it is all practice. I will see you again at dinner, unless you
grow tired before then and would like to come up to the draughting-room
to meet my chief engineer and designer."

Corrie looked down, crumpling a fold of the table cloth between nervous
fingers.

"Gerard, do they know?" he asked, his voice low. "I mean, how you were
hurt and what Rupert accuses me of?"

"Certainly not. You are no one to them but my new driver."

A still ruddier color tinged the young face, the fair head bent a little
lower.

"That is all I want to be, ever. Thank you, Gerard; I'll make good."

XII

THE MAKING GOOD

Corrie did not slip control during the weeks that followed. There was no
running wild to record. At first he used to come in from his driving
reddened by more than the cold wind, and there were rumors current of
certain vigorous word-duels between him and his sullen assistant,
Devlin. But he never complained to Gerard or exhibited any smart of
excoriated vanity. The testers accepted him as a little more than their
equal, after watching him drive, and he gladly met their comradeship
with his own. It was very easy to like Corrie; soon he was surrounded by
friends.

Only Jack Rupert never spoke to him. The thing was not done obtrusively,
but it was done. He never openly slighted Corrie Rose or showed him
discourtesy, he simply failed to come in contact with him. And Corrie
tacitly accepted the situation, avoiding the inflexible mechanician, on
his part. So winter shut in, with blizzards that frequently drove
everyone off the roads until snow-ploughs and shovels had accomplished
their work. Then Gerard would summon Corrie to the inside of the huge,
reverberant factory, where amid its lesser brothers the Titan racing
machine was slowly growing to completion; the Titan of Gerard's past
speed-visions, the dream-planned car that was now for another's control.
He taught, and Corrie learned hungrily.

It was in February Corrie first noticed that Gerard and Rupert
simultaneously disappeared for an hour and a half every morning. No one
knew why, or had interested enough to speculate, it seemed. Gerard
always sent Corrie off on some duty, at that time each day, and only
accidental circumstances awoke the young driver's attention to a custom
without an explanation.

Of course, Corrie asked no questions. He was not temperamentally curious
and he was well-bred. But, returning unexpectedly to the house, one
morning in early