king well, Emily, of late."

Surprised, a soft color swept the face she turned to him.

"I am well. Dear, I think we are all better this spring."

"Perhaps," said Ethan Ffrench. His bitter gray eyes passed
deliberately over the large room with all its traces of a family life
extending back to pre-Colonial times, but he said no more.

It was an exquisite morning, too virginal for June, too richly warm
for May. When the two exchanged the sunny road for the factory office,
a north room none too light, it was a moment before their dazzled eyes
perceived no one was present. This was Bailey's private office, and
its owner had passed into the room beyond.

"I will wait," conceded Mr. Ffrench, dismissing the boy who had
ushered them in. "Sit down, Emily; Bailey will return directly, no
doubt."

But Emily had already sat down, for she knew the voice speaking beyond
the half-open door, and that the long-prevented meeting was now
imminent.

"It will not do," Lestrange was stating definitely. "It should be
reinforced."

"It's always been strong enough," Bailey's slower tones objected.
"For years. It's not a thing likely to break."

"Not likely to break? Look at last year's record, Mr. Bailey, and tell
me that. A broken steering-knuckle killed Brook in Indiana, another
sent Little to the hospital in Massachusetts, the same thing wrecked
the leader at the last Beach race and dashed him through the fence. Do
you know what it means to the driver of a machine hurling itself along
the narrow verge of destruction, when the steering-wheel suddenly
turns useless in his grasp? Can you feel the sick helplessness, the
confronting of death, the compressed second before the crash? Is it
worth while to risk it for a bit of costless steel?"

The clear realism of the picture forced a pause, filled by the dull
roar and throb through the machinery-crowded building.

"They were not our cars that broke, any of them," Bailey insisted.

"Not our cars, no. But the steering-knuckle of my own machine broke
under my hands last March, on the road, and if I had been on a curve
instead of a straight stretch there would have been a wreck. As it
was, I brought her to a stop in the ditch. There is no other thing
that may not leave a fighting chance after it breaks, but this leaves
absolutely none. I know, you both know, that the steering-wheel is the
only weapon in the driver's grasp. If it fails him, he goes out and
his mechanician with him."

Em