Part 6 (2/2)
”If I'd broken a leg they'd have sent a cart for me,” he mourned. ”Now I'll have to walk, and I ain't used to it. Hard luck!”
”If you go around to the stables they will give you my pony cart,”
Emily offered impulsively. ”You,” her dimpling smile gleamed out, ”you once put a tire on for me, you know. Please let me return the service.”
Rupert's black eyes opened, a slow grin of appreciation crinkled streaks of dust and oil as he surveyed the young girl.
”I'll put tires on every wheel you run into control, day and night s.h.i.+fts,” he acknowledged with sweet cordiality. ”But I'm no horse-chauffeur, thanks; I guess I'll walk.”
”He is a gentle pony,” she remonstrated. ”Any one can drive him.”
He turned a side glance toward the motionless car.
”That's all right, but I'm used to being killed other ways. I'll be going.”
”Jack Rupert, do you mean to tell me that you will race with Lestrange every season, and yet you're afraid to drive a fat cob?”
cried the delighted d.i.c.k.
”I'm not telling anything. I had a chum who was pitched out by a horse he lost control of, and broke his neck. I'm taking no chances.”
”How many men have you seen break their necks out of autos?”
”That's in business,” p.r.o.nounced Rupert succinctly. ”I'm going on, Darling; it's only a two-mile run.”
”Here, wait,” d.i.c.k urged. ”Emily, I'll stroll around to the stables with him and make one of the men drive him down. You don't mind my leaving you?”
”No,” Emily answered. ”I will wait for you.”
She might have walked back alone, if she had chosen. But instead she sat down on a boulder near the hedge, folding her hands in her lap like a demure child. The house was so dull, so hopelessly monotonous contrasted with this fresh, wind-tossed outdoors and Lestrange in his vigor of life and glamour of ultramodern adventure.
”You and Mr. Ffrench are very good,” Lestrange said presently. ”I am afraid I appreciate it more than Rupert, though.”
”Is he really afraid of horses?”
”I should not wonder; I never tried him. But he is amazingly truthful.”
Their eyes met across the strip of sunny road as they smiled; again Emily felt the sudden confidence, the falling away of all constraint before the direct clarity of his regard.
”You won your race,” she said irrelevantly. ”I was glad, since you wanted it.”
”Thank you,” he returned with equal simplicity. ”But I did not want it that way, so far as I was concerned.”
”Yet, it was the next step?”
”Yes, it was the next step. I meant that one does not care to be victor because the leading cars were wrecked. There is no elation in defeating a driver who lies out on the course. But, as you say, it helped my purpose. You,” he hesitated for the right phrase, ”you are most kind to recall that I have a purpose.”
It was the convent-bred Emily who looked back at him, earnest-eyed, exaltedly serious.
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