CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR By LOUIS TRACY The scene opens in London on Derby day. A lovely American girl and her English chap- eron had engaged a chauffeur to take them in his car on a thousand miles run for ten days. On his way to keep the appointment the car met with an accident, and a young English- man, the son of an earl, happened to be in the vicinity. The chauffeur had once been in his employ, and when he saw his distress at the passible loss of a good customer he thought it would be a fine lark to go himself, in the guise of a chauffeur, and take the ladies on their journey. The girl was beautiful and the pseudo chauf- feur was young and ro- mantic, and one of the strangest of love stories began. CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR \ BJJHX. OF CAW. LIBRARY. is o lovelier garden in England than at Wells Palace" Cynthia's Chauffeur BY LOUIS TRACY AUTHOR OF THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, A SON OF THE IMMORTALS, ETC.. ETC. Illustrations by HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY EDWARD J. CLODE Entered at Stationers' Hall CONTENTS CHAPTEB PAGE I. THE HIRED CAR 1 II. THE FIRST DAY'S RUN , .... 23 III. SOME EMOTIONS WITHOUT A MORAL . 47 IV. SHADOWS WITH OCCASIONAL GLEAMS . 72 V. A FLURRY ON THE MENDIPS ... 94 VI. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S VAGARIES . . 119 VII. WHEREIN CYNTHIA TAKES HER OWN LINE 143 VIII. BREAKERS AHEAD . . . . .167 IX. ON THE WYE 191 X. THE HIDDEN FOUNTS OF EVIL -. . . 216 XI. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS . . . 239 XII. MASQUES, ANCIENT AND MODERN . . 260 XIII. WHEREIN WRATH BEGUILES GOOD JUDG- MENT 283 XIV. AND GOOD JUDGMENT YIELDS TO FOLLY 307 XV. THE OUTCOME 324 XVI. THE END OF ONE TOUR: THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER . 344 2133189 CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR CHAPTER I THE HIRED CAR DERBY Day fell that year on the first Wednes- day in June. By a whim of the British climate, the weather was fine; in fact, no rain had fallen on southern England since the 1 previous Sunday. Wise after the event, the news- papers published cheerful " forecasts," and certain daring " experts " discussed the probabilities of a heat wave. So London, on that bright Wednesday morning, was agog with excitement over its annual holiday ; and at such a time London is the gayest and liveliest city in the world. And then, wholly independent of the weather, there was the Great Question. From the hour when the first 'bus rumbled City- wards until some few seconds before three o'clock in the afternoon the mass of the people seemed to find delight in asking and answering it. The Ques- tion was ever the same; but the answer varied. In its way, the Question formed a tribute to the ad- 1 Cynthia s Chauffeur vance of democracy. It caused strangers to ex- change opinions and pleasantries in crowded trains and omnibuses. It placed peers and commoners on an equality. During some part of the day it com- pletely eclipsed all other topics of conversation. Thus, young Lord Medenham made no pretense of shirking it while he stood on the steps of his father's mansion in Cavendish Square and watched his chauffeur stowing a luncheon basket beneath the front seat of the Mercury 38. " You know a bit about racing, Tomkinson," he said, smiling at the elderly butler who had brought the basket out of the house. " What's going to win? " " The King's horse, my lord," replied Tomkinson, with the unctuous conviction of a prelate laying down a dogma. " Is it as sure as all that ? " " Yes, my lord." " Well, I hope so. You are on a sovereign By gad, you really are, you know." Tomkinson was far too keenly alive to the mon- etary side of the transaction to pay heed to the quip. His portly figure curved in a superb bow. " Thank you, my lord," said he. " Remind me this evening if you are right. I shall not forget to damn you if you are wrong." Tomkinson ignored the chance of error and its consequences. " Your lordship will be home for dinner ? " 2 The Hired Car " Yes, I have no other engagement. All ready, Dale? " for the chauffeur was in his seat, and the engine was purring with the placid hum of a machine in perfect tune. Tomkinson moved grandly down the steps, ushered Viscount Medenham into the car, and watched its graceful swoop into Holies Street. " Times have changed," said he to himself. " Twenty years ago, when I first came here, his lord- ship's father would have given me a tip, and he wouldn't have been coming home for dinne.r, neether." By that last fatal word Tomkinson betrayed the cloven hoof. At least, he was no prelate and his assumption of the prophetic role would soon be put to the test. But he had answered the Great Question. The Mercury crossed Oxford Street and insinuated itself into the aristocratic narrowness of Mayfair. It stopped in Curzon Street, opposite a house gay with flowers in window-boxes. The Viscount looked at his watch. " How far to Epsom ? " he asked over Dale's shoul- der. " About sixteen miles by the direct road, my lord, but it will be best to go round by Kingston and avoid the worst of the traffic. We ought to allow an hour for the run." "An hour!" " We are not in France now, my lord. The police here would have spasms if they saw the car extended." Lord Medenham sighed. 3 Cynthia s Chauffeur " We must reason with them," he said. " But not to-day. Lady St. Maur declares she is nervous. Of course, she doesn't know our Mercury. After to- day's experience it will be quite another matter when I take her to Brighton for lunch on Sunday." Dale said nothing. He had met his employer at Marseilles in October, when Lord Medenham landed from Africa ; during the preceding twelve months his license had been indorsed three times for exceeding the speed limit on the Brighton Road, and he had paid 40 in fines and costs to various petty sessional courts in Surrey and Sussex. Sunday, therefore, promised developments. Medenham seemed to think that his aunt, Lady St. Maur, would be waiting for him on the doorstep. As no matronly figure materialized in that locality, he alighted, and obeyed a brass-lettered injunction to " knock and ring." Then he disappeared inside the house, and remained there so long that Dale's respect for the law began to weaken. The chauffeur had been given a racing certainty for the first race; the hour was nearing twelve, and every road leading to Epsom Downs would surely be congested. His lordship came out, alone, and it was clear that the unexpected had happened. " Nice thing ! " he said, with the closest semblance to a growl that his good-natured drawl was capable of. " The whole show is busted, Dale. Her lady- ship is in bed with her annual bilious attack comes of eating forced strawberries, she says. And she 4 The Hired Car adores strawberries. So do I. There's pounds of 'em in that luncheon basket. Who's going to eat 'em? " Dale foresaw no difficulties in that respect, but he did realize at once that his master cared little about racing, and, so far as Epsom was concerned, would abandon the day's excursion without a pang. He grew desperate. But, being something of a stoic, he kept his feelings in check, and played a card that could hardly fail. " You will find plenty of youngsters on the hill who will be glad of them, my lord," said he. " You don't tell me so ! Kiddies at the Derby ! Well, why not? It shows what a stranger I am in my own land that I should never have seen the blessed race. Right ahead then, Dale ; we must back the King's horse and arrange a school treat. But I'll take the wheel. Can you tuck your legs over that basket? I'm not going to sit alone in the ton- neau. And, who knows? we may pick up someone on the road." Starting on the switch, the car sprang off towards Piccadilly. Dale sighed in his relief. With ordinary luck, they ought to reach Epsom before one o'clock, and racing did not begin till half an hour later. He left wholly out of reckoning the mysterious element in human affairs that allots adventures to the ad- venturous, though close association with Viscount Medenham during the past nine months ought to have taught him the wisdom of caution. Several chapters of a very interesting book might be supplied by his 5 Cynthia s Chauffeur lordship's motoring experiences on the Continent, and these would only supplement the still more checkered biography of one who, at the close of the Boer War, elected to shoot his way home through the Mid-African haunts of big game rather than return by orthodox troopship. On the face of things, it was absurd to imagine that a self-confessed wanderer should be permitted to see his first Derby in the sacrosanct company of a stout aunt and a well-filled luncheon basket. Even Medenham's re- cording angel must have smiled at the conceit, though doubtless shaking a grave head when the announce- ment of the Dowager's indisposition revealed the first twist from the path of good intent. As for Lady St. Maur, she declared long afterwards that the whole amazing entanglement could be traced distinctly to her fondness for the ducal fruit raised under glass. A cherry-stone lodged in the vermiform appendix of an emperor has more than once played strange pranks with the map of Europe, so it is not surpris- ing that a strawberry, subtly bestowed in a place well adapted to the exercise of its fell skill, should be able to convulse a section of the British peerage. Be that as it may, the hap that put Medenham in control of his Mercury unquestionably led to the next turn in events. A man driving a high-powered car watches the incidents of the road more closely than the same individual lounging at ease in the back seat. Hence, his lordship's attention was caught instantly l/y a touring car drawn up close to the curb in Down 6 The Hired Car Street. That short thoroughfare forms, as it were, a backwash for the traffic of Piccadilly. At the mo- ment it held no other vehicle than the two auto- mobiles, and it required no second look at the face of the driver of the motionless car to discover that something was seriously amiss. Anger and despair struggled there for predominance. Richard the Third of England must have given just such a glance at his last horse foundered on Bosworth Field. Medenham never passed another motorist in trouble without stopping. " Anything the matter? " he asked, when the Mer- cury was halted with the ease of a trained athlete poised in suspended motion. "Everything!" The chauffeur snapped out the word without turn- ing. He was a man devoid of faith, or hope, or charity. "Can I help?" " Can you h 1! " came the surly response. Thereupon, many viscounts would have swept on into Piccadilly without further parley not so Me- denham. He scrutinized the soldierly figure, the half-averted face. " You must be hard hit, Simmonds, before you would answer me in that fashion," said he quietly. Simmonds positively jumped when he heard his name. He wheeled round, raised his cap, and broke into stuttering excuse. 7 Cynthia s Chauffeur " I beg your lordship's pardon I hadn't the least notion " These two had not met since they discussed Boer trenches and British generals during a momentary halt on the Tugela slope of Spion Kop. Medenham remembered the fact, and forgave a good deal on account of it. " I have seen you look far less worried under a plunging fire from a pom-pom," he said cheerily. " Now, what is it? Wires out of order? " " No, my lord. That wouldn't bother me very long. It's a regular smash this time transmission shaft snapped." "Why?" " I was run into by a railway van, and forced against a street refuge." " Well, if it was not your fault " " Oh, I can claim damages right enough. I have plenty of witnesses. Even the driver of the van could only say that one of his horses slipped. It's the delay I'm jibbing at. I hate to disappoint my customers, and this accident may cost me three hun- dred pounds, and a business of my own into the bargain." "By gad! That sounds rather stiff. What's the hurry ? " " This is my own car, my lord. Early in the spring I was lucky enough to fall in with a rich American. I was driving for a company then, but he offered me three hundred pounds, money down, 8 The Hired Car for a three months' contract. Straightaway I bought this car for five hundred, and it is half paid for. Now the same gentleman writes from Paris that I am to take his daughter and another lady on a thousand miles' run for ten days, and he says he is prepared to hire me and the car for the balance of another period of three months on the same terms." " But the ladies will be reasonable when you ex- plain matters." " Ladies are never reasonable, my lord especially young ones. I have met Miss Vanrenen only once, but she struck me as one who was very much ac- customed to having her own way. And she has planned this tour to the last minute. Any other day I might have hired a car, and picked up my own somewhere on the road, but on Derby Day and in fine weather " Simmonds spread wide his hands in sheer inability to find words that would express the hopelessness of retrieving his shattered fortunes. Dale was fidget- ing, fingering taps and screws unnecessarily, but Medenham was pondering his former trooper's plight. He refused to admit that the position was quite so bad as it was painted. " Oh, come now," said he, " I'll give you a tow to the nearest repair shop, and a word from me will expedite the business. Meanwhile, you must jump into a hansom and appeal to the sympathies of Miss Vanrenen, is it ? " " No use, my lord," was the stubborn answer. " I 9 Cynthia's Chauffeur rected. Here were two cars, but the boy did not hesitate. He saluted. " Messenger, sir," he said. " This way," intervened Simmonds curtly. " No. I want you," said Medenham. " You know Sevastopol's, the cigarette shop in Bond Street? " " Yes, sir." " Take this card there, and ask him to dispatch the order at once." Meanwhile he was writing: " Kindly send 1,000 Salonikas to 91 Cavendish Square." Simmonds looked anxious. He was not a smooth- spoken fellow, but he did not wish to offend Lord Medenham. " Would your lordship mind if I sent the boy to the Savoy Hotel first? " he asked nervously. " It is rather late, and Miss Vanrenen will be expecting me." " What time are you due at the Savoy ? " " We were to start at twelve o'clock, but the ladies' luggage had to be strapped on, and " " Ah, the deuce ! That sounds formidable." " Of course they must stow everything into the canvas trunks I supplied, my lord." Medenham stooped and examined the screws which fastened an iron grid at the back of the broken-down vehicle. " Whip open the tool box, Dale, and transfer that arrangement to my car," he said briskly. " Make it 12 The Hired Car fit somehow. I don't approve of damaged paint- work, nor of weight behind the driving-wheels for that matter, but time presses, and the ladies might shy at a request to repack their belongings into my kit-bags, even if I were carrying them. Now, Sim- monds, give me the route, if you know it, and hand over your road maps. I mean to take your place until your car is put right. Wire me where to ex- pect you. You ought to be ship-shape in three days, at the utmost." " My lord " began the overwhelmed Simmonds. " I'll see you hanged as high as Haman before I hand over my Mercury to you, if that is what you are thinking of," said Medenham sharply. " Why, man, she is built like a watch. It would take you a month to understand her. Now, you boy, be off to Sevastopolo's. Where can I buy a chauffeur's kit, Simmonds ? " " Your lordship is really too kind. I couldn't think of permitting it," muttered Simmonds. " What, then do you refuse my assistance ? " " It isn't that, my lord. I am awfully grate- ful " " Are you afraid that I shall run off with Miss Vanrenen hold her to ransom send Black Hand letters to her father, and that sort of thing? " " From what little I have seen of Miss Vanrenen she is much more likely to run off with you, my lord. But " " You're growing incoherent, Simmonds. For 13 Cynthia's Chauffeur goodness' sake tell me where I am to go. You can safely leave all the rest to me, and we haven't a minute to lose if I am to secure any sort of a decent motoring kit before I turn up at the hotel. Pull yourself together, man. Action front and fire ! Guns unlimbered and first range-finder dispatched in nineteen seconds eh, what? " Simmonds squared his shoulders. He had been a driver in the Royal Artillery before he joined Vis- count Medenham's troop of Imperial Yeomanry. There was no further argument. Dale, Oriental in phlegm now that Eyot was safely backed, was al- ready unscrewing the luggage carrier. Half an hour later, the Mercury curled with sinu- ous grace out of the busy Strand into the court- yard of the Savoy Hotel. The inclosure snorted with motors,- the air was petrolise, all the world of the hotel was going, or had already gone, to Epsom. One quick glance at the lines of traffic showed Medenham that the Swiss Rear-Admiral on duty would not allow him to remain an unnecessary instant in front of the actual doorway. He swung his car to the exit side, crept in behind a departing taxicab, and grabbed a hurrying boy in buttons. " You listen to me, boy," he said. The boy remarked that his hearing was perfect. " Well, go to Miss Vanrenen and say that her motor is waiting. Seize a porter, and do not leave him until he has brought two canvas trunks from the 14 The Hired Car lady's rooms. Help him to strap them on the grid, and I'll give each of you half-a-crown." The boy vanished. Never before had chauffeur addressed him so convincingly. Medenham, standing by the side of the car, was deep in the contours of a road map of Sussex when a sweet if somewhat petulant voice, apparently at his elbow, complained that its owner could not see Simmonds anywhere. He turned instantly. A slim, straight-figured girl, wearing a dust-cloak and motor veil, had come out from the Savoy Court door- way and was scrutinizing every automobile in sight. Near her was a short, stout woman whose personality seemed to be strangely familiar to Medenham. He never forgot anyone, and this lady was certainly not one of his acquaintances; nevertheless, her features, her robin-like strut, her very amplitude of girth and singular rotundity of form, came definitely within the net of his retentive memory. To be sure, he gave her but brief survey, since her companion, in all likelihood Miss Vanrenen, might quite reasonably attract his attention. Indeed, she would find favor in the eyes of any young man, let alone one who had such cause as Viscount Medenham to be interested in her appearance. In her amaz- ingly lovely face the haughty beauty of an aristocrat was softened by a touch of that piquant femininity which the well-bred American girl seems to bring from Paris with her clothes. A mass of dark brown hair framed a forehead, nose, and mouth of almost 15 Cynthia's Chauffeur goodness' sake tell me where I am to go. You can safely leave all the rest to me, and we haven't a minute to lose if I am to secure any sort of a decent motoring kit before I turn up at the hotel. Pull yourself together, man. Action front and fire ! Guns unlimbered and first range-finder dispatched in nineteen seconds eh, what? " Simmonds squared his shoulders. He had been a driver in the Royal Artillery before he joined Vis- count Medenham's troop of Imperial Yeomanry. There was no further argument. Dale, Oriental in phlegm now that Eyot was safely backed, was al- ready unscrewing the luggage carrier. Half an hour later, the Mercury curled with sinu- ous grace out of the busy Strand into the court- yard of the Savoy Hotel. The inclosure snorted with motors,- the air was petrolise, all the world of the hotel was going, or had already gone, to Epsom. One quick glance at the lines of traffic showed Medenham that the Swiss Rear-Admiral on duty would not allow him to remain an unnecessary instant in front of the actual doorway. He swung his car to the exit side, crept in behind a departing taxicab, and grabbed a hurrying boy in buttons. " You listen to me, boy," he said. The boy remarked that his hearing was perfect. " Well, go to Miss Vanrenen and say that her motor is waiting. Seize a porter, and do not leave him until he has brought two canvas trunks from the 14 The Hired Car lady's rooms. Help him to strap them on the grid, and I'll give each of you half-a-crown." The boy vanished. Never before had chauffeur addressed him so convincingly. Medenham, standing by the side of the car, was deep in the contours of a road map of Sussex when a sweet if somewhat petulant voice, apparently at his elbow, complained that its owner could not see Simmonds anywhere. He turned instantly. A slim, straight-figured girl, wearing a dust-cloak and motor veil, had come out from the Savoy Court door- way and was scrutinizing every automobile in sight. Near her was a short, stout woman whose personality seemed to be strangely familiar to Medenham. He never forgot anyone, and this lady was certainly not one of his acquaintances; nevertheless, her features, her robin-like strut, her very amplitude of girth and singular rotundity of form, came definitely within the net of his retentive memory. To be sure, he gave her but brief survey, since her companion, in all likelihood Miss Vanrenen, might quite reasonably attract his attention. Indeed, she would find favor in the eyes of any young man, let alone one who had such cause as Viscount Medenham to be interested in her appearance. In her amaz- ingly lovely face the haughty beauty of an aristocrat was softened by a touch of that piquant femininity which the well-bred American girl seems to bring from Paris with her clothes. A mass of dark brown hair framed a forehead, nose, and mouth of almost 15 Cynthia