the elation of great speed, of imminent danger. Her blood
tingled with the air from the wind-swept harbor, with the rush
of the great engines, as by a handbreadth they plunged past
her. She knew they were driven by men and half-grown boys,
joyous with victory, piqued by defeat, reckless by one touch
too much of liquor, and that the young man at her side was
driving, not only for himself, but for them.

Each fraction of a second a dazzling light blinded him, and he
swerved to let the monster, with a hoarse, bellowing roar,
pass by, and then again swept his car into the road. And each
time for greater confidence she glanced up into his face.

Throughout the mishaps of the day he had been deeply concerned
for her comfort, sorry for her disappointment, under Brother
Sam's indignant ironies patient, and at all times gentle and
considerate. Now, in the light from the onrushing cars, she
noted his alert, laughing eyes, the broad shoulders bent
across the wheel, the lips smiling with excitement and in the
joy of controlling, with a turn of the wrist, a power equal to
sixty galloping horses. She found in his face much comfort.
And in the fact that for the moment her safety lay in his
hands, a sense of pleasure. That this was her feeling puzzled
and disturbed her, for to Ernest Peabody it seemed, in some
way, disloyal. And yet there it was. Of a certainty, there
was the secret pleasure in the thought that if they escaped
unhurt from the trap in which they found themselves, it would
be due to him. To herself she argued that if the chauffeur
were driving, her feeling would be the same, that it was the
nerve, the skill, and the coolness, not the man, that moved