l. And I would miss
him most if he came home and I had to live along side of him. He--well,
he stays in Europe. I'll put up the car for the night, if you're ready
to have me; it's getting pretty dark to run any more."

"The car is in your hands; put it where you please, when you please,"
responded Gerard; that mark of trust seemed the only comfort he could
offer, then; he was too fine not to ignore the other issues.

XIII

THE TITAN'S DRIVER

There was a letter for Corrie in the evening mail, next day. At least,
there was an envelope containing a gaudy picture-postal. It was at this
last that Corrie was gazing, when Gerard came to remind him that dinner
waited, and of it he first spoke.

"It's from Isabel. I--she need not have sent it!" He abruptly pushed the
card across the table toward Gerard and turned away to complete his
preparations.

"A postal?"

"Oh, yes. She used to be fond of writing long letters, but she has quit
the habit. Flavia tells me she has not received but three postal-cards
from Isabel since they parted, although they used to be such chums."

"I am to read?"

"If you like."

The red and green landscape represented, libellously, the Natural Bridge
of Virginia. Across the glazed surface ran a few blurred lines of
script:

"Dear Corrie:
May I marry someone else, if I want to, or do you
say not?
I.R."

Gerard laid down the card and regarded, troubled, his companion's
straight shoulders and the back of his erect head, the only view
afforded as Corrie stood before his mirror employing a pair of military
brushes upon his unruly blond hair.

"I did not know that the affair--that matters were so far arranged
between you and your cousin," he said.

He spoke with hesitation, uncertain of how to venture upon a subject
never before broached between them, yet feeling speech tacitly invited.
In the stress of his own suffering at the time following the accident,
preoccupied by the witnessing of Corrie's hard punishment of dishonor
and grief and his struggle to fall no lower under it, he had forgotten
that the boy-man also had to bear the loss of the girl upon whom he had
spent his first love. For it required no deep insight to recognize that
Isabel Rose was not the type of woman who is a refuge in time of
disaster.

But the embarrassment was his alone; Corrie answered without confusion:

"We were engaged, yes. But that is ended.