s Chauffeur Grecian regularity, while her firmly modeled chin, slightly more pronounced in type, would hint at un- usual strength of character were not the impression instantly dispelled by the changing lights in a pair of marvelously blue eyes. In the course of a single second Medenham found himself comparing them to blue diamonds, to the azure depths of a sunlit sea, to the exquisite tint of the myosotis. Then he swal- lowed his surprise, and lifted his cap. " May I ask if you are Miss Vanrenen? " he said. The blue eyes met his. For the first time in his life he was thrilled to the core by a woman's glance. " Yes." She answered with a smile, an approving smile, perhaps, for the viscount looked very smart in his tight-fitting uniform, but none the less wondering. " Then I am here instead of Simmonds. His car was put out of commission an hour ago by a brutal railway van, and will not be ready for the road dur- ing the next day or two. May I offer my services in the meantime? " The girl's astonished gaze traveled from Medenham to the spick and span automobile. For the moment he had forgotten his role, and each word he uttered deepened her bewilderment, which grew stronger when she looked at the Mercury. The sleek coach-work and spotless leather upholstery, the shining brass fittings and glistening wings, every visible detail in fact, gave good promise of the excellence of the en- gine stowed away beneath the square bonnet. Evi- 16 The Hired Car dently Miss Vanrenen had cultivated the habit of gathering information rapidly. " This car? " she exclaimed, with a delightful lift- ing of arched eyebrows. " Yes, you will not be disappointed in it, I assure you. I am doing Simmonds a friendly turn in taking his place, so I hope the slight accident will not make any difference to your plans." " But why has not Simmonds himself come to explain matters ? " " He could not leave his car, which is in a side street off Piccadilly. He would have sent a note, but he remembered that you had never seen his hand- writing, so, as a proof of my genuineness, he gave me your itinerary." Medenham produced a closely-written sheet of note-paper, which Miss Vanrenen presumably recog- nized. She turned to her stout companion, who had been summing up car and chauffeur with careful eyes since Medenham first spoke. " What do you think, Mrs. Devar? " she said. When he heard the name, Medenham was so amazed that the last vestige of chauffeurism vanished from his manner. " You don't mean to say you are Jimmy Devar's mother? " he gasped. Mrs. Devar positively jumped. If a look could have slain he would have fallen then and there. As it was, she tried to freeze him to death. " Do I understand that you are speaking of Cap- 17 Cynthia 's Chauffeur tain Devar, of Horton's Horse? " she said, aloof as an iceberg. " Yes," said he coolly, though regretting the lapse. He had stupidly brought about an awkward incident, and must remember in future not to address either lady as an equal. " I was not aware that my son was on familiar terms with the chauffeur fraternity." " Sorry, but the name slipped out unawares. Cap- tain Devar is, or used to be, very easy-going in his ways, you know." " So it would seem." She turned her back on him disdainfully. " In the circumstances, Cynthia," she said, " I am inclined to believe that we ought to make further inquiries before we exchange cars, and drivers, in this fashion." " But what is to be done ? All our arrangements are made our rooms ordered I have even sent father each day's address. If we cancel everything by telegraph he will be alarmed." " Oh, I did not mean that," protested the lady hurriedly. It was evident that she hardly knew what to say. Medenham's wholly unexpected query had unnerved her. " Is there any alternative ? " demanded Cynthia ruefully, glancing from one to the other. " It is rather late to hire another car to-day, I admit " began Mrs. Devar. " It would be quite impossible, madam," put in Medenham. " This is Derby Day, and there is not 18 The Hired Car a motor to be obtained in London except a taxicab. It was sheer good luck for Simmonds that he was able to secure me as his deputy." He thanked his stars for that word " madam." Certainly the mere sound of it seemed to soothe Mrs. Devar's jarred nerves, and the appearance of the Mercury was even more reassuring. " Ah, well," she said, " we are not traveling into the wilds. If desirable, we can always return to town by train. By the way, chauffeur, what is your name? " For an instant Medenham hesitated. Then he took the plunge, strong in the belief that a half-forgotten transaction between himself and " Jimmy " Devar would prevent that impecunious warrior from dis- cussing him freely in the family circle. " George Augustus Fitzroy," he said. Mrs. Devar's brows knitted; she was regaining her self-possession, and a sarcastic smile now chased away a perplexing thought. She was about to say some- thing when Cynthia Vanrenen broke in excitedly : " I declare to goodness if the hotel people have not fastened on our boxes already. They seem to know our minds better than we do ourselves. And here is the man with the wraps. . . . Please be careful with that camera. . . . Yes, put it there, with the glasses. What are you doing, Fitzroy ? " for Meden- ham was discharging his obligations to the boy in buttons and a porter. " Paying my debts," said he, smiling at her. 19 Cynthia's Chauffeur " Of course you realize that I pay all expenses ? " she said, with just the requisite note of hauteur in her voice that the situation called for. " This is entirely a personal matter, I assure you, Miss Vanrenen." Medenham could not help smiling ; he stooped and felt a tire unnecessarily. Cynthia was puzzled. She wrote that evening to Irma Norris, her cousin in Philadelphia " Fitzroy is a new line in chauffeurs." " By the way, where is your trunk? " she demanded suddenly. " I came away unexpectedly, so I have arranged that it shall be sent to Brighton by rail," he ex- plained. Apparently, there was nothing more to be said. The two ladies seated themselves, and the car sped out into the Strand. They watched the driver's adroit yet scrupulously careful dealing with the traf- fic, and Cynthia, at least, quickly grasped the essen- tial fact that the six cylinders worked with a silent power that held cheap every other vehicle passed or overtaken on the road. " It is a lovely automobile," she murmured with a little sigh of satisfaction. " Quite an up-to-date car, I fancy," agreed her friend. " I don't understand how this man, Fitzroy, can afford to use it for hiring purposes. Yet, that is his affair not mine. I rather like him. Don't you ? " " His manners are somewhat off-hand, but such 20 The Hired Car persons are given to aping their superiors. George Augustus Fitzroy, too it is ridiculous. Fitzroy is the family name of the Earls of Fairholme, and their eldest sons have been christened George Augustus ever since the beginning of the eighteenth century." " The name seems to fit our chauffeur all right, and I guess he has as good a claim to it as any other man." Cynthia was apt to flaunt the Stars and Stripes when Mrs. Devar aired her class conventions, and the older woman had the tact to agree with a care- less nod. Nevertheless, had Cynthia Vanrenen known how strictly accurate was her comment she would have been the most astounded girl in London at that minute. The Viscountcy, of course, was nothing more than a courtesy title; in the cold eye of the law, Medenham's full legal name was that which Mrs. Devar deemed ridiculous. As events shaped them- selves, it was of the utmost importance to Cynthia, and to Medenham, and to several other persons who had not yet risen above their common horizon, that Mrs. Devar's sneer should pass unchallenged. Though that lady herself was not fashioned of the softer human clay which expresses its strenuous emo- tions by fainting fits or hysteria, some such feminine expedient would certainly have prevented her from going another hundred yards along the south road had some wizard told her how nearly she had guessed the truth. But the luck of the born adventurer saved Meden- 21 Cynthia s Chauffeur ham from premature exposure. " I dare all " was the motto of his house, and it was fated to be tested in full measure ere he saw London again. Of these considerations the purring Mercury neither knew nor cared. She sang the song of the free highway, and sped through the leafy lanes of Surrey with a fine disregard for Acts of Parliament and the " rules and regulations therein made and provided." Soon after one o'clock, however, she was compelled to climb the road to the downs in meek agreement with two lines of toiling chars-a-bancs and laboring motors. Just to show her mettle when the opportunity offered, she took the steep hill opposite the stands with a grey- hound rush that vastly disconcerted a policeman who told Medenham to " hurry up out of the dip." Then, having found a clear space, she dozed for a while, and Cynthia, like a true-born American, began the day's business by giving the answer before either of her companions even thought of putting the Great Question. " Grimalkin will win ! " she cried. " Mr. Deane told my father so. I want to play Grimalkin for ten dollars!" THE FIRST DAY'S RUN THOUGH Medenham was no turf devotee, he formed distinctly unfavorable conclusions as to the financial stability of the bawling bookmakers near at hand. " If you wish to do any betting, Miss Vanrenen," he said, " give me the money and I will invest it for you. There is no hurry. The Derby will not be run till three o'clock. We have an hour and a half in which to study form." For the life of him he could not imitate the com- plete annihilation of self practiced by the well-bred English servant. The American girl missed the ab- sence of this trait far less than the other woman, but, by this time, even Mrs. Devar began to accept Medenham's good-humored assumption of equality as part of the day's amusement. Cynthia handed him a card. She had bought three while they were crawling up the hill behind a break-load of jeering Cockneys. " What will win the first race ? " she asked. " Father says you men often hear more than the owners about the real performances of horses." 23 Cynthia s Chauffeur Medenham tried to look knowing. He thanked his stars for Dale's information. " I am told Eyot has a chance," he said. " Well, put me a sovereign on Eyot, please. Are you playing the ponies, Mrs. Devar? " That lady, being quick-witted, took care not to offend Cynthia by pretending not to understand, though it set Medenham's teeth on edge to hear a racehorse called a pony. She opened a gold purse and produced a coin. " I don't mind risking a little," she tittered. Medenham found, however, that she also had handed him a sovereign, and his conscience smote him, for he guessed already, with accuracy as it hap- pened, that she was Miss Vanrenen's paid chaperon during the absence of the girl's father on the Continent. " Personally, I am a duffer in matters connected with the turf," he explained. " A friend of mine a chauffeur mentioned Eyot " "Oh, that is all right," laughed Cynthia. "I like the colors Eau de Nil and white. Look ! There he goes ! " She had good eyes, as well as pretty ones, else she could not have distinguished the silk jacket worn by the rider of a horse cantering at that moment along the cleared course. Crowded coaches, four rows deep, lined the rails near the judge's box, and the gay-hued parasols of their feminine occupants almost completely blocked the view, a distant one in 24 The First Day's Run any case, owing to the width of the intervening valley. Medenham raised no further protest. He walked to a stand where a press of people betokened the presence of a popular layer of odds, found that Eyot's price was chalked up at five to one, and backed him for four pounds. He had to push and elbow his way through a struggling crowd; im- mediately after the bet was made, Eyot's quotation was reduced by two points in response to signals tick- tacked from the inclosures. This, of course, argued a decided following for Dale's selection, and these eleventh hour movements in the turf market are il- luminative. Before he got back to the car there was a mighty shout of " They're off ! " and he saw Cynthia Vanrenen stand on the seat to watch the race through her glasses. Mrs. Devar stood up, too. Both women were so intent on the troop of horses now streaming over the crest of the six-furlong course that he was able to stare his fill without attracting their attention. " I like Cynthia," he said to himself, " though I shall be in a deuce of a mess if I meet her anywhere after this piece of masquerading. Not much chance of that, I expect, seeing that Dad and I go to Scot- land early in July. But what a bore to tumble across Jimmy's mater ! I hope it is not a case of * like mother like son,' because Jimmy is the limit." A strange roar, gathering force and volume each 25 Cynthia's Chauffeur instant, rose from a hundred thousand throats. Soon the shout became insistent, and Cynthia Vanrenen yielded to its magnetism. " E}*ot wins ! " she cried delightedly. " Yes, none of them can catch him now. Go on, jockey don't look round! Oh, if I were your master I'd give you such a talking to. Ah-h-h! We've won, Mrs. Devar we've won ! Just think of it ! " " How much, I wonder? " Mrs. Devar, though excited, had the calculating habit. " Five pounds each," said Medenham, who had approached unnoticed during the tumuH. Cynthia's eyes sparkled. " Five pounds ! Why, I heard some betting per- son over there offering only three to one." It was a task beyond his powers to curb an unruly tongue in the presence of this emancipated school- girl. He met her ebullient mood halfway. " I have evidently beaten the market that is, if I get the money. Horrible thought! I may be welshed ! " He strode back rapidly to the bookmaker's stand. "What do you think of our chauffeur now?" cried Cynthia radiantly, for the winning of those few sovereigns was a real joy to her, and the shadow of the welsher had no terrors, since she did not know what Medenham meant. " He improves on acquaintance," admitted Mrs. Devar, thawing a little under the influence of a suc- cessful tip. 26 The First Day's Run He soon returned, and handed them six sovereigns apiece. " My man paid up like a Briton," he said cheer- fully. " I have no reliable information as to the next race, so what do you ladies say if we lunch quietly before we attack the ring for the Derby ? " There was an awkward pause. The air of Epsom Downs is stimulating, especially after one has found the winner of the first race. " We have not brought anything to eat," admitted Cynthia ruefully. " We ordered some sandwiches before leaving the hotel, and we mean to stop for tea at some old-world hotel in Reigate which Mrs. Devar recommends." " Unfortunately I was not hungry at sandwich time," sighed Mrs. Devar. " If it comes to that, neither was I, whereas I have a most unromantic appetite now. But what can do, as the Babus say in India. I am rather inclined to doubt the quality of anything we can buy here." Medenham's face lit up. " India ! " he cried. " Have you been to India ? " " Yes, have you ? My father and I passed last cold weather there." Warned by a sudden expansion of Mrs. Devar's prominent eyes, he gave a quick turn to a dangerous topic, since it was in Calcutta that the gallant ex- captain of Horton's Horse had " borrowed " fifty pounds from him. Naturally, the lady omitted the 27 Cynthia's Chauffeur tell-tale prefix to her son's rank, but it was un- questionably true that the British army had dis- pensed with his services. " I was only thinking that acquaintance with the East, Miss Vanrenen, would prepare you for the mysterious workings of Kismet," said Medenham lightly. " When I came across Simmonds this morn- ing I was bewailing the fact that my respected aunt had fallen ill and could not accompany me to-day. May I offer you the luncheon which I provided for her? " He withdrew the wicker basket from its nook be- neath the front seat; before his astonished guests could utter a protest, it was opened, and he was deftly unpacking the contents. " But that is your luncheon," protested Cynthia, finding it incumbent on her to say something by way of polite refusal. " And his aunt's, my dear." In those few words Mrs. Devar conveyed skepti- cism as to the aunt and ready acceptance of the proffered fare; but Medenham paid no heed; he had discovered that the napkins, cutlery, even the plates, bore the family crest. The silver, too, was of a quality that could not fail to evoke comment. " Well, here goes ! " he growled under his breath. " If I come a purler it will not be for the first time where women are concerned." He laughed as he produced some lobster in aspic and a chicken. 28 The First Day's Bun " It is j oily useful to have as a friend a butler in a big house," he said. " I didn't know what Tomkinson had given me, but these confections look all right." Mrs. Devar's glance dwelt on the crest the instant she took a plate. She smiled in her superior way. While Medenham was wrestling with the cork of a bottle of claret she whispered: " This is screamingly funny, Cynthia. I have solved the riddle at last. Our chauffeur is using his master's car and his master's eatables as well." " Don't care a cent," said Cynthia, who found the lobster admirable. " But if any inquiry is made and our names are mixed up in it, Mr. Vanrenen may be angry." " Father would be tickled to death. I shall insist on paying for everything, of course, and my re- sponsibility ends there. No, thank you " this to Medenham who was offering her a glass of wine. " I drink water only. Have you any ? " Mrs. Devar took the wine, and Medenham fished in the basket for the St. Galmier, since Lady St. Maur cultivated gout with her biliousness. " Dear me ! " she murmured after a sip. " What is it now? " asked Cynthia. " Perfect, my dear. Such a bouquet ! I wonder what house it came from," and she pondered the crest again, but in vain, for heraldry is an exact science, and the greater part of her education had been given by a hard world. She did not fail, therefore, to 29 Cynthia's Chauffeur notice that three persons were catered for by the packer of the basket. An unknown upper housemaid was already suspect, and now she added mentally " some shop-girl friend." The climax was reached when Medenham staged the strawberries. Cynthia, to whom the good things of the table were common- places, ate them and was thankful, but Mrs. Devar made another note : " Ten shillings a basket, at the very least ; and three baskets! " A deep, booming yell from the mob proclaimed that the second race was in progress. " I can't see a thing unless I am perched on the seat, and if I stand up I shall upset the crockery," announced Cynthia. " But I am not interested yet awhile. If Grimalkin wins I shall shout myself hoarse." " He hasn't a ghost of a chance," said Meden- ham. " Oh, but he has. Mr. Deane told my father " " But Tomkinson told me," he interrupted. " Tomkinson. Is that your butler friend? " " Yes. He says the King's horse will win." " Surely the owner of Grimalkin must know more about the race than a butler? " " You would not think so, Miss Vanrenen, if you knew Tomkinson." " Where is he butler ? " asked Mrs. Devar suavely. " I forget for the moment, madam," replied Meden- ham with equal suavity. 