ietly steady. "There is a second flight
of stairs. You are not hurt, I hope?"

Giddy, for a moment she willingly suffered his support, then drew back
on the narrow landing, her color returning vividly.

"No," she answered. "I am not hurt. I thank you very much."

Thick waves of fair hair lay across her forehead above the delicate dark
line of her brows, her candid regard met his with the dignity of utter
naturalness and a young confidence in the goodness of all men. The
impression Gerard received was original; he fancied that her home life
must have been singularly happy and innocent, and that he should like to
know her father.

"You will let me take you down the rest of the way, at least," he
offered, accepting the situation as simply as she had done.

She glanced down the stairs with a slight shiver, still shaken and
unnerved.

"You are very good. My car is beyond the corner, there. I--I am in haste
to reach it."

[Illustration: GIDDY, SHE WILLINGLY SUFFERED HIS SUPPORT, THEN DREW
BACK, HER COLOR RETURNING VIVIDLY]

That had been obvious. Yet, as she laid her gloved hand on Gerard's arm,
she lingered to look again in the direction of the training-camps.

"The cars will not go out again to-day?" she inferred,
half-questioningly.

"No, I think not. It is already late. This way?"

"Please; to the rear of the club-house."

They descended to the lower floor and crossed a strip of sandy ground to
where a large foreign-built touring car waited, empty save for the
chauffeur.

"I am running away from my brother," the young girl explained; then,
with a playfulness tinged with pathos, "He is practicing out there. And
it vexes him if I watch him or say I am afraid for him. He tells me to
stay home and forget it. But sometimes I cannot. To-day I could not.
Thanks to you, I shall escape before he finds me."

The "kid amateur's" sister, of course, Gerard thought, as he put her in
the car.

"Do you always do as he says?" he queried whimsically. "I have no
sister, but I did not understand that was the rule."

She turned to him her soft, completely feminine face, and gleamed into
laughter.

"I am the only passive member of a strong-willed family," she told him.
"I am always doing what some one bids. Thank you, and good-by."

The margin of safe escape was not great. As Gerard stepped back on the
cement promenade, the pink machine shot across and came to a halt near
the exit, its driver turning in his seat.

"An