ure.

He helped her into the car and drew from his pocket a light pair of
goggles.

"Now these, and you're all hunky-dory!"

"Will I need these, too?" she asked incredulously.

"Will you!" he cried. "You wouldn't ask that question if you knew
the horse we've got hitched to this benzine buggy today. He's got
wings--believe me! It's all I can do to hold him on the ground
sometimes."

"You'll drive carefully?" she faltered.

He lifted his hand.

"With you settin' beside me, my first name's `Caution.'"

She fumbled the goggles in a vain effort to lift her arms over her head
to fasten them on. He sprang into the seat by her side and promptly
seized them.

"Let me fix 'em."

His slender, skillful fingers adjusted the band and brushed a stray
ringlet of hair back under the furs. The thrill of his touch swept her
with a sudden dizzy sense of excitement. She blushed and drew her head
down into the collar of the shaggy coat.

He touched the wheel, and the gray monster leaped from the curb and shot
down the street. The single impulse carried them to the crossing. He had
shut off the power as the machine gracefully swung into Fourth Avenue.
The turn made, another leap and the car swept up the Avenue and swung
through Twenty-sixth Street into Fifth Avenue. Again the power was off
as he made the turn into Fifth Avenue at a snail's pace.

"Can't let her out yet," he whispered apologetically. "Had to make these
turns. There's no room for her inside of town."

Mary had no time to answer. He touched the wheel, and the car shot up
the deserted Avenue. She gasped for breath and braced her feet, her
whole being tingling with the first exhilarating consciousness that she
too was possessed of the devil of speed madness. It was glorious! For
the first time in her life, space and distance lost their meaning. She
was free as the birds in the heavens. She was flying on the wings
of this gray, steel monster through space. The palaces on the Avenue
whirled by in dim ghost-like flashes. They flew through Central Park
into Seventy-second Street and out into the Drive. The waters of the
river, broad and cool, flashing in the morning sun, rested her eyes a
moment and then faded in a twinkling. They had leaped the chasm beyond
Grant's Tomb, plunged into Broadway and before she could get her
bearings, swept up the hill at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street,
slipped gracefully across the iron bridge and in a jiffy were lost in a
gray clo