30 The First Day's Run The lady waived the retort. She was sure of her ground now. " In any case, I imagine that both Mr. Deane and this Tomkinson may be mistaken. I am told that a horse trained locally has a splendid chance let me see yes, here it is: the Honorable Charles Fen- ton's Vendetta." It was well that those bulging steel-gray eyes were bent over the card, or they could not have failed to catch the flicker of amazement that swept across Medenham's sun-browned face when he heard the name of his cousin. He had not been in England a full week as yet, and he happened not to have read a list of probable starters for the Derby. He had glanced at the programme during breakfast that morning, but some remark made by the Earl caused him to lay down the newspaper, and, when next he picked it up, he became interested in an article on the Cape to Cairo railway, written by someone who had not the remotest notion of the difficulties to be surmounted before that very desirable line can be constructed. Cynthia, however, was watching him, and she laughed gleefully. " Ah, Fitzroy, you hadn't heard of Vendetta be- fore," she cried. " Confess now your faith in Tom- kinson is shaken." " Vendetta certainly does sound like war to the knife," said he. " It is twenty to one," purred Mrs. Devar com- 31 Cynthia's Chauffeur placently. " I shall risk the five pounds I won on the first race, and it will be very nice if I receive a hundred." " I stick to Old Glory," announced the valiant Cynthia. " The King for me," declared Medenham, though he realized, without any knowledge of the merits of the horses engaged, that the Honorable Charles was not the sort of man to run a three-year-old in the Derby merely for the sake of seeing his racing colors flashing in the sun. Mrs. Devar kept to her word, and handed over the five pounds. Cynthia staked seven, the five she had won and the ten dollars of her original intent: whereupon Medenham said that he must cross the course and make these bets in the ring would the ladies raise any objection to his absence, as he could not return until after the race? No, they were quite content to remain in the car, so he repacked the luncheon basket and left them. Vendetta won by three lengths. Medenham had secured twenty-five to one, and the bookmaker who paid him added the genial advice: " Put that little lot where the flies can't get at it." The man could afford to be affable, seeing that the bet was the only one in his book against the horse's name. The King's horse and Grimalkin were the public favorites, but both were hopelessly shut in at Tattenham Corner, and neither showed in the front 32 The First Day's Run rank at any stage of a fast run race. When Meden- ham climbed the hill again, hot and uncomfortable in his leather clothing, Mrs. Devar actually welcomed him with an expansive smile. " What odds did you get me ? " she cried, as soon as he was within earshot. " A hundred and twenty-five pounds to five, ma- dam," he said. " Oh, what luck ! You must keep the odd five pounds, Fitzroy." " No, thank you. I hedged on Vendetta, so I am still winning." " But really, I insist." He handed her a bundle of notes. " You will find a hundred and thirty pounds there," he said, and she understood that his refusal to accept her money was final. She was intensely surprised that he had given her so much more than she ex- pected, and the first unworthy thought was succeeded by a second how dared this impudent chauffeur de- cline her bounty? Cynthia pouted at him. " Your Tomkinson is a fraud," she said. " Your Grimalkin was well named," said he. " That remark is very cutting, I suppose, Fitz- roy." " Oh, no. I merely meant to convey that a cat is not a racehorse." " Poor fellow," mused Cynthia, " he is vexed be- cause he lost. I must make it up to him somehow, 33 Cynthia s Chauffeur but he is such an extraordinary person, I hardly dare suggest such a thing." She began to adjust her veil and dust coat. " If you are ready, Mrs. Devar," she said, " I think we ought to hit the pike for Brighton." Mrs. Devar laughed. Fitzroy evidently under- stood, as he had taken his seat and the engine was humming. " Americanisms are most fascinating," she vowed. " I wish you would use more of them, Cynthia. I love them." Cynthia was slightly ruffled, though if pressed for a reason she could hardly have given one. " Slang is useful occasionally, but I am trying to cure myself of the habit," she said tartly. " A picturesque phrase is always pardonable. Oh, is this quite safe? " The Mercury, finding an opening, had shot down the hill with a smooth celerity that alarmed the older woman. Cynthia leaned back composedly. " Fitzroy means to reach the road before the police stop the traffic for the next race," she said. Then, after a pause, she added : " I wish we could keep this car for the rest of our tour, yet I suppose I ought not to interfere in the arrangement father made with Simmonds." Mrs. Devar frowned. Her momentary tremor had fled, and she had every cause to regard with uneasi- ness the threatened substitution during the forthcom- ing ten days, of this quite impossible Fitzroy for 34 The First Day's Run that very chauffeur-like person, Simmonds. Her ac- quaintance with Peter Vanrenen and his daughter was sufficiently intimate to warn her that Cynthia's least desire was granted by her indulgent parent; in fact, Cynthia would have been hopelessly spoilt were it not for a combination of those happy chances which seem to conspire at times in the creation of the American girl at her best. She was devoted to her father, her nature was bright and cheerful, and she had a heart that bubbled over with kindliness. Mrs. Devar chose the right line of attack. She re- solved to appeal to the girl's sympathies. " I am afraid it would be a rather cruel thing to deprive Simmonds of his engagement," she said softly. " He has bought a car, I understand, on the strength of the contract with Mr. Vanrenen " " That doesn't cut any ice I mean there would be no ill effect for Simmonds," explained Cynthia hurriedly. " Father will meet us in London at the end of our run, and Simmonds could come to us then." The steel-gray eyes narrowed. Their owner was compelled to decide quickly. As opposition was use- less, she laughed, with the careless ease of one who was in no way concerned. " Don't you think," she said, " that if your father sees this car Simmonds will be dispensed with some- how? " Cynthia nodded. The argument was unanswer- able. 35 Cynthia's Chauffeur They were crossing the course at a walking pace; at that point a sort of passage was kept clear by the police for the convenience of those occupants of the stands who wished to visit the paddock. The owner of Vendetta, having been congratulated by royalty, was taking some friends to admire the horse during the rubbing-down process, when his glance suddenly fell on Medenham. Though amazed, he was not rendered speechless. " Well, I'm " he began. But the Mercury possessed a singularly loud and clear motor-horn, and the voice of the Honorable Charles was drowned. Still, his gestures were elo- quent. Quite obviously, he was saying to a man whose arm he caught: " Did you ever in your life see anybody more like George than that chauffeur? Why, damme, it is Medenham ! " So Mrs. Devar lost a golden opportunity. She knew Fenton by sight, and her shrewd wits must have set her on the right track had she witnessed his bewilderment. Being a pretentious person, however, and not able to afford the up-keep of a motor, she was enjoying the surprise of two well-dressed women who recognized her. Then the car leaped forward again, and she scored a dearly won triumph. At this crisis Medenham's scrutiny of the road map provided by Simmonds for the tour was well repaid. He turned sharp to the right past the back of the stands, and was fortunate in finding enough clear The First Day's Run road to render pursuit by his elderly cousin a vain thing, even if it were thought of. The Mercury had to cross the caravan zone carefully, but once Tatten- ham Corner was reached the way lay open to Rei- gate. Through a land of gorse and heather they sped until they came to the famous hill. They ran down in a noiseless flight that caused Cynthia to experience the sensation of being borne on wings. " I imagine that aeroplaning is something like this," she confided to her companion. " If it is, it must be enjoyable. I don't suppose, at my time of life, I shall ever try to navigate the air in one of those frail contrivances pictured in the newspapers. But I was nearly tempted to go up in a balloon two years ago." Cynthia stole a glance at Mrs. Devar's rotund figure, and laughed. She could not help it, though she flushed furiously at what she deemed an in- voluntary rudeness on her part. " Oh, it sounds funny, I have no doubt," said the other, placidly good-tempered, " but I really meant it at the moment. You have met Count Edouard Marigny, I fancy? " " Yes, in Paris last month. In fact " Cynthia hesitated. She had scarcely recovered from the excitement of the racing and was not choos- ing her words quite happily. Mrs. Devar, still sugary, ended the sentence. " In fact, it was he who recommended me to Mr. S7 Cynthia s Chauffeur Vanrenen as your chaperon. Yes, my dear, Mon- sieur Marigny and I are old friends. He and my son are inseparable when Captain Devar is in Paris. Well, as I was saying, the Count offered to take me up in his balloon, L'Etoile, and I was ready to go, but the weather became stormy and an ascent from the Velo was impossible, or highly dangerous, at any rate." Mrs. Devar cultivated the high-pitched voice that she regarded as the hall-mark of good breeding, and, in that silent rush downhill, Medenham could not avoid hearing each syllable. It was eminently pleas- ing to listen to Cynthia's praise of his car, and he was wroth with the other woman for wrenching the girl's thoughts away so promptly from a topic dear to his heart. Therein he erred, for the gods were being kind to him. Little recking how valuable was the information he had just been given, he slackened speed somewhat, and leaned back in the seat. " We are nearing Reigate now," he remarked with half-turned head. " The town begins on the other side of that tunnel. Which inn do you wish to stop at for tea?" " It seems to me that I have barely ended lunch," said Cynthia. " Shall we cut out your old-world Reigate inn, Mrs. Devar, and take tea at Crawley or Handcross ? " " By all means. How well you know the names of the towns and villages. Yet you hare never be- fore visited this part of England." 38 The First Day's Rim " We Americans are nothing if not thorough," answered the girl. " I would not be happy if I failed to look up our route on the map. More than that, I note the name of each river we cross and try to identify every range of hills. You must test me and count my mistakes." Mrs. Devar spread her hands in a gesture copied from her French acquaintances. " My dear, I am the most ignorant person geo- graphically. I remember how that delightful Count Edouard laughed when I asked him if the Loire joined the Seine above or below Paris. It seems that I was thinking of the Oise all the time. The Marchioness of Belfort told me of my error after- wards." Cynthia laughed merrily, but made no reply. Medenham bent over the levers and the car danced on through Reigate. Mrs. Devar impressed him as a despicable type of tuft-hunter. His acquaintance with the species was not extensive; he had read of elderly dowagers who eked out their slender means by introducing the daughters of rich Americans to English society, and the thing was not in itself wholly indefensible; but he felt sure that Cynthia Vanrenen needed no such social sponsor, while the mere bracketing of Count Edouard Marigny with " Jimmy " Devar caused him to regard this un- known Frenchman with a suspicion that was already active enough so far as Mrs. Devar was con- cerned. And the Marchioness of Belfort, too! 39 Cynthia s Chauffeur A decrepit old cadger with an infallible system for roulette ! Perhaps his mood communicated itself to the ac- celerator. At any rate, the Mercury seemed to sym- pathize, and it was a lucky hazard that kept the glorious stretch of road between Reigate and Crawley free of police traps on that memorable Wednesday. The car simply leaped out of Surrey into Sussex, the undulating parklands on both sides of the smooth highway appearing to float past in stately proces- sion, and there was a fine gleam in Cynthia's blue eyes when the first check to a splendid run came in the outskirts of Crawley. She leaned forward and tapped him on the shoul- der. " Tea here, please," she said. Then she added, as if it were an afterthought : " If you promise to let her rip in that style after we reach the open country again I shall sit on the front seat." The words were almost whispered into his ear. Certainly they were not meant to enlighten Mrs. Devar, and Medenham, turning, found his face very near the girl's. " I'm bribed," he answered, and not until both were settled back in their seats did they realize that either had said anything unusual. Medenham, however, took his cup of tea a la chauffeur, helping himself to bread and butter from a plate deposited on the bonnet by a waiting-maid. When the ladies reappeared from the interior of 40 The First Day's Run a roadside restaurant he was in his place, ready to start. He did not offer to put them in the car, adjust their wraps, and close the door. If Miss Vanrenen liked to keep her promise, that was her affair, but no action on his part would hint of prior knowledge that she intended to ride in front. Nevertheless, he could not repress a smile when he heard Mrs. Devar's distinctly chilly, " Oh, not at all ! " in response to Cynthia's polite apology for deserting her until they neared Brighton. Somehow, the car underwent a subtle change when the girl took her seat by his side. From a machine quivering with life and power it became a triumphal chariot. By sheer perfection of mechanical energy it had bridged the gulf that lay between the mil- lionaire's daughter and the hired man, since there could be no question that Cynthia Vanrenen placed Viscount Medenham in no other category. Indeed, his occasional lapses from the demeanor of a lower social grade might well have earned him her marked disfavor, and, as there was no shred of personal vanity in his character, he gave all the credit to the sentient creature of steel and iron that was so ready to respond to his touch. Swayed by an unconscious telepathy, the girl al- most interpreted his unspoken thought. She watched his deft manipulation of levers and brakes, and fan- cied that his hands dwelt on the steering-wheel with a caress. M You have a real lovely automobile, Fitzroy," 41 Cynthia's Chauffeur she said, " and I have a sort of notion that you are devoted to it. May I ask is it your own car? " " Yes. I bought it six months ago. I learnt to drive in France, and, as soon as I heard of the new American engine, I er couldn't rest until I had tried it." He was on the point of saying something wholly different, but managed to twist the second half of the sentence in time. What would Miss Vanrenen have thought had he continued : " I sent my chauffeur to England, and, on receipt of his report, I had this car shipped within a week? " There are problems too deep for speculation when a man is guiding a ton of palpitating metal along a hedge-lined road at forty miles an hour. This was one. Cynthia, knowing nothing of any " new American engine," would die rather than confess her ignorance. Moreover, she was pondering a problem of her own. If it was not his master's car he might be open to a bargain. " Simmonds is an old friend of yours, I suppose? " she said. " Yes, I have known him some years. We were in South Africa together." " In the war, do you mean? " " Yes." " How dreadful ! Have you ever killed anybody ? " " Not with petrol, I am happy to state." There was an eloquent pause. Cynthia examined The First Day's Run his reply, and discovered that it covered a good deal of ground. Perhaps, too, it conveyed the least little bit of a snub. Hence, her tone stiffened percep- tibly. " I mentioned Simmonds," she explained, " because I think my father might arrange to the satisfaction of all parties, of course that you should carry through this present tour, while Simmonds would come into our service when we return to London." Medenham laughed. In its way, the compliment was graceful and well meant, but the utter absurdity of his position was now thrust upon him with over- whelming force. " I am very much obliged to you, Miss Vanrenen," he said, venturing to look once more into those allur- ing eyes, so shy, so daring, so divinely wise and child- ishly candid. " If circumstances permitted, there is nothing I would like better than to take you through this Paradise of a June England; but it is quite impossible. Simmonds must bring his car to Bristol, as I positively cannot be absent from town longer than three days." Cynthia did not pout. She nodded appreciation of the weighty if undescribed business that called Fitzroy and his Mercury back to London, but in her heart she mused on the strangeness of things, and wondered if this smiling land produced many chauf- feurs who lauded it in such phrases. Up and down Handcross Hill they whirred, treat- ing that respectable eminence as if it were a snow 43 Cynthia s Chauffeur bump in the path of a flying toboggan. Medenham had roamed the South Downs as a boy, and he was able now to point out Chanctonbury Ring, the Devil's Dyke, Ditchling Beacon, and the rest of the round- shouldered giants that guard the Weald. In the mellow light of a superlatively fine afternoon the Downs wore their gayest raiment of blue and purple, red and green decked, too, with ribands of white roads and ruffs of rose-laden hedges. Cynthia forgot many times, and he hardly ever remembered, that he was a chauffeur, and the miles, too, were disregarded until the sea sparkled in their eyes as they emerged from the great gap which the Devil forebore to use when he planned to swamp a land of churches by cutting the famous dyke. Then the girl awoke from a day-dream, and the car was stopped on the pretense that this marvelous landscape must be viewed in silence and at rest. She rejoined Mrs. Devar, and began instantly to ex- patiate on the beauties of Sussex, so Medenham ran slowly down the hill through Patcham and Preston into Brighton. And there, sitting in the wide porch of the Hotel Metropole, was a slim, handsome Frenchman, who sprang up with all the vivacity of his race when the Mercury drew up at the foot of the steps, dusty after its long run, but circumspect as though it had just quitted the garage. " Mrs. Devar, Miss Vanrenen ! what a delightful surprise ! " cried the stranger with an accompaniment 44 The First Day's Run of wide smiles and hat flourishing. " Who would have thought of meeting you here? Voyez, done, I was moping in solitude when suddenly the sky opens and you appear." " Deae ex machind, in fact, Monsieur Marigny," said Cynthia, shaking hands with this overjoyed gentleman. Mrs. Devar, not understanding, cackled loudly. We've had a lovely run from town, Count Edou- ard," she gushed, " and it is just too awfully nice of you to be in Brighton. Now, don't say you have made all sorts of engagements for the evening." " Such as they are they go by the board, dear lady," said the gallant Count, who had good teeth, and showed them in a succession of grins. " Ten to-morrow morning, Fitzroy," said Cynthia, turning on the steps as she was about to enter the hotel. He lifted his cap. " The car will be ready, Miss Vanrenen," said he. He got down, and scowled, yes, actually scowled, at a porter who was hauling too strongly at the straps and buckles of the dust-covered trunks. " Damage the car's paint and I'll raise bigger blis- ters on yours," was what he said to the man. But his thoughts were of Count Edouard Marigny, and, like the people's discussion of the Derby, they took the form of question and answer. " When is a coincidence not *a coincidence ? " he asked himself. " When it is prearranged," was the answer. 45 Cynthia s Chauffeur Then he drove round to the yard at the rear of the hotel, where Dale awaited him, for Medenham would intrust the cleaning of the car to no other hands. " You've booked my room at the Grand Hotel and taken my bag there ? " he inquired. " Yes, my lord." " Make these people give you the key when the door is locked for the night, and bring the car to my hotel at nine o'clock." He hurried away, and Dale looked after him. " Something must ha' worried his lordship," said the man. " First time I've ever seen him in a bad temper. An' what about Eyot? Three to one the paper says. P'raps he'll think of it in the morning." CHAPTER HI SOME EMOTIONS WITHOUT A MORAL NOT until he was dressing, and the contents of his pockets were spread on a table, did Medenham remember Dale's commission. It was quite true, as he told Mrs. Devar, that he had backed Vendetta for a small stake on his own account. But that was an afterthought, and the bet was made with another bookmaker at reduced odds. Altogether, including the few sovereigns in his possession at the beginning of the day, he counted nearly fifty pounds in gold, an exceptionally large amount to be carried in Eng- land, where considerations of weight alone render banknotes preferable. He slipped Dale's money into an envelope, and took thirty pounds to be exchanged for notes by the hotel's cashier. At the same time he wrote a telegram to his father, destroying two drafts before he evolved something that left his story untold while quieting any scruples as to lack of candor. It was not that the Earl would resent his unexpected disappearance after nearly four years' absence from home, because father and son had met in South Africa during the 4? Cynthia s Chaufeur war, and were together in Cannes and Paris sub- sequently. His difficulty was to explain this freak journey satisfactorily. The Earl of Fairholme held feudal views anent the place occupied in the world by the British aristocracy. His own hot youth was crowded with episodes that Medenham might regard with disdain, yet he would be shocked out of his well- fed cynicism by the notion that his son was galli- vanting round the country as the chauffeur of an unconventional American girl and a middle-aged harpy like Mrs. Devar. So Medenham's message was non-committal. Aunt Susan was unable to come Epsom to-day. Have taken car to Brighton and Bournemouth. Home Saturday, per- haps earlier. GEORGE. Of course, he meant to fill in details verbally. It was possible in conversation to impart a jesting turn to an adventure which would be unconvincing and ambiguous in the bald phrases of a telegram. Then he dined, filled a cigarette case from the box of Salonikas which Tomkinson had not omitted to pack with his clothes, and strolled out, bare- headed, to enrich Dale. He could trust his man absolutely, and was quite sure that the Mercury would then be in the drying stage after a thorough cleaning. Thus far he was justified, but he had not counted on the pride of the born mechanic. Though the car was housed for the night, when he entered 48 Some Emotions Without a Moral the garage the hood was off, and Dale was annoying two brothers of the craft by explaining the superi- ority of his engine to every other type of engine. All three were bent over the cylinders, and Dale was saying: "Just take a squint at them valves, will you? ever seen anything like 'em before? Of course you haven't. Don't look like valves, eh? Can you break 'em, can you warp 'em, can you pit 'em ? D'ye twig how the mixture reaches the cylinder? None of your shoulders or kinks to choke it up is there? and the same with the exhaust. Would you ever have a mushroom valve again after you've once cast your peepers over this arrangement ? Now, if I took up areonotting if / wanted to fly the Channel " He stopped abruptly, having seen his master stand- ing in the open doorway. " By gad, Dale," cried Medenham, " I have never