at New York, where I could drive
back and forth from home each day, and finished up the college business.
It was a nuisance and I wanted to get it over, so I hustled a bit. The
classical course, you know, not the professional. I graduated last
Spring, just before I met you at the twenty-four-hour race. You look
surprised."

"I should not have thought it of you."

"You didn't suppose I could work?" The mischievous blue eyes laughed at
him. "I can, when I have to. And studying doesn't hit me very hard,
although I'd rather be out-doors."

"Not that, exactly. You do not look it," Gerard said slowly. He could
not explain the effects he had seen left by college life with unlimited
money at command, or how he was moved by their utter absence here.

Corrie gave way to open mirth.

"What a compliment! My word! Fancy! Well, I can't help my face. Anyway,
you think I look as if I could drive a car, so I'm satisfied. Do you
know," his expression sobered as he leaned forward, fixing earnest eyes
on his companion's, "I would rather be you, do what you are doing, than
be or do anything else in the world. Of course, I shan't get the
chance--probably I couldn't do the work if I did--but I should _love_
it."

Gerard actually colored before that ardent admiration, taken unaware.

"Corrie Rose, you are given to the folly of hero-worship; and heroes are
few," he accused sternly.

"I don't know about that, Mr. Gerard."

"I do. But, Corrie----"

"Present."

Gerard stood up, reaching for his raincoat.

"Beware of heroine-worship, it is _the_ folly. When you find the real
woman, get on your knees, where you belong, before a grace of God, but
don't build shrines to an imitation."

Astonished, Corrie paused, upright beside the ciderpress, then smiled
with a blending of pride and serious exaltation.

"No danger of that! I--that can never happen to me," he assured
quietly. "I am safe-guarded from imitations, win or lose. I believe, if
I am given to hero-worship, that I'm pretty good at picking the right
subjects for it. Had enough cider?"

"Too much, probably. If I am ill to-morrow, I shall tell Rupert that you
poisoned me. Are you going around to pay the lord proprietors of the
place for what we have consumed?"

"Who, me? If I did, Mrs. Goodwin might box my ears for the impertinence;
she has boxed them before. I grew up around here, remember. The first
acquaintance I made with this house was when I shied an apple at the
famil