a letter in his hand.

"It is from Flavia," he volunteered. "She promised to write as soon as
they got across, but she did better; she wrote this on board the steamer
so that it was all ready to send." He sat down in his place and rested
his arms on the table in the boyish attitude so associated with the
massively rich dining-room of his father's house and the light-hearted
group who had gathered there. "It was like her to do better than her
word,--she doesn't know how to do less. One, one can tie up to _her_."

Gerard continued to gaze out the window opposite, his expression setting
as if under a sudden exertion of self-control.

"I--well, I was always fond of my sister, but one learns a good deal
more of people when things go wrong than when they just run along right.
She asks me about you, how you are now."

"Miss Rose is too kind."

Some quality in the brief acknowledgment compelled a pause. The once
self-assertive Corrie had become acutely sensitive to any suggestion of
rebuff or disapproval. He could not in any way divine this rebuke was
not for him, or know of the bruise he innocently had touched.

When the first course of the luncheon was served, Gerard came over to
his seat and opened a new subject with his usual kindness of manner. It
was a curious fact that, although Gerard had felt the awakening of love
for Flavia Rose from his first glimpse of her, he never had aided Corrie
for his sister's sake. Even when he had dragged himself from the
overwhelming blackness of pain and the numbing effects of anaesthetics to
defend the driver whose foul blow had struck him down, it was of Corrie
alone he thought, not of Flavia, Corrie whom he had shielded from
disgrace and open punishment. Man to man they had dealt together, no
woman, however dear, entered between them. So when Flavia had seemed to
fail her lover, again the separateness had held and Gerard never even
imagined visiting her desertion on her brother. He had not resented
Corrie's natural speech of her, now, but he could not listen to it; not
yet.

"You will find your regular mechanician waiting for you when you go out
again," he observed. "You can learn much with him, if you choose,
Corrie, although he is no Rupert. Take your machine where and how you
please;