heard your tongue wagging in that fashion before." Dale was flustered. " Beg pardon, my lord, but I was only " he began. " Only using the cut-out, I fancy. Come here, I want you a minute." The other chauffeurs suddenly discovered that they had urgent business elsewhere. They vanished. Dale thought it necessary to explain. " One of them chaps has a new French car, my lord, and he was blowing so loudly about it that I had to take him down a peg or two." 49 Cynthia's Chauffeur Medenham grew interested. Lake every keen mo- torist, he could " talk shop " at all times. " What sort of car? " " A 59 Du Vallon, my lord. It is the first of its class in England, and I rather think his guv'nor is running it on show." " Indeed. Who is he? " " A count Somebody-or-other, my lord. I did hear his name " " Not Count Edouard Marigny? " said Medenham, with a sharp emphasis that startled Dale. " That's him, my lord. I hope I haven't done anything wrong." Medenham, early in life, had formed the habit of not expressing his feelings when really vexed, and it stood him in good stead now. Dale's blunder was almost irreparable, yet he could not find it in his heart to blame the man for being an enthusiast. " You have put me in a deuce of a fix," he said at last. " This Frenchman is acquainted with Miss Vanrenen. He knows she is here, and will probably see her off in the morning. If his chauffeur recog- nizes the car he will be sure to speak of it. That gives the whole show away." " I'm very sorry, my lord " " Dash it all, there you go again. But it is largely my own fault. I ought to hare warned you, though I little expected this sort of a mix-up. In future, Dale, while this trip lasts, you must forget my title. Look here, I have brought you your winnings over 50 Some Emotions Without a Moral Eyot can't you rig up some sort of a yarn that I am a sporting friend of yours, and that you were just trying to be funny when you addressed me as ' my lord ' ? If you have an opportunity, tell Count Marigny's man that your job is taken temporarily by a driver named Fitzroy. By the way, is the chauffeur a Frenchman, too? " " No, my 1 ." Dale caught Medenham's eye, a very cold eye at that instant. " No, sir. He's just a fitter from the London agency." " Well, we must trust to luck. He may not re- member me in my chauffeur's kit, which is beastly uncomfortable, by the way. I must get you a sum- mer rig. Here is your money five to one I took. Don't lose sight of those two fellows, and spend this half sovereign on them. If you can fill that chap with beer to-night he may have a head in the morning that will keep him in bed too late to cause any mischief. When we meet in Bournemouth and Bristol, say nothing to anybody about either the car or me." Dale was a model of sobriety, but the excitement of " fives " when he looked for " threes " was too much for him. " I'll tank him all right, my 1 , I mean, sir," he vowed cheerfully. Medenham lit a new cigarette and strolled out of the yard. From the corner of his eye he saw Marigny's helper looking at him. Without undue exaggeration, 51 Cynthia s Chauffeur he craned his neck, rounded his shoulders, and car- ried himself with the listless air of a Piccadilly idler. He reflected, too, that a bare-headed man in evening dress would not readily be identified with a leather- coated chauffeur, and Dale, he hoped, was sufficiently endowed with mother wit to frame a story plausible enough to account for his unforeseen appearance. On the whole, the position was not so bad as it seemed in that first moment when the owner of the 59 Du Vallon was revealed in the handsome Count. In any event, what did it matter if his harm- less subterfuge were revealed? The girl would surely laugh, while Mrs. Devar would squirm. So now for a turn along the front, and then to bed. It was a perfect June evening, the fitting sequel to a day of unbroken sunshine. A marvelous amber light hovered beyond the level line of the sea to the west ; an exquisite blue suffused the horizon from south to east, deepening from sapphire to ultra- marine as it blended with the soft shadows of a sum- mer's night. He found himself comparing the sky's southeasterly tint with the azure depths of Cynthia Vanrenen's eyes, but he shook off that fantasy quickly, crossed the roadway and promenade, and, propping himself against the railings, turned a reso- lute back on romance. He did not gain a great deal by this maneuver, since his next active thought was centered in a species of quest for the particular window among all those storeyed rows through which 52 Some Emotions Without a Moral Cynthia Vanrenen might even then be gazing at the shining ocean. He looked at his watch. Half-past nine. " I am behaving like a blithering idiot," he told himself. " Miss Vanrenen and her friends are either on the pier listening to the band, or sitting over their coffee in the glass cage behind there. I'll wire Sim- monds in the morning to hurry up." A man descended the steps of the hotel and walked straight across King's Road. A light gray over- coat, thrown wide on his shoulders, gave a lavish display of frilled shirt, and a gray Homburg hat was set rakishly on one side of his head. In the half light Medenham at once discerned the regular, waxen-skinned features of Count Marigny, and dur- ing the next few seconds it really seemed as if the Frenchman were making directly for him. But an- other man, short, rotund, very erect of figure, and strutting in gait, came from the interior of a " shel- ter " that stood a little to the right of Medenham's position on the rails. " Hello, Marigny," said he jauntily. The Count looked back towards the hotel. His tubby acquaintance chuckled. The effort squeezed an eyeglass out of his right eye. " Aie pas peur, mon vieux ! " cried he in very col- loquial French. " My mother sent a note to say that the fair Cynthia has retired to her room to write letters. I have been waiting here ten minutes." Now, it chanced that Medenham's widespread tour- 53 Cynthia's Chauffeur ing in France had rubbed up his knowledge of the language. It is ever the ear that needs training more than the tongue, and in all likelihood he would not have caught the exact meaning of the words were it not for the hap of recent familiarity with the accents of all sorts and conditions of French-speak- ing folk. " Jimmy Devar ! " he breathed, and his amazement lost him Marigny's muttered answer. But he heard Devar's confident outburst as the two walked off together in the direction of the West Pier. " You are growing positively nervous, my dear Edouard. And why? The affair arranges itself admirably. I shall be always on hand, ready to turn up exactly at the right moment. What the deuce, this is the luck of a lifetime ..." The squeaky, high-pitched voice a masculine variant of Mrs. Devar's ultra-fashionable intonation died away midst the chatter and laughter of other promenaders. Medenham's first impulse was to fol- low and listen, since Devar had yielded to the com- mon delusion of imagining that none except his com- panion on the sea-front that night understood a foreign language. But he swept the notion aside ere it had well presented itself as a means of solving an astounding puzzle. " No, dash it all, I'm not a private detective," he muttered angrily. " Why should I interfere? Con- found Simmonds, and d n that railway van! I 54 Some Emotions Without a Moral have a good mind to hand the car over to Dale in the morning and return to town by the first train." If he really meant what he said he ought to have gone back to his hotel, played billiards for an hour, and sought his bedroom with an easy conscience. He was debating the point when the conceit intruded itself that Cynthia's pretty head was at that moment bent over a writing-table in a certain well-lighted corner apartment of the second floor, so he com- promised with his half-formed intent, whisked round to face the sea again, and lighted another cigarette from the glowing end of its predecessor. Some part of his unaccountable irritation took wings with the cloud of smoke. " Blessed if I can tell why I should worry," he communed. " Never saw the girl before to-day . . . shall never see her again if I put Dale in charge. . . . Her father must be a special sort of fool, though, to trust her to the care of the Devar woman. . . . What was it that rotter said ? ' The affair arranges itself admirably.' And he would be ' al- ways on hand.' What is arranging itself? . . . And why should Jimmy Devar be ready, if need be, * to turn up exactly at the right moment? ' I sup- pose the answer to the first bit of the acrostic is simple enough. Cynthia Vanrenen is to become the Countess Marigny, and the Devar gang stands in on the cash proceeds. Oh, a nice scheme! This Frenchman is posted as to the tour. By the most curious of coincidences he will reappear at Bourne- 55 Cynthia's Chauffeur mouth, or Bristol, or in the Wye Valley. What more natural than a day's run in company? . . . Ah, I've got it! Jimmy is to come along when Marigny thinks that Cynthia will take a seat in the 59 Du Vallon for a change just to try the new French car. . . . By gad, I shall have a word to say there. . . . Steady, now, George Augustus! Woa, my boy ; keep a tight hand on the reins. Why in thunder should you concern yourself with the wretched business, anyhow? " It was a marvelously still night. Beneath him, on an asphalted path nearly level with the stone-strewed beach, passed a young couple. The man's voice came up to him. " Jones expects to be taken into partnership after this season, and I am pretty certain to be given the management of the woolen department. If that comes off, no more long hours in the shop for you, Lucy, but a nice little house up there on the hill, just as quick as we can find it." " Oh, Charlie dear, I shall never be tired then. . . ." A black arm was suddenly silhouetted across the shoulders of a white blouse, whose wearer received a reassuring hug. " Let's reckon up," said the owner of the arm " July, August, September three months, sweet- heart. ..." Medenham had never given a thought to marrying until his father hinted at the notion during dinner 56 Some Emotions Without a Moral the previous evening, and he had laughed at it, being absolutely heart-whole. There was something ir- resistibly comical then about the Earl's bland theory that Fairholme House needed a sprightly viscountess, yet now, twenty-four hours later, he could extract no shred of humor from the idyl of a draper's as- sistant. It seemed to be a perfectly natural thing that these lovers should talk of mating. Of what else should they whisper on this midsummer's night, when the gloaming already bore the promise of dawn, and the glory of the sea and sky spread quiet har- monies through the silent air? Perhaps he sighed as he turned away, but his own evidence on that point would be inconclusive, since the first object his wondering eyes dwelt on was the graceful figure of Cynthia Vanrenen. There was no possibility of error. An arc lamp blazed over- head, and, to make assurance doubly sure, his recog- nition of Cynthia was obviously duplicated by Cyn- thia's recognition of her deputy chauffeur. In the girl's case some degree of surprise was justi- fied. It is a truism of social life that far more distinctiveness is attached to the seemingly demo- cratic severity of evening dress than to any other class of masculine garniture. Medenham now looked exactly what he was a man born and bred in the purple. No one could possibly mistake this well- groomed soldier for Dale or Simmonds. His clever, resourceful face, his erect carriage, the very sugges- tion of mess uniform conveyed by his clothing, told 57 Cynthia's Chauffeur of lineage and a career. He might, in sober earnest, have been compelled to earn a living by driving a motor-car, but no freak of fortune could rob him of his birthright as an aristocrat. Of course, Cynthia was easily first in the effort to recover disturbed wits. " Like myself, you have been tempted out by this beautiful night, Mr. Fitzroy," she said. Then " Mr." was a concession to his attire ; some- how she imagined it would savor of presumption if she addressed him as an inferior. She could not define her mental attitude in words, but her quick intelli- gence responded to its subtle influence as a mirrored lake records the passing of a breeze. Very dainty and self-possessed she looked as she stood there smil- ing at him. Her motor dust-coat was utilized as a wrap. Beneath it she wore a white muslin dress of a studied simplicity that, to another woman's assessing gaze, would reveal its expensiveness. She had tied a veil of delicate lace around her hair and under her chin, and Medenham noted, with a species of awe, that her eyes, so vividly blue in daylight, were now dark as the sky at night. And he was strangely tongue-tied. He found noth- ing to say until after a pause that verged on awk- wardness. Then he floundered badly. " I am prepared to vouch for any explanation so long as it brings you here, Miss Vanrenen," he said. Cynthia wanted to laugh. It was sufficiently 58 Some Emotions Without a Moral ridiculous to be compelled, as it were, to treat a paid servant as an equal, but it savored of madness to find him verging on the perilous borderland of a flirtation. " Do you wish, then, to consult me on any mat- ter?" she asked, with American directness. " I was standing here and thinking of you," he said. "Perhaps that accounts for your appear- ance. Since you have visited India you may have heard that the higher Buddhists, when they are anxious that another person shall act according to their desire, remain motionless in front of that per- son's residence and concentrate ardent thought on their fixed intent. . . . Sitting in dhurma on a man, they call it. I suppose the same principle applies to a woman." " It follows that you are a higher Buddhist, and that you willed I should come out. Your theory of sitting on the door-mat, is it? wobbles a bit in prac- tice, because I really ran downstairs to tell Mrs. Devar something I had forgotten previously. Not finding her, I decided on a stroll. Instead of cross- ing the road I walked up to the left a couple of blocks. Then I noticed the pier, and meant to have a look at it before returning to the hotel. Any- how, you wanted me, Mr. Fitzroy, and here I am. What can I do for you? " Her tone of light raillery, supplemented by that truly daring adaptation of the method of gaining a cause favored by the esoteric philosophy of the 59 Cynthia's Chauffeur East, went far to restore Medenham's wandering faculties. " I wanted to ask you a few questions, Miss Van- renen," he explained. " Pray do, as they say in Boston." But he was not quite himself yet. He noticed that the lights were extinguished in the corner of the second floor. " Is that your room? " he asked, pointing to it. " Yes." Her air of blank amazement supplied a further tonic. " Queer thing! " he said. " I thought so. More of the occult, I suppose. But I really wished to speak to you about Mrs. Devar." Cynthia was obviously relieved. " Dear me ! " she cried. " You two have taken a violent dislike to each other. You see, Mr. Fitzroy, we Americans are rather pleased than otherwise if a man acts and speaks like a gentleman even though he has to earn a living by hustling an automobile, but your sure-enough British dames exact a kind of servility from a chauffeur that doesn't seem to fit in with your make-up. Servility is a hard word, but it is the best I can throw on the screen at the moment, and I'm real sorry if I have hurt your feel- ings by using it." Medenham smiled. Each instant his calmer judg- ment showed more and more clearly that he could not offer any valid excuse for interference in the 60 Some Emotions Without a Moral girl's affairs. For all he knew to the contrary, she might be tremulous with delight at the prospect of becoming a French countess ; if that were so, the fact that he disapproved of Mrs. Devar's matchmaking tactics would be received very coldly. Cynthia's natural interpretation of his allusion to her chaperon offered a means of escape from a difficult position. " I am greatly obliged by your hint," he said. " Not that my lack of good manners is of much account, seeing that I am only a stop gap for the courtly Simmonds, but I shall endeavor to profit by it in my next situation." " Now you are getting at me," cried Cynthia, her eyes sparkling somewhat. " Do you know, Mr. Fitz- roy, I am inclined to think you are not a chauffeur at all." " I assure you there is not a man living who under- stands my special type of car better," he protested. " That isn't what I mean, so don't wriggle. You met Simmonds when he was in trouble, and just offered to take his place for a day or so, thereby doing him a good turn isn't that the truth? " " Yes." " And you are not in the automobile business ? " " I am, for the time being." " Well, I am glad to hear it. I was shy of telling you when we reached the hotel, but you understand, of course, that I pay your expenses during this trip. The arrangement with Simmonds was that my father ante'd for petrol and allowed twelve shillings a day 61 Cynthia's Chauffeur for the chauffeur's meals and lodgings. Is that satisfactory ? " " Quite satisfactory, Miss Vanrenen," said Meden- ham, fully alive to the girl's effective ruse for the re-establishment of matters on a proper footing. " So you don't need to worry about Mrs. Devar. In any event, since you refused my offer to hire you for the tour, you will not see a great deal of her," she went on, a trifle hurriedly. " There only remains one other point," he said, trying to help her. " Would you mind giving me Mr. Vanrenen's address in Paris ? " " He is staying at the Ritz but why do you want to know that? " she demanded with a sudden lifting of eyebrows, for the hope was strong in her that he might be induced to change his plans so far as the next nine days were concerned. " A man in my present position ought always to ascertain the whereabout of millionaires interested in motoring," he answered promptly. " And now, pardon me for advising you not to walk towards the pier alone." "Gracious me! Why not?" " There is a certain class of boisterous holiday- maker who might annoy you not by downright ill- behavior, but by exercising a crude humor which is deemed peculiarly suitable to the seaside, though it would be none the less distressing to you." " In the States that sort of man gets shot," she said, and her cheeks glowed with a rush of color. 62 Some Emotions Without a Moral " Here, on the contrary, he often takes the young lady's arm and walks off with her," persisted Meden- ham. " I'm going to that pier," she announced. " Guess you'd better escort me, Mr. Fitzroy." " Fate closes every door in my face," he said sadly. " I cannot go with you in that direction." " Well, of all the odd people ! why not that way, if any other? " " Because Count Edouard Marigny, the gentleman whose name I could not help overhearing to-day, has just gone there with another man." " Have you a grudge against him, too ? " " I never set eyes on him before six o'clock this evening, but I imagine you would not care to have him see you walking with your chauffeur." Cynthia looked up and down the broad sea front, with its thousands of lamps and droves of prome- naders. " At last I am beginning to size up this dear little island," she said. " I may go with you to a race- track, I may sit by your side for days in an automobile, I may even eat your luncheon and drink your aunt's St. Galmier, but I may not ask you to accompany me a hundred yards from my hotel to a pier. Very well, I'll quit. But before I go, do tell me one thing. Did you really mean to bring your aunt to Epsom to-day?" " Yes." 63 Cynthias Chauffeur " A mother's sister sort of aunt a nice old lady with white hair? " " One would almost fancy you had met her, Miss Vanrenen." " Perhaps I may, some day. Father and I are going to Scotland for a month from the twelfth of August. After that we shall be in the Savoy Hotel about six weeks. Bring her to see me." Medenham almost jumped when he heard of the projected visit to the Highlands, but some demon of mischief urged him to say : " Let's reckon up. July, August, September three months " He stopped with a jerk. Cynthia, already aware of some vague power she possessed of stirring this man's emotions, did not fail to detect his air of re- straint. " It isn't a proposition that calls for such a lot of calculation," she said sharply. " Good-night, Mr. Fitzroy. I hope you are punctual morning- time. When there is a date to be kept, I'm a regular alarm clock, my father says." She sped across the road, and into the hotel. Then Medenham noticed how dark it had become re- minded him of the tropics, he thought and made for his own caravanserai, while his brain was busy with a number of disturbing but nebulous problems that seemed to be pronounced in character yet sin- gularly devoid of a beginning, a middle, or an end. 64 Some Emotions Without a Moral Indeed, so puzzling and contradictory were they that he soon fell asleep. When he rose at seven o'clock next morning the said problems had vanished. They must have been part and parcel with the glamor of a June night, and a starlit sky, and the blue depths of the sea and of a girl's eyes, for the wizard sun had dispelled them long ere he awoke. But he did not telegraph to Simmonds. Dale brought the car to the Grand Hotel in good time, and Medenhanj ran it some distance along the front before drawing up at the Metropole. By that means he dissipated any undue curiosity that might be experienced by some lounger on the pavement who happened to notice the change of chauffeurs, while he avoided a prolonged scrutiny by the visitors al- ready packed in chairs on both sides of the porch. He kept his face hidden during the luggage strapping process, and professed not to be aware of Cynthia's presence until she bade him a cheery " Good-morn- ing." Of course, Marigny was there, and Mrs. Devar gushed loudly for the benefit of the other people while settling herself comfortably in the tonneau. " It was awfully devey of you, Count Edouard, to enliven our first evening away from town. No such good fortune awaits us in Bournemouth, I am afraid." " If I am to accept that charming reference as applying to myself, I can only say that my good fortune has exhausted itself already, madame," said 65 Cynthia's Chauffeur the Frenchman. " When do you return to Lon- don? " " About the end of next week," put in Cynthia. " And your father that delightful Monsieur Van- renen," said the Count, breaking into French, " he will join you there? " " Oh, yes. My father and I are seldom separated a whole fortnight." " Then I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there. I go to-day to Salisbury after that, to Hereford and Liverpool." " Why, we shall be in Hereford one day soon. What fun if we met again ! " Marigny looked to heaven, or as far in the direc- tion popularly assigned to heaven as the porch of the Metropole would permit. He was framing $ suitable speech, but the Mercury shot out into tho open road with a noiseless celerity that disconcerted him. Medenham at once slackened speed and leaned back. " I'm very sorry," he said, " but I clean forgot to ask if you were quite ready to start." Cynthia laughed. " Go right ahead, Fitzroy," she cried. " Guess the Count is pretty mad, anyhow. He was telling us last night that his Du Vallon is the only car that can hit up twenty at the first buzz." " Unpardonable rudeness," murmured Mrs. Devar. " On the Count's part ? " asked the girl demurely. 