ual caresses, and went down the broad steps, walking across
the lawns in the direction from which they had just come.

IX

THE HOUSE AT THE TURN

Dinner at the Rose house took place about two hours after the
corresponding meal occurred at the farmhouse near the Westbury Turn. So
while Corrie was walking through his five miles of desolate, dark road,
the evening became well under way in the country parlor; sick-room no
longer.

There had been changes in the room since Gerard's occupancy of it.
Bright rugs and coverings mitigated the severity of the horse-hair
furniture, a couple of easy-chairs stood there like velvet-clad
cavaliers in a Puritan meeting. If the hues ran to vivid scarlets and
unexpected contrasts, why, Rupert had done the shopping and had
consulted his own taste. In the midst of his artistic work, that
one-time mechanician and self-installed nurse of Gerard's was now seated
beside a red-shaded lamp, engaged in reading aloud to his companion from
a classic found on the family book-shelf.

"'Thaddeus, his eyes cast down, glided from the room in a gentle
suffusion of tears,'" he concluded a paragraph, and broke off, stunned.
"Gee! And I was understanding that was a man! I ain't qualified for the
judges' stand, but--did you ever strike this joy-promoting endurance run
of language before?"

"Once. I didn't have you to read it to me, or I would have enjoyed it
more," Gerard returned, stirring in his arm-chair opposite the ruddily
glowing German stove. "Don't you want to give me a cigarette; I haven't
had one since noon."

He was thinner and still colorless, otherwise there was little to show
what the last month and a half had meant to Allan Gerard. Except when he
rose or moved, the inert uselessness of his right arm was not obvious.
And however hard the battles and rebellion he inwardly had passed
through, tone or expression carried no outward intelligence of past
conflict as he smiled across at his entertainer. Gerard possessed in
full measure that Anglo-Saxon reticence which abhors the useless display
of emotions. Rupert balanced the volume upon his knee and proceeded to
comply with the request, twisting his dark little face sardonically.

"When I was racing with Darling French," he reminisced, "we gave out of
oil, once, on a practice run across country. There was a house by the
busy curb representing itself as the only one combination garage and
grocery store, so Darling contracted for a can