"I'll be gentle. He is coming now, I think." He took a step nearer her. "You will leave this in my care, wholly? You will not trouble about--a substitute?" "I will leave it with you. But you are forgetting your own doctrine; you are taking some one else's work to do." "Pardon, I am merely making Ffrench do his work. I have seen a little more of him than you perhaps know; I understand what I am undertaking. Moreover, I would forget a great many doctrines to set you free." "Free?" she echoed; she had the sensation of being suddenly confronted with an open door into the unexpected. "Free," he quietly reasserted. "Free to live your own life and draw unhampered breath, and to decide the great question when it comes, with thought only of yourself." She drew back; a prescient dismay fell sharply across her late relief, a panic crossed with strange delight. "He's off," called Dick, emerging from the park. "I made Anderson take him down with the limousine. At least, Rupert is driving while Anderson sits alongside and holds on; when they came to the turn in the avenue, your precious mechanician took it full speed and then apologized for going so slowly because, as he said, he was an amateur and likely to upset. Is he really a good driver, Lestrange?" "Pretty fair," returned Lestrange serenely, from his seat on the edge of the ditched machine. "When I'm not using him, he's employed as one of the factory car testers; and when we're racing I give him the wheel if I want to fix anything. However, I'm obliged to that steering-knuckle for breaking here, instead of leaving me to a long wait in the wilds. Come down to the shop to-morrow at six, and Rupert and I will even up by taking you for a run." "Who; me? You're asking me?" "Why not? It's exhilarating." Dick removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, gratification and alarm mingling in his expression with somewhat the effect of the small boy who is first invited into a game with his older brother's clique. "You--er, wouldn't smash me up?" he hesitated. "I haven't smashed up Rupert or myself, so far. If you feel timid, never mind, of course; I'll take my usual companion." Dick flushed all over his plump face, the Ffrench blood up at last. "I was only joking," he hastily explained. "I'll come. It's only that you're so confoundedly reckless sometimes, Lestrange, and--But I'll come." Lestrange gave his fine, glinting smile as he rose to salute Emily. "All right. If you don't get down to the factory in time, I'll call for you," he promised. V There was a change in the Ffrench affairs, a lightening of the atmosphere, a vague quickening and stir of healthful cheer in the days that followed. The somber master of the house met it in Bailey's undisguised elation and pride when they discussed the successful business now taxing the factory's resources, met it yet again in Emily's pretty gaiety and content. But most strikingly was he confronted with an alteration in Dick.