66 Some Emotions Without a Moral " No, of course not on the part of this chauffeur person." " Oh, I like him," was the candid answer. " He is a chauffeur of moods, but he can make this car hum. He and I had quite a long chat last night after dinner." Mrs. Devar sat up quickly. " After dinner last night ! " she gasped. " Yes I ran into him outside the hotel." "At what time?" " About ten o'clock. I came to the lounge, but you had vanished, and the wonderful light on the sea drew me out of doors." "My dear Cynthia!" " Well, go on ; that sounds like the beginning of a letter." Mrs. Devar suddenly determined not to feel scan- dalized. " Ah, well ! " she sighed, " one must relax a little when touring, but you Americans have such free and easy manners that we staid Britons are apt to lose our breath occasionally when we hear of something out of the common." " From what Fitzroy said when I told him I was going as far as the pier unaccompanied it seems to me that you staid Britons can be freer if not easier," retorted Miss Vanrenen. Her friend smiled sourly. " If he disapproved he was right, I admit," she purred. 67 Cynthia's Chauffeur Cynthia withheld any further confidences. " What a splendid morning ! " she said. " Eng- land is marvelously attractive on a day like this. And now, where is the map? I didn't look up our route yesterday evening. But Fitzroy has it. We lunch at Winchester, I know, and there I see my first English Cathedral. Father advised me to leave St. Paul's until I visit it with him. He says it is the most perfect building in the world architecturally, but that no one would realize it unless the facts were pointed out. When we were in Rome he said that St. Peter's, grand as it is, is all wrong in construc- tion. The thrust downwards from the dome is false, it seems." " Really," said Mrs. Devar, who had just caught sight of Lady Somebody-or-other at the window of a house in Hove, and hoped that her ladyship's eyes were sufficiently good to distinguish at least one occu- pant of the car. " Yes ; and Sir Christopher Wren mixed beams of oak with the stonework of his pillars, too. It gave them strength, he believed, though Michael Angelo had probably never heard of such a thing." " You don't say so." The other woman had traveled far on similar con- versational counters. They would have failed with Cynthia, but the girl had opened the map, and talk lagged for the moment. Leaving the coast at Shoreham, Medenham turned the car northward at Bramber, with its stone-roofed 68 Some Emotions Without a Moral cottages gilded with lichen, its tiny gardens gay with flowers, and the ruins of its twelfth-century castle frowning from the crest of an elm-clothed hill. Two miles to the northwest they came upon ancient Steyn- ing, now a sleepy country town, but of greater im- portance than Bath or Birmingham or Southampton in the days of the Confessor, and redolent of the past by reason of its church, with an early Norman chancel, its houses bearing stone moldings and window mullions of the Elizabethan period, and its quaint street names, such as Dog Lane, Sheep-pen Street, and Chantry Green, where two martyrs were burnt. Thence the way lay through the leafy wonderland of West Sussex, when the Mercury crept softly through Midhurst and Petersfield into Hampshire, and so to Winchester, where Cynthia, enraptured with the cathedral, used up a whole reel of films, and bought some curios carved out of oak imbedded in the walls when the Conqueror held England in his firm grip. They lunched at a genuine old coaching-house in the main street, and Medenham persuaded the girl to turn aside from Salisbury in order to pass through the heart of the New Forest. She sat with him in front then, and their talk dealt more with the mag- nificent scenery than with personal matters until they reached Ringwood, where they halted for tea. Before alighting at the inn there she asked him where he meant to stay in Bournemouth. He an- swered the one question by another. 69 Cynthia s Chauffeur "You put up at the Bath Hotel, I think?" he said. " Yes. Someone told me it was more like a Florentine picture gallery than a hotel. Is that true?" " I have not been to Florence, but the picture gallery notion is all right. When I was a youngster I came here often, and my my people always well, you see " He nibbled his mustache in dismay, for it was hard to keep up a pretense when Cynthia was so near. She ended the sentence for him. " You came to the Bath Hotel. Why not stay there to-night ? " " I would like it very much, if you have no ob- jection." " Just the opposite. But please forgive me for touching on money matters the charges may be rather dear. Won't you let me tell the head waiter to to include your bill with ours?" " On the strict condition that you deduct twelve shillings from my account," he said, stealing a glance at her. " I shall be quite business-like, I promise." She was smiling at the landscape, or at some fancy that took her, perhaps. But it followed that a messenger was sent for Dale to the hostelry where he had booked a room for his master, and that Mrs. Devar, after one stony and indignant glare, whis- pered to Cynthia in the dining-room : 70 Some Emotions Without a Moral " Can that man in evening dress, sitting alone near the window, by any possibility be our chauffeur? " " Yes," laughed the girl. " That is Fitzroy. Say, doesn't he look fine and dandy? Don't you wish he was with us to order the wine? And, by the way, is there a pier at Bournemouth? " CHAPTER IV SHADOWS WITH OCCASIONAL GLEAMS MRS. DEVAR ate her soup in petrified silence. Among the diners were at least two peers and a countess, all of whom she knew slightly ; at no other time during the last twenty years would she have missed such an opportunity of impressing the com- pany in general and her companion in particular by waddling from table to table and greeting these ac- quaintances with shrill volubility. But to-night she was beginning to be alarmed. Her youthful protegee was carrying democratic train- ing too far; it was quite possible that a request to modify an unconventional freedom of manner where Fitzroy was concerned would meet with a blank re- fusal. That threatened a real difficulty in the near future, and she was much perturbed by being called on to decide instantly on a definite course of action. Too strong a line might have worse consequences than a laissez faire attitude. As matters stood, the girl was eminently plastic, her naturally gentle dis- position inducing respect for the opinions and wishes of an older and more experienced woman, yet there was a fearlessness, a frank candor of thought, in 72 Shadows with Occasioned Gleams Cynthia's character that awed and perplexed Mrs. Devar, in whom the unending struggle to keep afloat in the swift and relentless torrent of social existence had atrophied every sense save that of self-preserva- tion. An open rupture, such as she feared might take place if she asserted her shadowy authority, was not to be dreamed of. What was to be done ? Small wonder, then, that she should tackle her fish vin- dictively. " Are you angry because Fitzroy is occupying the same hotel as ourselves?" asked Cynthia at last. The girl had amused herself by watching the small coteries of stiff and starched Britons scattered throughout the room; she was endeavoring to clas- sify the traveled and the untraveled by varying de- grees of frigidity. As it happened, she was wholly wrong in her rough analysis. The Englishman who has wandered over the map is, if anything, more self- contained than his stay-at-home brother. He is often a stranger in his own land, and the dozen most reserved men present that evening were probably known by name and deed throughout the widest bounds of the empire. But, though eyes and brain were busy, she could not help noticing Mrs. Devar's taciturn mood. That a born gossip, a retailer of personal reminiscences confined exclusively to " the best people," should eat stolidly for five consecutive minutes, seemed some- what of a miracle, and Cynthia, as was her habit, came straight to the point. 73 Cynthia 's Chauffeur Mrs. Devar managed to smile, pouting her lips in wry mockery of the suggestion that a chauffeur's affairs should cause her any uneasiness whatsoever. " I was really thinking of our tour," she lied glibly. " I am so sorry you missed seeing Salisbury Cathedral. Why was the route altered? " " Because Fitzroy remarked that the cathedral would always remain at Salisbury, whereas a perfect June day in the New Forest does not come once in a blue moon when one really wants it." " For a person of his class he appears to say that sort of thing rather well." Cynthia's arched eyebrows were raised a little. " Why do you invariably insist on the class dis- tinction? " she cried. " I have always been taught that in England the barrier of rank is being broken down more and more every day. Your society is the easiest in the world to enter. You tolerate people in the highest circles who would certainly suffer from cold feet if they showed up too prominently in New York or Philadelphia; isn't it rather out of fashion to be so exclusive ? " " Our aristocracy has such an assured position that it can afford to unbend," quoted the other. " Oh, is that it? I heard my father say the other day that it has often made him tired to see the way in which some of your titled nonentities grovel before a Lithuanian Jew who is a power on the Rand. But unbending is a different thing to groveling, per- haps?" 74 Shadows with Occasional Gleams Mrs. Devar sighed, yet she gave a moment's scru- tiny to a wine-list brought by the head waiter. " A small bottle of 61, please," she said in an undertone. Then she sighed again, deprecating the Vanrenen directness. " Unfortunately, my dear, few of our set can avoid altogether the worship of the golden calf." Cynthia thrust an obstinate chin into the argu- ment. " People will do things for bread and butter that they would shy at if independent," she said. " I can understand the calf proposition much more easily than the snobbishness that would forbid a gentleman like Fitzroy from eating a meal in the same apart- ment as his employers, simply because he earns money by driving an automobile." In her earnestness, Cynthia had gone just a little beyond the bounds of fair comment, and Mrs. Devar was quick to seize the advantage thus offered. " From some points of view, Fitzroy and I are in the same boat," she said quietly. " Still, I cannot agree that it is snobbish to regard a groom or a coachman as a social inferior. I have been told that there are several broken-down gentlemen driving omnibuses in London, but that is no reason why one should ask one of them to dinner, even though his taste in wine might be beyond dispute." Cynthia had already regretted her impulsive out- burst. Her vein of romance was imbedded in a rock 75 Cynthia's Chauffeur of good sense, and she took the implied reproof peni- tently. " I am afraid my sympathies rather ran away with my manners," she said. " Please forgive me. I really didn't mean to charge you with being a snob. The absurdity of the statement carries its own refuta- tion. I spoke in general terms, and I am willing to admit that I was wrong in asking the man to come here to-night. But the incident happened quite naturally. He mentioned the fact that he often stayed in the hotel as a boy " " Very probably," agreed Mrs. Devar cheerfully. " We are all subject to ups and downs. For my part, I was speaking a la chaperon, my sole thought being to safeguard you from the disagreeable busy- bodies who misconstrue one's motives. And now, let us talk of something more amusing. You see that woman in old rose brocade she is sitting with a bald-headed man at the third table on your left. Well, that is the Countess of Porthcawl, and the man with her is Roger Ducrot, the banker. Porthcawl is a most complaisant husband. He never comes within a thousand miles of Millicent. She is awfully nice; clever, and witty, and the rest of it quite a man's woman. We are sure to meet her in the lounge after dinner and I will introduce you." Cynthia said she would be delighted. Reading between the lines of Mrs. Devar's description, it was not easy to comprehend the distinction that forbade friendship with Fitzroy while offering it with Milli- 76 Shadows with Occasional Gleams cent, Countess of Porthcawl. But the girl was re- solved not to open a new rift. In her heart she longed for the day that would reunite her to her father; meanwhile, Mrs. Devar must be dealt with gently. Despite its tame ending, this unctuous discussion on social ethics led to wholly unforeseen results. The allusion to a possible pier at Bournemouth meant more than Mrs. Devar imagined, but Cynthia resisted the allurements of another entrancing even- ing, went early to her room, and wrote duty letters for a couple of hours. The excuse served to cut short her share of the Countess's brilliant conversa- tion, though Mr. Ducrot tried to make himself very agreeable when he heard the name of Vanrenen. Medenham, standing in the hall, suddenly came face to face with Lady Porthcawl, who was endowed with an unerring eye for minute shades of distinction in the evening dress garments of the opposite sex. Her correspondence consisted largely of picture post- cards, and she had just purchased some stamps from the hall porter when she saw Medenham take a tele- gram from the rack where it had been reposing since the afternoon. It was, she knew, addressed to " Vis- count Medenham." That, and her recollection of his father, banished doubt. " George ! " she cried, with a charming air of hav- ing found the one man whom she was longing to meet, " don't say I've grown so old that you have for- gotten me ! " 77 Cynthia s Chauffeur He started, rather more violently than might be looked for in a shikari whose nerves had been tested in many a ticklish encounter with other members of the cat tribe. In fact, he had just been disturbed by coming across the unexpected telegram, wherein Simmonds assured his lordship that the rejuvenated car would arrive at the College Green Hotel, Bristol, on Friday evening. At the very moment that he realized the imminence of Cynthia's disappearance into the void it was doubly disconcerting to be hailed by a woman who knew his world so intimately that it would be folly to smile vacantly at her presumed mistake. Some glint of annoyance must have leaped to his eyes, for the lively countess glanced around with a mimic fright that testified to her skill as an actress. " Good gracious ! " she whispered, " have I given you away? I couldn't guess you were here under a nom de voyage now, could I? when that tele- gram has been staring at everybody for hours." " You have misinterpreted my amazement, Lady Porthcawl," he said, spurred into self-possession by the hint at an intrigue. " I could not believe that time would turn back even for a pretty woman. You look younger than ever, though I have not seen you for " " Oh, hush ! " she cried. " Don't spoil your nice speech by counting years. When did you arrive in England? Are you alone really? You've grown quite a man in your jungles. Will you come to 78 Shadows with Occasional Gleams the lounge? I want ever so much to have a long talk with you. Mr. Ducrot is there the financier, you know but I have left him safely anchored along- side Maud Devar a soft-furred old pussie who is clawing me now behind my back, I am sure. Have you ever met her? Wiggy Devar she was christened in Monte, because an excited German leaned over her at the tables one night and things happened to her coiffure. And to show you how broad-minded I am, I'll get her to bring downstairs the sweetest and daintiest American ingenue you'd find between here and Chicago, even if you went by way of Paris. Cynthia Vanrenen is her name, daughter of the Van- renen. He made, not a pile, but a pyramid, out of Milwaukees. She is it a pukka Gibson girl, quite ducky, with the dearest bit of an accent, and Mamma Devar is gadding around with her in a mo-car. Do come ! " Medenham was able to pick and choose where he listed in answering this hail of words. " I'm awfully sorry," he said, " but the telegram I have just received affects all my plans. I must hurry away this instant. When will you be in town ? Then I shall call, praying meanwhile that there may be no Ducrots or Devars there to blight a glorious gossip. If you bring me up to date as to affairs in Park Lane I'll reciprocate about the giddy equa- tor. How or perhaps I ought to say where is Porthcawl?" " In China," snapped her ladyship, fully alive 79 Cynthia's Chauffeur to Medenham's polite evasion of her blandish- ments. " By gad," he laughed, " that is a long way from Bournemouth. Well, good-bye. Keep me a date in Clarges Street." " Clarges Street is off the map," she said coldly. " It's South Belgravia, verging on Pimlico, nowa- days. That is why Porthcawl is in China . . . and it explains Ducrot, too." An unconscious bitterness crept into the smooth voice; Medenham, who hated confidences from the butterfly type of woman, nevertheless pitied her. " Tell me where you live and I'll come round and hear all about it," he said sympathetically. She gave him an address, and suddenly smiled on him with a yearning tenderness. She watched his tall figure as he strode down the hill towards the town to keep an imaginary appointment. " He used to be a nice boy," she sighed, " and now he is a man. . . . Heigh-ho, you're a back number, Millie, dear ! " But she was her own bright self when she returned to the bald-headed Ducrot and the bewigged Mrs. Devar. " What a small world it is ! " she vowed. " I ran across Medenham in the hall." The banker's shining forehead wrinkled in a re- flective frown. " Medenham ? " he said. " Fairholme's eldest son." Mrs. Devar chortled. 80 Shadows with Occasional Gleams " Such fun ! " she said. " Our chauffeur calls himself George Augustus Fitzroy." " How odd ! " agreed Countess Millicent. " You people speak in riddles. Who or what is odd ? " asked Ducrot. " Oh, don't worry, but listen to that adorable waltz." Ducrot's polished dome compared badly with the bronzed skin of the nice boy who had grown to be a man, so her ladyship's rebellious tongue sought safety in silence, since she could not afford to quarrel with him. It is certainly true that the gods make mad those whom they mean to destroy. Never was woman nearer to a momentous discovery than Mrs. Devar at that instant, but her active brain was plotting how best to develop a desirable acquaintance in Roger Ducrot, financier, and she missed utterly the astound- ing possibility that Viscount Medenham and George Augustus Fitzroy might be one and the same person. In any other conditions Millicent Porthcawl's sharp wits could scarcely have failed to ferret out the truth. Even if Cynthia were present it was al- most a foregone conclusion that the girl would have told how Fitzroy joined her. The luncheon pro- vided for a missing aunt, the crest on the silver and linen, the style of the Mercury, a chance allusion to this somewhat remarkable chauffeur's knowledge of the South Downs and of Bournemouth, would surely have put her ladyship on the right track. From sheer enjoyment of an absurd situation she would 81 Cynthia's Chauffeur have caused Fitzroy to be summoned then and there, if only to see Wiggy Devar's crestfallen face on learning that she had entertained a viscount un- awares. But the violins were singing the Valse Bleu, and Cynthia was upstairs, longing for an excuse to ven- ture forth into the night, and three people, at least, in the crowded lounge were thinking of anything but the amazing oddity that had puzzled Ducrot, who did not con his Burke. Medenhain, of course, realized that he had been vouchsafed another narrow escape. What the mor- row might bring forth he neither knew nor cared. The one disconcerting fact that already shaped it- self in the mists of the coming day was Simmonds tearing breathlessly along the Bath Road during the all too brief hours between morn and evening. It is not to be wondered at if he read Cynthia's thoughts. There is a language without code or symbol known to all young men and maidens a language that pierces stout walls and leaps wide valleys and that unlettered tongue whispered the 'hope that the girl might saunter towards the pier. He turned forthwith into the public gardens, and quickened his pace. Arrived at the pier, he glanced up at the hotel. Of girls there were many on cliff and roadway, girls summer-like in attire, girls slender of waist and airy of tread, but no Cynthia. He went on the pier, and met more than one pair of bright eyes, but not Cynthia's. 82 Shadows with Occasional Gleams Then he made off in a fume to Dale's lodging, secured a linen dust-coat which the man happened to have with him, returned to the hotel, and hurried unseen to his room, an easy matter in the Royal Bath, where many staircases twine deviously to the upper floors, and brilliantly decorated walls dazzle the stranger. He counted on the exigencies of Lady Porthcawl's toilette stopping a too early appearance in the morn- ing, and he was right. At ten o'clock, when Cynthia and Mrs. Devar came out, the men lounging near the porch were too inter- ested in the girl and the car to bestow a glance on the chauffeur. Ducrot was there, bland and massive in a golf suit. He pestered Cynthia with inquiries as to the exact dates when her father would be in London, and Medenham did not hesitate to cut short the banker's awkward gallantries by throwing the Mercury into her stride with a whirl. " By Jove, Ducrot," said someone, " your pretty friend's car jumped off like a gee-gee under the start- ing gate." " If that chauffeur of hers was mine, I'd boot him," was the wrathful reply. " Why ? What's he done ? " " He strikes me as an impudent puppy." " Anyhow, he can swing a motor. See that ! " for the Mercury had executed a corkscrew movement between several vehicles with the sinuous grace of a greyhound. 