That's a stunning purple frock you've got on."

"It isn't, it's mauve," corrected Isabel, but she smiled and smoothed a
chiffon ruffle. "Who was your man, then, Corrie?"

"He was the French driver of the Bluette car, and he came into the
judges' stand to make a complaint against another fellow who wouldn't
give him the road. Kept getting in front, you know, whenever the Bluette
wanted to pass, and cutting it off so it had to fall behind. He was in a
French calm, all right, and I don't wonder. But I don't believe anyone
could really carry it through, could they, Gerard?"

Gerard roused himself from his study of Flavia, as she sat in her
ivory-tinted lace gown at the foot of the table, her small head bent
under its weight of gleaming fair hair. The massively handsome room,
with its rich hues of gilded leather, mellow Eastern rugs and hangings,
carved wood and glinting metal, enchanted him as a background for her
dainty youth as if he had never seen it there before or might again. It
was difficult for him to look away.

"Carry it through?" he repeated. "Of course, easily."

"Not with some drivers! Not with me!"

"Why not?"

"Because I wouldn't stand it. Because I'd drive through the car ahead if
it tried to keep me back. Oh, I'd have them out of my way--you're
_laughing_ at me, Allan Gerard!"

Gerard was certainly laughing, and the others with him.

"If I were Dean, I wouldn't wait to be fired, Corrie; I'd resign," he
rallied. "Some day I'll challenge you to a game of auto tag, and show
you that trick."

"You can't; I'd get by," Corrie retorted, his violet-blue eyes afire
with excitement.

"Instead of you two fighting about that nonsense, you might take me
around the course in one of your cars," Isabel remarked gloomily. "I've
asked you often enough."

"You'll not do that," Mr. Rose pronounced with decision. "It's not fit
and I won't have it. And I'm tired of hearing you sulk at Corrie and
Gerard because they've got the sense to say no. You'll keep out of the
racing cars and off the race track, my girl. Flavia, if you don't make
your brother stop eating nuts, he'll be ashamed to meet a squirrel in
the woods."

There was open mutiny in the glance Isabel darted at her uncle, but she
said nothing. Mr. Rose was not contradicted in his own house by anyone.

"Nuts agree with me, sir," Corrie protested, aggrieved. "Besides, I
feel as if I had to celebrate somehow; I have had such a bully day." He
leaned back in