Very well, then; he would tell Diane of the yellowed paper; he would
tell her to-night. However he played the game there was gold at the
end.
He laughed suddenly and shrugged and swept erratically into a lighter
mood of impudence and daring. There was rain beating furiously in his
face and his hair was wet. Well, the car pounding along beneath him
had known many such nights of storm and wild adventure. It had pleased
him frequently to mock and gibe at death, with the wheel in his hand
and a song on his lips, and now wind and storm were tempting him to
ride with the devil.
So, dashing wildly through the whirl of dirt and wind, heavy with the
odor of burnt oil, he bent to the wheel, every nerve alert and leaping.
As the great car jumped to its limit of speed, he fell to singing an
elaborate sketch of opera in an insolent, dare-devil voice of splendid
timbre, the exhaust, unmuffled, pounding forth an obligato.
The lightning flared. It glittered wickedly upon the unlighted lamps
of a car rolling rapidly toward him. With a squirt of mud and a
scatter of flying pebbles, Carl swung far to the side of the road and
slammed on his brakes, skidding dangerously. The other car, heading
wildly to the left, went crashing headlong into a ditch from which a
man crawled, cursing viciously in a foreign tongue.
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