83 Cynthia's Chauffeur Now it was Mrs. Devar, and not Cynthia, who leaned forward and said pleasantly: " You seem to be in a hurry to leave Bournemouth, Fitzroy." " I am not enamored of bricks and mortar on a fine morning," he answered. " Well, I have full confidence in you, but don't embroil us with the police. We have a good deal to see to-day, I understand." Then he heard the strenuous voice addressing Cyn- thia. " Millicent Porthcawl says that Glastonbury is heavenly, and Wells a peaceful dream. I visited Cheddar once, some years ago, but it rained, and I felt like a watery cheese." Lady Porthcawl's commendation ought to have sanctified Glastonbury and Wells Mrs. Devar's blue- moldy joke might even have won a smile but Cyn- thia was preoccupied; strange that she, too, should be musing of Simmonds and a hurrying car, for Medenham had told her that the transfer would take place at Bristol. She was only twenty-two, and her very extensive knowledge of the world had been obtained by three years of travel and constant association with her father. But her lines had always been cast in pleas- ant places. She had no need to deny herself any of the delights that life has to offer to youth and good health and unlimited means. The discovery that friendship called for discretion came now almost 84 Shadows with Occasional Gleams as a shock. It seemed to be a stupid social law that barred the way when she wished to enjoy the company of a well-favored man whom fate had placed at her disposal for three whole days. Herself a blue- blooded American, descendant of old Dutch and New England families, she was quite able to discriminate between reality and sham. Mrs. Devar, she was sure, was a pinchbeck aristocrat ; Count Edouard Marigny might have sprung from many generations of French gentlemen, but her paid chauffeur was his superior in every respect save one since, to all appearance, Marigny was rich and Fitzroy was poor. Curiously enough, the man whose alert shoulders and well-poised head were ever in view as the car hummed joyously through the pine woods had taken on something of the mere mechanic in aspect since donning that serviceable linen coat. The garment was weather-stained. It bore records of over-lubri- cation, of struggles with stiff outer covers, of rain and mud that bird-lime type of mud peculiar to French military roads in the Alpes Maritimes while a zealous detective might have found traces of the black and greasy deposit that collects on the door handles and side rails of P. L. M. railway carriages. Medenham borrowed it because of the intolerable heat of the leather jacket. Its distinctive character be- came visible when he viewed it in the June sunshine, and he wore it as a substitute for sackcloth, since he, no less than Cynthia, recognized that a dangerous acquaintance was drawing to an end. So Dale's 85 Cynthia's Chauffeur coat imposed a shield, as it were, between the two, but the man drove with little heed to the witching scenery that Dorset unfolded at each turn of the road, and the woman sat distrait, almost downcast. Mrs. Devar was smugly complacent. Difficulties that loomed large overnight were now vague shadows. When the Mercury stopped in front of a comfortable inn at Yeovil it was she, and not Cynthia, who sug- gested a social departure. " This seems to be the only place in the town where luncheon is provided. You had better leave the car in charge of a stableman, and join us, Fitzroy," she said graciously. '* Thank you, madam," said Medenham, rousing himself from a reverie, " I prefer to remain here. The hotel people will look after my slight wants, as I dislike the notion of anyone tampering with the engine while I am absent." " Is it so delicate, then ? " asked Cynthia, with a smile that he hardly understood, since he could not know how thoroughly he had routed Mrs. Devar's theories of the previous night. " No, far from it. But its very simplicity chal- lenges examination, and an inquisitive clodhopper can effect more damage in a minute than I can repair in an hour." His gruff tone was music in Mrs. Devar's ears. She actually sighed her relief, but explained the lapse instantly. " I do hope there is something nice to eat," she 86 Shadows with Occasional Gleams said. " This wonderful air makes one dreadfully hungry. When our tour is ended, Cynthia, I shall have to Bant for months." The fare was excellent. Under its stimulating influence Miss Vanrenen forgot her vapors and elected for the front seat during the run to Glastonbury. Medenham thawed, too. By chance their talk turned to wayside flowers, and he let the Mercury creep through a high-banked lane, all ablaze with wild roses and honeysuckle, while he pointed out the blue field scabious, the pink and cream meadow-sweet, the samphire, the milk-wort and the columbine, the cam- pions in the cornland, and the yellow vetchling that ran up the hillside towards one of the wooded " islands " peculiar to the center of Somerset. Cynthia listened, and, if she marveled, betrayed no hint of surprise that a chauffeur should have such a store of the woodman's craft. Medenham, aware only of a rapt audience of one, threw disguise to the breeze created by the car when the pace quick- ened. He told of the Glastonbury Thorn, and how it was brought to the west country by no less a gardener than Joseph of Arimathea, and how St. Patrick was born in the Isle of Avallon, so called because its apple-orchards bore golden fruit, and how the very name of Glastonbury is derived from the crystal water that hemmed the isle " Please let me intrude one little question," mur- mured the girl. " I am very ignorant of some things. What has * Avallon ' got to do with ' apples '? " 87 Cynthia's Chauffeur "Ha!" cried Medenham, warming to his subject and retarding speed again, " that opens up a wide field. In Celtic mythology Avallon is Ynys yr Afal- lon, the Island of Apples. It is the Land of the Blessed, where Morgana holds her court. Great heroes like King Arthur and Ogier le Dane were carried there after death, and, as apples were the only first-rate fruit known to the northern nations, a place where they grew in luscious abundance came to be regarded as the soul-kingdom. Merlin says that fairyland is full of apple trees " " I believe it is," cried Cynthia, nudging his arm and pointing to an orchard in full bloom. Mrs. Devar could hear little and understand less of what they were saying; but the nudge was elo- quent; her steel-blue eyes narrowed, and she thrust her face between them. " We mustn't dawdle on the road, Fitzroy. Bristol is still a long way off, and we have so much to see Glastonbury, Wells, Cheddar." Though Cynthia was vexed by the interruption she did not show it. Indeed, she was aware of her companion's strange reiteration of the towns to be visited, since Mrs. Devar had already admitted a special weakness in geography, and during the trip from Brighton to Bournemouth was quite unable to name a town, a county, or a landmark. But the queer thought of a moment was dispelled by sight of the ruins of St. Dunstan's monastery appearing above a low wall. In front of the broken arches 88 Shadows with Occasional Gleams and tottering walls grew some apple trees so old and worn that no blossom decked their gnarled branches. Unbidden tears glistened in the girl's eyes. " If I lived here I would plant a new orchard," she said tremulously. " I think Guinevere would like it, and you say she is buried with her king in St. Joseph's Chapel." Medenham had suddenly grown stern again. He glanced at her, and then made great business with brakes and levers, for Mrs. Devar was still inquisi- tive. " There is a fine old Pilgrims' Inn, the George, in the main street," he said jerkily. " I propose to stop there; the entrance to the Abbey is exactly opposite. In the George they will show you a room in which Henry the Eighth slept, and I would recom- mend you to get a guide for half an hour at least." "Must we walk?" demanded Mrs. Devar plain- tively. " Yes, if you wish to see anything. But one could throw a stone over the chief show places, they are so close together." So Cynthia was shown the Alfred Jewel, and Celtic dice-boxes carefully loaded for the despoiling of Roman legionaries or an unwary Phoenician, and heard the story of the Holy Grail from the lips of an ancient who lent credence to the legend by his venerable appearance. Mixed up with the imposing ruins and the glory of St. Joseph's Chapel was a 89 Cynthia's Chauffeur visit to the butcher's at the corner of the street, where the veteran proudly exhibited a duck with four feet. He then called Cynthia's attention to the carved panels of the George Hotel, and pointed out a fine window, bayed on each successive story. She had almost forgotten the wretched duck when he mentioned a two-headed calf which was on view at a neighboring dairy. Mrs. Devar showed signs of interest, so Cynthia tipped the old man hurriedly, and ran to the car. " I shall come here some other time," she gasped, and it thrilled her to believe that Fitzroy understood, though he had heard no word of quadruped fowl or bicipital monster. At Wells Medenham pitied her. He bribed a policeman to guard the Mercury, and when Mrs. Devar saw that more walking was expected of her she elected to sit in the tonneau and admire the west front of the cathedral. " Lady Porthcawl tells me it is a masterpiece," she chirped shrilly, " so I want to take it in at my leisure." Once more, therefore, did Medenham allow himself a half hour of real abandonment. He warned Cyn- thia that she must not endeavor to appreciate the architecture; with the hauteur of conscious genius, Wells refuses to allow anyone to absorb its true gran- deur until it has been seen many times and in all lights. So he hied her to the exquisite Lady Chapel, and 90 Shadows with Occasional Gleams to the Chapter-House Stairs, and to Peter Light- foot's quaint old clock in the transept. Then, by some alchemy worked on a lodgekeeper, he led her to the gardens of the Bishop's palace, and showed her the real Glastonbury Thorn, and even persuaded one of the swans in the moat to ring the bell attached to the wall whereby each morning for many a year the royal birds have obtained their breakfast. There is no lovelier garden in England than that of Wells Palace, and Cynthia was so rapt in it that even Medenham had to pull out his watch and remind her of dusty roads leading to far-off Bristol. Mrs. Devar looked so sour when they came from an inspection of one of the seven wells to which the town owes its name that Cynthia weakened and sat by her side. Thereupon Medenham made amends for lost time by exceeding the speed limit along every inch of the run to Cheddar. Of course he had to crawl through the narrow streets of the little town, above which the bare crests of the Mendips give such slight promise of the glorious gorge that cuts through their massiveness from south to north. Even at the very lip of the magnificent canyon the outlook is deceptive. Per- haps it is that the eye is caught by the flaring ad- vertisements of the stalactite caves, or that baser emotions are awakened by the sight of cozy tea- gardens of one in particular, where a cascade tumbles headlong from the black rocks, and a tree- 91 Cynthia's Chauffeur shaded lawn offers rest and coolness after hours passed in the hot sun. Be that as it may, " tea " had a welcome sound, and Medenham, who had lunched on bread and beer and pickles, was glad to halt at the entrance of the inn that boasted a waterfall in its grounds. The road was narrow, and packed with chars-a- bancs awaiting their hordes of noisy trippers. Some of the men were tipsy, and Medenham feared for the Mercury's paint. To the left of the hotel lay a spacious yard that looked inviting. He backed in there when the ladies had alighted, and ran along- side an automobile on which " Paris " and " speed " were written in characters legible to the motorist. A chauffeur was lounging against the stable wall and smoking. " Hello," said Medenham affably, " what sort of car is that? " "A 59 Du Vallon," was the answer. Then the man's face lit up with curiosity. " Yours is a New Mercury, isn't it? " he cried. " Was that car at Brighton on Wednesday night? " " Yes," growled Medenham ; he knew what to ex- pect, and his face was grim beneath the tan. " But you were not driving it," said the other. " A chap named Dale was in charge then." " Oh, is that it? You've brought two ladies here just now? " " Yes." " Good ! My guv'nor's on the lookout for 'em. 92 Shadows with Occasional Gleams He didn't tell me so, but he made sure they hadn't passed this way when we turned up." " And when was that? " asked Medenham, feeling unaccountably sick at heart. " Soon after lunch. Ran here from Bristol. There's a bad bit of road over the Mendips, but the rest is fine. I s'pose we'll all be hiking back there to-night? " " Most probably," agreed Medenham, who said least when he was most disturbed; at that moment he could cheerfully have wrung Count Edouard Marigny's neck. CHAPTER V A FLURBY ON THE MENDIPS IT is a contrariety of human nature that men de- voted to venturesome forms of sport should often be tender-hearted as children. Lord Medenham, who had done some slaying in his time, once risked his life to save a favorite horse from a Ganges quicksand, and his right arm still bore the furrows plowed in it by claws that would have torn his spaniel to pieces in a Kashmir gully had he not thrust the empty barrels of a .450 Express rifle down the throat of an enraged bear. In each case, a moment's delay to secure his own safety meant the sacrifice of a friend, but safety won at such a price would have galled him worse than the spinning of a coin with death. Wholly apart from considerations that he was strangely unwilling to acknowledge, even to his own heart, he now resented Marigny's cold-blooded pur- suit of an unsuspecting girl mainly because of its unfairness. Were Cynthia Vanrenen no more to him than the hundreds of pretty women he would meet during a brief London season he would still have wished to rescue her from the money-hunting 94> A Flurry on the Mendips gang which had marked her down as an easy prey. But he had been vouchsafed glimpses into her white soul. That night at Brighton, and again to-day in the cloistered depths of the cathedral at Wells, she had admitted him to the rare intimacy of those who commune deeply in silence. It was not that he dared yet to think of a love confessed and reciprocated. The prince in disguise is all very well in a fairy tale; in England of the twentieth century he is an anachronism; and Meden- ham would as soon think of shearing a limb as of profiting by the chance that threw Cynthia in his way. Of course, a less scrupulous wooer might have devised a hundred plausible methods of revealing his identity was not Mrs. Devar, marriage-broker and adroit sycophant, ready to hand and purchasable? and there was small room for doubt that a girl's natural vanity would be fluttered into a blaze of ro- mance by learning that her chauffeur was heir to an old and well-endowed peerage. But honor forbade, nor might he dream of winning her affections while flying false colors. True, it would not be his fault if they did not come together again in the near future. He meant to forestall any breach of confidence on the part of Simmonds by writing a full explanation of events to Cynthia herself. If his harmless esca- pade were presented in its proper light, their next meeting should be fraught with laughter rather than reproaches ; and then well, then, he might urge a timid plea that his repute as a careful pilot during 95 Cynthia's Chauffeur those three memorable days was no bad recommenda- tion for a permanency! But now, in a flash, the entire perspective had changed. The Frenchman and Mrs. Devar, between them, threatened to upset his best-laid plans. It was one thing to guess the nature of the sordid com- pact revealed at Brighton; it was quite another to be brought face to face with its active development at Cheddar. The intervening hours had disintegrated all his pet theories. In a word, the difference lay in himself before and after close companionship with Cynthia. It must not be imagined that Medenham indulged in this species of self-analysis while fetching a pail of water to replace the wastage from the condenser. He was merely in a very bad temper, and could not trust himself to speak until he had tended to his be- loved engine. He determined to set doubt at rest forthwith by the simple expedient of finding Miss Vanrenen, and seeing whether or not Marigny had waylaid her already. " Keep an eye on my machine for a minute," he said to the guardian of the Du Vallon. " By the way, is Captain Devar here?" he added, since Devar's presence might affect his own actions. " Oh, you know him, do you ? " cried the other. ** No, he didn't come with us. We left him at Bristol. He's a bird, the captain. Played some johnny at billiards last night for a quid, and won. He told 96 A Flurry on the Mendxps the guv'nor this morning that there is another game fixed for to-day, and you ought to have seen him wink. It's long odds again' the Bristol gent, or I'm very much mistaken. Yes, I'll keep any amatoor paws off your car, and off my own as well, you bet." To pass from the stable yard to the garden it was not necessary to enter the hotel. A short path, shaded by trellis-laden creepers and climbing roses, led to a rustic bridge over the stream. When Meden- ham had gone halfway he saw the two women sitting with Marigny at a table placed well apart from other groups of tea-drinkers. They were talking animatedly, the Count smiling and profuse of ges- ture, while Cynthia listened with interest to what was seemingly a convincing statement of the fortunate hazard that led to his appearance at Cheddar. The Frenchman was too skilled a stalker of shy game to pretend a second time that the meeting was acci- dental. Mrs. Devar's shrill accents traveled clearly across the lawn. " Just fancy that . . . finding James at Bath, and persuading him to come to Bristol on the chance that we might all dine together to-night ! Naughty boy he is why didn't he run out here in your car? " Count Edouard said something. " Business ! " she cackled, " I am glad to hear of it. James is too much of a gad-about to earn money, 97 Cynthia s Chauffeur but people are always asking him to their houses. He is a dear fellow. I am sure you will like him, Cynthia." Medenham had heard enough. He noted that the table was gay with cut flowers, and a neat waitress had evidently been detailed by the management to look after these distinguished guests ; Marigny's stage setting for his first decisive move was undoubtedly well contrived. It was delightfully pastoral a charming bit of rural England and, as such, eminently calculated to impress an American visitor. Cynthia poured out a cup of tea, heaped a plate with cakes and bread and butter, and gave some in- structions to the waitress. Medenham knew what that meant. He hurried back by the way he had come, and found that Marigny's chauffeur had lifted the bonnet off the Mercury. " More I see of this engine the more I like it What's your h.p. ? " asked the man, who clearly re- garded the Mercury's driver as a brother in the craft. " 38." " Looks a sixty, every inch. I wonder if you could hold my car at Brooklands? " " Perhaps not, but I may give you some dust to swallow over the Mendips." The chauffeur grinned. " Of course you'd say that, but it all depends on what the guv'nor means to do. He's a dare-devil 98 A Flurry on the Mendips at the wheel, I can tell you, an' never says a word to me when I let things rip. But he's up to some game to-day. He's fair crazy about that girl you have in tow what's her name? Vanrenen, isn't it?" " Yes," said Medenham, replacing the hood after a critical glance at the wires, though he hardly thought that this sturdy mechanic would play any tricks on him. " Which of you men is called Fitzroy ? " demanded a serving-maid, carrying a tray. " I," said Medenham. " Here, Miss," broke in the other, " my name's Smith, plain Smith, but I can do with a sup o' tea as well as anybody." " Ask Miss Vanrenen to give you another cup for Count Marigny's chauffeur," said Medenham to the girl. " Oh, he's a count, is he? " said the waitress saucily. " My, isn't he mashed on the young one ? " "Who wouldn't be?" declared Smith. "She's the sort of girl a fellow 'ud leave home for." " Fine feathers go a long way. There's as good as her in the world," came the retort, not without a favorable glance at Medenham. " Meanwhile the tea is getting cold," said he. " Dear me, you needn't hurry. Her ma is goin* to write half-a-dozen picture postcards. But what a voice! The old girl drowns the waterfall." The waitress flounced off. She was pretty, and 99 Cynthia's Chauffeur no wandering chauffeur had ever before turned aside the arrows of her bright eyes so heedlessly. "Then you have seen Miss Vanrenen?" inquired Medenham, sipping his tea. " Ra-ther ! " said Smith. " Saw her in Paris, at the Ritz, when my people sent me over there to learn the mechanism of this car. The Count was always hang- ing about, and I thought he wanted the old man to buy a Du Vallon, but it's all Lombard Street to a china orange that he was after the daughter the whole time. I don't blame him. She's a regular daisy. But you ought to know best. How do you get on with her? " " Capitally." "Why did Dale and you swop jobs? " " Oh, a mere matter of arrangement," said Meden- ham, who realized that Smith would blurt out every item of information that he possessed if allowed to talk. " He's a corker, is Dale," mused the other. " I can do with a pint or two meself when the day's work is finished an' the car safely locked up for the night. But that Dale! he's a walkin' beer-barrel. Lord love a duck! what a soakin' he gev' me in Brighton. Some lah-di-dah toff swaggered into the garage that evenin', and handed Dale a fiver five golden quidlets, if you please which my nibs had won on a horse at Epsom. I must say, though, Dale did the thing handsome quart bottles o' Bass opened every ten minutes. Thank you, my dear" this to the wait- 100 A Flurry on the Mendips ress, " next to beer give me tea. Now, my boss, bein' a Frenchy, won't touch eether wine an' corfee are his specials." " He seemed to be enjoying his tea when I caught sight of him in the garden a little while ago," said Medenham. " That's his artfulness, my boy. You wait a bit. You'll see something before you reach Bristol to- night ; anyway, you'll hear something, which amounts to pretty much the same in the end." " They're just off to the caves," put in the girl. " While Mrs. Devar writes her postcards, I sup- pose? " said Medenham innocently. "What! Is that the old party with the hair? I thought she was the young lady's mother. She's gone with them. She looks that sort of meddler not half. Two's company an' three's none is my motto, cave or no cave." She tried her most bewitching smile on Medenham this time. It was a novel experience to be the recipient of a serving-maid's marked favor, and it embarrassed him. Smith, his mouth full of currant bun, spluttered with laughter. " A fair offer," he cried. " You two dodge out- side and see which cave the aristocracy chooses. Then you can take a turn round the other one. I'll watch the cars all right." The girl suddenly blushed and looked demure. A sweet voice said quietly: " We shall remain here half an hour or more, Fitz- 101 Cynthia's Chauffeur roy. I thought I would tell you in case you wished to smoke or occupy your time in any other way." The pause was eloquent: Cynthia had heard. " Thank you, Miss Vanrenen," he said, affecting to glance at his watch. He felt thoroughly nonplussed. She would surely think he had been flirting with this rosy-cheeked servant, and he might never have an opportunity of telling her that his sole reason for encouraging the conversation lay in his anxiety to learn as much as possible about Marigny and his associates. " My, ain't she smart ! " said the girl when Cyn- thia had gone. Medenham put his hand in his pocket and gave her half-a-crown. " They have forgotten to tip you, Gertie," he said. Without heeding a stare of astonishment strongly tinctured with indignation, he stooped in unnecessary scrutiny of the Mercury's tires. The minx tossed her head. " Some folks are as grand as their missuses," she remarked, and went back to her garden. But Smith looked puzzled. Medenham, no good actor at any time, had dropped too quickly the air of camaraderie which had been a successful passport hitherto. His voice, his manner, the courtly inso- lence of the maid's dismissal, evoked vague memories in Smith's mind. The square-shouldered, soldierly figure did not quite fit into the picture, but he seemed 102 ''You may occuy your time m any way you wish, Fitzroy," said Cynthia. Pafe j j A Flurry on the Mendips to hear that same authoritative voice speaking to Dale in the Brighton garage. The conceit was absurd, of course. Chauffeurs do not swagger through the world dressing for din- ner each night and distributing gold in their leisure moments. But Smith's bump of inquisitiveness was well developed, as the phrenologists say, and he was already impressed by the fact that no firm could afford to send out for hire a car like Medenham's. " Funny thing," he said at last. " I seem to have met you somewhere or other. Who do you work for? " " Myself." Medenham caught the note of bewilderment, and was warned. He straightened himself with a smile, though it cost him an effort to look cheerful. " Have a cigarette ? " he said. " Don't mind if I do. Thanks." Then, after a pause, and some puffing and tasting: "Sorry, old man, but this baccy ain't my sort. It tastes queer. What is it? Flor de Cabbagio? Here, take one of mine! " Medenham, in chastened mood, accepted a " five a penny " cigarette, and saw Smith throw away the exquisite brand that Sevastopolo, of Bond Street, supplied to those customers only who knew the price paid by connoisseurs for the leaf grown on one small hillside above the sun-steeped bay of Salonika. " Yes," he agreed, bravely poisoning the helpless atmosphere, " this is better suited to the occasion." 103 Cynthia's Chauffeur " A bit of all right, eh? I can't stand the Count's cigarettes eether French rubbish, you know. An' the money they run into well, there ! " " But if he is a rich man " " Rich ! " Smith exploded with merriment. " If he had what he owes he might worry along for a year or so, but, you mark my words, if he doesn't Well, it's no business of mine, only just keep your eyes open. You're going through with this tour? " " I believe so," said Medenham slowly and thus he took the great resolution which till that moment was dim in his mind. " In that case we'll be having a jaw some other time, and then, mebbe, we'll both be older an' wiser." Notwithstanding the community of taste estab- lished by Smith's weeds, the man was still furtively racking his brains to account for certain discrepan- cies in his new acquaintance's bearing and address. Medenham's hands, for instance, were too well kept. His boots were of too good a quality. His reindeer driving gloves, discarded and lying on the front seat, were far too costly. The disreputable linen coat might hide many details, but not these. Every now and then Smith wanted to say " sir," and he won- dered why. Medenham was sure that at the back of Smith's head lay some scheme, some arranged trick, some arti- fice of intrigue that would find its opportunity be- tween Cheddar and Bristol. The distance was not great perhaps eighteen miles by a fairly direct 104- A Flurry on the Mendips second-class road, and on this fine June evening it was still safe to count on three long hours of day- light. It was doubly irritating, therefore, to think that by his own lack of diplomacy he had almost forfeited Smith's confidence. Twice had the man been on the very brink of revelation, for he was one of those happy-go-lucky beings not fitted for the safe- guarding of secrets, yet on each occasion his tongue faltered in subconscious knowledge that he was about to betray his master's affairs. Feeling that Dale would have managed this part of the day's adventures far better than himself, Medenham took his seat and touched the switch. " We have to make Bristol by seven o'clock, so I shall pull out in front; I suppose Count Marigny will give the ladies the road? " he remarked casually. Smith was listening to the engine. " Runs like a watch, don't it ? " was his admiring cry. " And almost as quietly, so you heard what I said." " Oh, I hear lots, but I reckon it a good plan ta keep my mouth shut," grinned the other. " Exactly what you have failed to do," thought Medenham, though he nodded pleasantly, and, with a " So long ! " passed out of the yard. Smith went to the exit and looked after him. The man's face wore a good-humored sneer. It was as though he said: 105 Cynthia s Chauffeur "You wait a bit, my dandy shuffer you ain't through with his Countship yet not by any manner o' means." And Medenham did wait, till nearly seven o'clock. He saw Cynthia and her companions come out of Gough's Cave and enter Cox's. These fairy grottoes of nature's own contriving were well worthy of close inspection, he knew. Nowhere else in the world can stalactites that droop from the roof, stalagmites that spring from the floor, be seen in such perfection of form and tint. But he fretted and fumed because Cynthia was immured too long in their ice-cold re- cesses, and when, at last, she reappeared from the second cavern and halted near a stall to purchase some curios, impatience mastered him, and he brought the car slowly on until she turned and looked at him. He raised his cap. " The gorge is the finest thing in Cheddar, Miss Yanrenen," he said. " You ought to see it while the light is strong." " We are going now," she answered coldly. " Mon- sieur Marigny will take me to Bristol, and you will follow with Mrs. Devar." He did not flinch from her steadfast gaze, though those blue eyes of hers seemed definitely to forbid any expression of opinion. Yet there was a challenge in them, too, and he accepted it meekly. " I was hoping that I might have the pleasure of driving you this evening," he said. " The run 106 A Flurry on the Mendips through the pass is very interesting, and I know every inch of it." He fancied that she was conscious of some mistake, and eager to atone if in the wrong. She hesitated, yielded almost, but Mrs. Devar broke in angrily: " We have decided differently, Fitzroy. I have some few postcards to dispatch, and Count Marigny has kindly promised to run slowly up the hill until we overtake him." " Yes, you ought to have waited in the yard of the inn for orders," said the ever-smiling Marigny. " My car can hardly pass yours in this narrow road. Back a bit to one side, there's a good fellow, and, when we have gone, pull up to the door. Come, Miss Vanrenen. I am fierce to show you the paces of a Du Vallon." The concluding sentences were in French , but Count Edouard spoke idiomatic English fluently and with a rather fascinating accent. Cynthia, slightly ruffled by her own singular lack of purpose, made no further demur. The three walked off down the hill, and Medenham could only obey in a chill rage that, were Marigny able to gauge its intensity, might have given him " furiously to think." In a few minutes the Du Vallon scurried by. Smith was driving, and there was a curious smirk on his red face as he glanced at Medenham. Cynthia sat in the tonneau with the Frenchman, who drew her 107 Cynthia's Chauffeur attention to the limestone cliffs in such wise that she did not even see the Mercury as she passed. Medenham muttered something under his breath, and reversed slowly back to the inn. He consulted his watch. " I'll give the postcard writer ten minutes then I shall jar her nerves badly," he promised himself. Those minutes were slow-footed, but at last he closed the watch with a snap. He called to a waitress visible at the end of a long passage. The girl hap- pened to be his friend of tea-time. " Would you like to earn another half crown ? " he asked. She had wit enough to grasp essentials, and it was abundantly clear that this man was not her lawful quarry. " Yes sir," she said. " Take it, then, and tell the elderly lady belonging to my party she is somewhere inside that Fitzroy says he cannot wait any longer. Use those exact words and be quick ! " The girl vanished. An irate yet dignified Mrs. Devar came out. " Do I understand " she began wrathfully. " I hope so, madam. Unless you get in at once I intend going to Bristol, or elsewhere, without you." " Or elsewhere? " she gasped, though some of her high color fled under his cold glance. " Precisely. I do not intend to abandon Miss Vanrenen." 108 A Flurry on the Mendips " How dare you speak to me in this manner, you vulgar person ? " For answer Medenham set the engine going. " I said * At once,' " he replied, and looked Mrs. Devar squarely in the eyes. She had her fair share of that wisdom of the serpent which is indispensable to evildoers, and had learnt early in life that whereas many men say they will do that which they really will not do if put to the test, other men, rare but dominant, can be trusted to make good their words no matter what the cost. So she accepted the unavoidable; quivering with in- dignation, she entered the car. " Drive me to the Post-office," she said, with as much of acid repose as she could muster to her aid. Medenham seemed to be suddenly afflicted with deafness. After negotiating a line of vehicles, the Mercury leaped past the caves of Gough and Cox as though the drip of lime-laden water within those amazing depths were reeling off centuries in a frenzy of haste instead of measuring time so slowly that no appreciable change has been noted in the tiniest stalactite during fifty years. Mrs. Devar then grew genuinely alarmed, since even a designing woman may be a timid one. She bore with the pace until the car seemed to be on the verge of rushing full tilt against a jutting rock. She could endure the strain no longer, but stood up and screamed. Medenham slackened speed. When the curving road opened sufficiently to show a clear furlong 109 Cynthia's Chauffeur ahead, he turned and spoke to the limp, shrieking creature clinging to the back of his seat. " You are not in the slightest danger," he assured her, " but if you wish it I will drop you here. The village is barely half a mile away. Otherwise, should you decide to remain, you must put up with a rapid speed." " But why, why? " she almost wailed. " Have you gone mad, to drive like that ? " " Again I pledge my word that there is no risk. I mean to overtake Miss Vanrenen before the light fails that is all." " Your conduct is positively outrageous," she gasped. " Please yourself, madam. Do you go, or stay ? " She collapsed into the comfortable upholstery with a gesture of impotent despair. Medenham was sure she would not dare to leave him. What wretched project she and Marigny had concocted he knew not, but its successful outcome evidently depended on Mrs. Devar's safe arrival in Bristol. Moreover, it was a paramount condition that he should be delayed at Cheddar, and his chief interest lay in defeating that part of the programme. Without another word, he released the brakes, and the car sped onward. Now they were plunging into a magnificent defile shadowed by sheer cliffs that on the eastern side rose to a height of five hundred feet. Fluttering rock pigeons circled far up in the azure riband that spanned the opposing precipices. From many a 110 A Flurry on the Mendips towering pinnacle, carved by the ages into fantastic imageries of a castle, a pulpit, a lion, or a lance, came the loud, clear calling of innumerable jack- daws. It was dark and gloomy, most terrifying to Mrs. Devar, down there on the twining road where the car boomed ever on like some relentless monster rushing from its lair. But the Cheddar gorge, though majestic and awe-inspiring, is not of great extent. Soon the valley widened, the road took longer sweeps to round each frowning buttress, and at last emerged, with a quality of inanimate breath- lessness, on to the bleak and desolate tableland of the Mendips. At this point, had Cynthia been there, Medenham would have stopped for a while, so that she might admire the far-flung panorama of the " island valley of Avallon " that stretched below the ravine. Out of the green pastures in the middle distance rose the ruined towers of Glastonbury. The purple and gold of Sedgemoor, relieved by the soft outlines of the Polden hills, the grim summits of Taunton Dean and the Blackdown range, the wooded Quantocks dipping to the Severn, and the giant mass of Exmoor bound- ing the far horizon, these great splashes of color, softened and blended by belts of farmland and the blue smoke of clustering hamlets, formed a picture that not even Britain's storehouse of natural beauty can match too often to sate the eyes of those who love a charming landscape. He had, as it were, jealously guarded this vista all 111 Cynthia's Chauffeur day, said not a word of it, even when Cynthia and he discussed the route, so that it might come at last in one supreme moment of revelation. And now that it was here, Cynthia was hidden somewhere in the gray distance, and Medenham was frowning at a flying strip of white road, with his every faculty intent on exacting the last ounce of power from the superb machine he controlled. The miles rolled beneath, yet there was no token of the Du Vallon that was to " run slowly up the hill " until overtaken by the industrious writer of postcards. At the utmost, the French car was given some twelve or thirteen minutes' start, which meant seven or eight miles to a high-powered automobile urged forward with the determination Medenham him- self was displaying. Marigny's chauffeur, therefore, must have dashed through that Titanic cleft in the limestone at a speed utterly incompatible with his employer's excuse of sightseeing. Of course, it would be an easy matter for Marigny to enlist Miss Vanrenen's sympathies in the effort of a first-rate engine to conquer the adverse gradient. She would hardly realize the rate of progress, and, from where she was seated, the speed indicator would be invisible unless she leaned forward for the express purpose of reading it. Medenham was sure that the Mercury would catch the Du Vallon long before Bristol was reached, but when the last ample fold of the bleak plateau spread itself in front, and his hunter's eyes could discern no cloud of dust lingering in the still 112 A Flurry on the Mendips air where the road dipped over the horizon, he began to doubt, to question, to solve grotesque problems that were discarded ere they had well taken shape. Oddly enough, there came no more expostulation from Mrs. Devar. Like the majority of nervous people, she was quelled by the need of placing com- plete trust in one who understood his work. While Medenham was still searching the sky-line for signs of the vanished car, she did show some interest in his quest. He felt, since he could not see, that she half rose and looked over his head, bent low behind the partial shelter afforded by a glass screen. Then she settled back in the seat, and drew a rug com- fortably around her knees. For some reason, she was strangely content. The incident supplied food for active thought. So she felt safe! That which she dreaded as the result of a too strenuous pursuit could not now happen! Then what was it? Medenham swept aside the fan- tasy that Mrs. Devar knew the country well enough to be able to say precisely when and where she might be sure of his failure to snatch Cynthia from that hidden evil the nature of which he could only guess at. Her world was the artificial one of hotels, and shops, and numbered streets in the real world, of which the lonely wastes of the Mendips provided no meager sample, she was a profound ignoramus, a fat little automaton equipped with atrophied senses. But she blundered badly in composing herself so cozily for the remainder of the run to Bristol. Meden- 113 Cynthia's Chauffeur ham had dwelt many months at a time in lands where just such simple indications of mood on the part of man or beast had meant to him all the differ- ence between life and death. So now, if ever, he became doubly alert; his eyes were strained, eager, peering; his body still as the wild creatures which he knew to be skulking unseen behind many a rock and grass tuft passed on the way. This desolate land, given over to stones inter- spersed with patches of wiry grass on which browsed some hardy sheep, resembled a disturbed ocean sud- denly made solid. It was not level, but ran in long, almost regular undulations. In the trough between two of these rounded ridges the road bifurcated, the way to Bristol trending to the left, and a less im- portant thoroughfare glancing off to the right. There was no sign-post, but a child could scarce have erred if asked to choose the track that led to a big town. Medenham, having consulted the map earlier in the day, swung to the left without hesita- tion. The car literally flew up the next incline, and the dark lines of trees and hedges in the distance proved that tilled land was being neared. Now he was absolutely sure that he had managed, somehow, to miss the Du Vallon unless, indeed, its redoubtable mechanism was of a caliber he had not yet come across in the highways and byways of Europe. With him, to decide was to act. The Mercury slowed up so promptly that Mrs. Devar became alarmed again. 114 A Flurry on the Mendips " What is it? a tire gone? " she cried. " No, I am on the wrong road that is all." " But there is no other. That turning we passed was a mere lane." The car stopped where his watchful glance noted a carpet of sand left by the last shower of rain. He sprang out and examined the marks of recent traffic. Marigny's vehicle carried non-skid covers with studs arranged in peculiar groups, and their imprint was plain to be seen. But they had followed that road once only. It was impossible to determine offhand whether they had come or gone, but, if they came from Bristol, then most certainly they had not re- turned. Medenham took nothing for granted. Dusk was advancing, and he must make no mistake at this stage. He ran the Mercury slowly ahead, not tak- ing his gaze off the telltale signs. At last he found what he was looking for. The broad scars left by a heavy cart crossed the studs, and had crossed after the passage of the car. Thus he eliminated the vagaries of chance. Marigny had not taken the road to Bristol he must be on the other one since no cart was in sight. Medenham backed and turned. Mrs. Devar, of course, grew agitated. " Where are you going? " she demanded. Medenham resolved to end this farce of pretense, else he would not be answerable for the manner of his speech. 115 Cynthia's Chauffeur " I mean to find Miss Vanrenen," he said. " Pray let that suffice for the hour. Any further explana- tion you may require can be given at Bristol and in her presence." Mrs. Devar began to sob. He heard her, and of all things that he hated it was to become the cause of a woman's tears. But his lips closed in a thin seam, and he drove fast to the fork in the roads. Another halt here, and the briefest scrutiny showed that his judgment had not erred. The Du Vallon had passed this point twice. If it came from Bristol in the first instance it had gone now to some un- familiar wilderness that skirted the whole northeast- ern slopes of the Mendips. He leaped back to the driving seat, and Mrs. Devar made one more despairing effort to regain control of a situation that had slipped from her grasp nearly an hour ago. " Please do be sensible, Fitzroy ! " she almost screamed. " Even if he has made a mistake in a turning, Count Marigny will take every care of Miss Vanrenen " It was useless. She was appealing to a man of stone, and, indeed, Medenham could not pay heed to her then in any circumstances, for the road sur- face quickly became very rough, and it needed all his skill to guide his highly-strung car over its in- equalities without inflicting an injury that might prove disastrous. His only consolation was provided by the knowl- 116 A Flurry on the Mendips edge that the risk to a stout Mercury was as naught compared with the tortures endured by a French- built racer, with its long wheel-base and low chassis. After a couple of miles of semi-miraculous advance his respect for Smith's capability as a driver increased literally by leaps and bounds. But the end was nearer than he thought. On reaching the top of one of those seemingly intermina- ble land-waves, he saw a blurred object in the hollow. Soon he distinguished Cynthia's fawn-colored dust cloak, and his heart throbbed exultantly when the girl fluttered a handkerchief to show that she, too, had seen. Mrs. Devar rose and clutched the back of the seat behind him. " I apologize, Fitzroy," she piped tremulously. " You were right. They have lost their way and met with some accident. How glad I am that I did not insist on your making straight for Bristol ! " Her unparalleled impudence won his admiration. Such a woman, he thought, was worthy of a better fate than that which put her in the position of a bought intriguer. But Cynthia was near, waving her hands gleefully, and executing a nymph-like thanksgiving dance on a strip of turf by the road- side, so Medenham's views of Mrs. Devar's previous actions were tempered by conditions extraordinarily favorable to her at the moment. She seemed to be aware instinctively of the change 117 Cynthia's Chauffeur in his sentiments wrought by sight of Cynthia. It was in quite a friendly tone that she cried : "Count Edouard is there; but where is his man? . . . Something serious must have happened, and the chauffeur has been sent to obtain help. . . . Oh, how lucky we hurried, and how clever of you to find out which way the car went ! " 118 CHAPTER VI A MIDSUMMER NIGHl's VAGARIES CYNTHIA, notwithstanding that spirited pas seul, was rather pale when Medenham stopped the car close beside her. She had been on tenterhooks dur- ing the past quarter of an hour there were silent moments when she measured her own slim figure against the natty Count's in half-formed resolution to take to her heels along the Cheddar Road. At first, she had enjoyed the run greatly. Al- though Dale spoke of Smith as a mechanic, the man was a first-rate driver, and he spun the Du Vallon along at its best speed. But the change from good macadam to none soon made itself felt, and Cynthia was more troubled than she cared to show when the French flier came to a standstill after panting and jolting alarmingly among the ruts. Marigny's ex- cited questions evoked only unintelligible grunts from Smith; for all that, the irritating truth could not be withheld the petrol tank was empty; not only had the chauffeur forgotten to fill it that morning, but, by some strange mischance, the supply usually held in reserve had been left at Bristol! 119 Cynthia's Chauffeur The Frenchman was very angry with Smith, and Smith was humbly apologetic. The pair must have acted convincingly, because each knew to a nicety how soon a gallon of petrol would vaporize in the Du Vallon's six cylinders. Having taken the pre- caution to measure that exact quantity into the tank before leaving Cheddar, they were prepared for a breakdown at any point within a few hundred yards of the precise locality where it occurred. Cynthia, being generous-minded, tried to make little of the mishap. By taking that line she strove to reassure herself. " Fitzroy is always prepared for emergencies," she said. " He will soon catch up with us. But what a road! I didn't really notice it before. Surely this cannot be the only highway between Bristol and Cheddar? and in England, too, where the roads are so perfect ! " " There are two roads, but this is the nearest one," explained the glib-tongued Count, seemingly much relieved by the prospect of Fitzroy's early arrival. " You don't deserve to be pulled out of a difficulty so promptly, Smith," he went on, eying the chauffeur sternly. " There's a village not very far ahead, sir," said the abashed Smith. " Oh, never mind ! We must wait for Miss Van- renen's car." " Wait? " inquired Cynthia. " What else can we do?" 120 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries " I take it he meant to walk to some village, and bring a stock of spirit." " Oh, dear ! I hope no such thing will be nec- essary." From that half hint of latent and highly disagree- able developments dated Cynthia's uneasiness. She accepted Marigny's suggestion that they should stroll to the top of the slight hill just descended, whence they would be able to watch their rescuer's approach from a considerable distance she even remembered to tell him to smoke but she answered his lively sallies at random, and agreed unreservedly with his voluble self-reproach. The obvious disuse of the road, a mere lane pro- viding access to sheep inclosures on the hills, caused her no small perplexity, though she saw fit not to add to her companion's distress by commenting on it. In any other circumstances she would have been genuinely alarmed, but her well-established acquaint- anceship with the Count, together with the appar- ently certain fact that Fitzroy and Mrs. Devar were coming nearer each second, forbade the tremors that any similar accident must have evoked if, say, they were marooned on some remote mountain range of the continent, and no friendly car was speeding to their aid. The two halted on the rising ground, and one of them, at least, gazed anxiously into the purple shadows now mellowing the gray monotony of the plateau. The point where the Du Vallon left the 121 Cynthia s Chauffeur main road was invisible from where they stood. Marigny had laid his plans with skill, so his humor- ous treatment of their plight was not marred by any lurking fear of the Mercury's unwelcome ap- pearance. " What a terrible collapse this would be if I were running away with you, Miss Cynthia," he said slyly. " Let us imagine a priest waiting in some ancient castle ten miles away, and an irate father, or a pair of them, starting from Cheddar in hot pur- suit." " My imagination fails me there, Monsieur Ma- rigny," she replied, and the shade of emphasis on his surname showed that she was fully aware of the boundary crossed by the " Miss Cynthia," an ad- vance which surprised her more than the Frenchman counted on. " At present I am wholly absorbed in a vain effort to picture an automobile somewhere down there in the gathering mists ; still, it must arrive soon." Then Marigny put forth a tentative claw. " I hate to tell you," he said, " mais il faut marcher quand le diable est aux trousses.* I am unwillingly forced to believe that your chauffeur has taken the other road." " The other road ! " wailed Cynthia in sudden and 'most poignant foreboding. It was then that she iirst began to estimate her running powers. * " But needs must when the devil drives." 122 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries " Yes, there are two, you know. The second one is not so direct " " If you think that, your man had better go at once to the village he spoke of. Is it certain that he will obtain petrol there ? " " Almost certain." " Really, Monsieur Marigny, I fail to understand you. Why should you express a doubt? He appeared to be confident enough five minutes ago. He was ready to start until we pre- vented him." That the girl should yield to slight panic was precisely what Count Edouard desired. True, Cyn- thia's sparkling eyes and firm lips were eloquent of keen annoyance rather than fear, but Marigny was an adept in reading the danger signals of beauty irt distress, and he saw in these symptoms the heralds- of tears and fright. His experience did not lead him far astray, but he had not allowed for racial difference between the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon. Cynthia might weep, she might even attempt to run, but in the last resource she would face him with dauntless courage. " I assure you I would not have had this thing happen on any account," he said in a voice that vi- brated with sympathy. " Indeed, I pray your pity in my own behalf, Miss Vanrenen. After all, it is I who suffer the agony of failure when I meant only to please. You will reach Bristol this evening, a little late, perhaps, but quite safely, and I hope 123 Cynthia's Chauffeur that you will laugh then at the predicament which now looks so ill-starred." His seeming sincerity appeased her to some extent. In rapid swing back to the commonplace, she af- fected to laugh. " It is not so serious, after all," she said, with more calmness than she felt. " Just for a moment you threw me off the rails by your lawyer-like vague- ness." Drawing a little apart, she looked steadily back along the deserted road. " I see nothing of my car," she murmured at last. " It will soon be dusk. We must take no more chances. Please send for that benzine right away." Smith was dispatched forthwith on what he knew to be a fool's errand, since both he and Marigny were practically sure of their ground. The nearest petrol was to be found at Langford, two miles along the Bristol road from the fork, and four miles in the opposite direction to that taken by Smith, who, when he returned empty-handed an hour later, must make another long journey to Langford. The Du Vallon was now anchored immovably until eleven o'clock, and it was well that the girl could not realize the true nature of the ordeal before her, or events might have taken an awkward twist. The Frenchman meant no real harm by his rascally scheme, for Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a well- known American citizen, was not to be wooed and won in the fashion that commended itself to un- 124 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries scrupulous lovers in by-gone days. Yet his design blended subtlety and daring in a way that was worthy of ancestors who had ruffled it at Versailles with the cavaliers of old France. He trusted im- plicitly to the effect of a somewhat exciting adventure on the susceptible feminine heart. The phantom of distrust would soon vanish. She would yield to the spell of a night scented with the breath of sum- mer, languorous with soft zephyrs, a night when the spirit of romance itself would emparadise the lonely waste, and a belated moon, " like to a silver bow new- bent in heaven," would lend its glamor to a sky already spangled with glowing sapphires. In such a night, all things were possible. In such a night Stood Dido with a willow in her hand Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love To come again to Carthage. Marigny had indeed arranged a situation worthy of his nurturing among the decadents of Paris. He believed that in these surroundings an impressionable girl would admit him to a degree of intimacy not to be attained by many days of prosaic meetings. At the right moment, when his well-bribed servant was gone to Langford, he would remember a bottle of wine and some sandwiches stored in the car that morning to provide the luncheon that he might not obtain at a wayside inn. Cynthia and he would make merry over the feast. The magnetism that had 125 Cynthia s Chauffeur never yet failed him in affairs of the heart would surely prove potent now at this real crisis in his life. Marriage to a rich woman could alone snatch him from the social abyss, and the prospect became doubly alluring when it took the guise of Cynthia. He would restore her to a disconsolate chaperon some time before midnight, and he was cynic enough to admit that if he had not then succeeded in winning her esteem by his chivalry, his unobtrusive tender- ness, his devoted attentions above all, by his flow of interesting talk and well-turned epigram the fault would be his own, and not attributable to adverse conditions. It was not surprising, therefore, that he failed to choke back the curse quick risen to his lips when the throb of the Mercury's engine came over the crest of the hill. Never was mailed dragon more terrible to the beholder, even in the days of knight-errantry. In an instant his well-conceived project had gone by the board. He saw himself discredited, suspected, a skulking plotter driven into the open, a self-con- fessed trickster utterly at the mercy of some hap- hazard question that would lay bare his pretenses and cover his counterfeit rhapsody with ridicule. If Cynthia had heard, and hearing understood, it is possible that a great many remarkable incidents then in embryo would have passed into the mists of what might have been. For instance, she would not have deigned to notice Count Edouard Marigny's further existence. The next time she met him he 126 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries would fill a place in the landscape comparable to that occupied by a migratory beetle. But her heart was leaping for joy, and her cry of thankfulness quite drowned in her ears the Frenchman's furious oath. Mrs. Devar, having had time to gather her wits, made a gallant attempt to retrieve her fellow-con- spirator's shattered fortunes. " My dearest Cynthia," she cried effusively, " do say you are not hurt ! " " Not a bit," was the cheerful answer. " It is not I, but the car, that is out of commission. Didn't you see me do the Salome act when you were thrown on the screen ? " " Ah ! the car has broken down. I do not wonder this fearful road " " The road seems to have strayed out of Colorado, but that isn't the trouble. We are short of petrol. Please give some to Monsieur Marigny, Fitzroy. Then we can hurry to Bristol, and the Count must pick up his chauffeur on the way." Without more ado, she seated herself by Mrs. Devar's side, and Marigny realized that he had been robbed of a golden opportunity. No persuasion would bring Cynthia back into the Du Vallon that evening; it would need the exercise of all his subtle tact to induce her to re-enter it at any time in the near future. He strove to appear at his ease, even essayed a few words of congratulation on the happy chance 127 Cynthia's Chauffeur that brought the Mercury to their relief, but the imperious young lady cut short his limping phrases. " Oh, don't let us waste these precious minutes," she protested. " It will be quite dark soon, and if there is much more of this wretched track " Medenham broke in at that. Mrs. Devar's change of front had caused him some grim amusement, but the discovery of Marigny's artifice roused his wrath again. It was high time that Cynthia should be enlightened, partly at least, as to the true nature of the " accident " that had befallen her ; he had already solved the riddle of Smith's disappearance. " The road to Bristol lies behind you, Miss Van- renen," he said. " One of the roads," cried the Frenchman. " No, the only road," persisted Medenham. " We return to it some two miles in the rear. Had you followed your present path much farther you could not possibly have reached Bristol to-night." " But there is a village quite near. My chauffeur has gone there for petrol. Someone would have told us of our mistake." " There is no petrol to be bought at Blagdon, which is a mere hamlet on the downs. Anyhow, here are two gallons ample for your needs but if your man is walking to Blagdon you will be com- pelled to wait till he returns, Monsieur Marigny." Though Medenham did not endeavor to check the contemptuous note that crept into his voice, he cer- tainly ought not to have uttered those two con- 128 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries eluding words. Had he ransacked his ample vocabu- lary of the French language he could scarcely have hit upon another set of syllables offering similar diffi- culties to the foreigner. It was quite evident that his accurate pronunciation startled the accomplices. Each arrived at the same conclusion, though by dif- ferent channels ; this man was no mere chauffeur, and the fact rendered his marked hostility all the more significant. Nevertheless, for the moment, Marigny concealed his uneasiness : by a display of good humor he hoped to gloss over the palpable absurdity of his earlier statements to Cynthia. " I seem to have bungled this business very badly," he said airily. " Please don't be too hard on me. I shall make the amende when I see you in Bristol. Au revoir, cheres dames! Tell them to keep me some dinner. I may not be so very far behind, since you ladies will take some time over your toilette, and I shall what do you call it scorch like mad after I have found that careless scoundrel, Smith." Cynthia had suddenly grown dumb, so Mrs. Devar tried once more to relax the tension. " Do be careful, Count Edouard," she cried ; " this piece of road is dreadfully dangerous, and, when all is said and done, another half hour is now of no great consequence." " If your chauffeur has really gone to Blagdon, he will not be back under an hour at least," broke in Medenham's disdainful voice. " Unless you wish 129 Cynthia s Chauffeur to wreck your car you will not attempt to follow him." With that he bent over the head lamps, and their radiance fell unexpectedly on Marigny's scowling face, since the discomfited adventurer could no longer pretend to ignore the Englishman's menace. Still, he was powerless. Though quivering with anger and balked desire, he dared not provoke a scene in Cyn- thia's presence, and her continued silence already warned him that she was bewildered if not actually suspicious. He forced a laugh. " Explanations are like swamps," he said. " The farther you plunge into them the deeper you sink. So, good-by! To please you, Mrs. Devar, I shall crawl. As for Miss Vanrenen, I see that she does not care what becomes of me." Cynthia weakened a little at that. Certainly she wondered why her model chauffeur chose to express his opinions so bluntly, while Marigny's unwillingness to take offense was admirable. " Is there no better plan ? " she asked quickly, for Medenham had started the engine, and his hand was on the reversing lever. " For what ? " he demanded. " For extricating my friend from his difficulty ? " " If he likes to come with us, he can leave his car here all night, and return for it to-morrow." " Perhaps " " Please do not trouble yourself in the least on my account," broke in the Count gayly. " As for 130 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries abandoning my car, such a stupid notion would never enter my mind. No, no! I wait for Smith, but you may rely on my appearance in Bristol before you have finished dinner." Though it was no simple matter to back and turn the Mercury in that rough and narrow road, Meden- ham accomplished the maneuver with a skill that the Frenchman appreciated to the full. For the first time he noted the number when the tail-lamp re- vealed it. "XL 4000," he commented to himself. " I must inquire who the owner is. Devar or Smith will know where to apply for the information. And I must also ascertain that fellow's history. Confound him, and my luck, too! If the Devar woman has any sense she will keep Cynthia well out of his way until the other chauffeur arrives." As it happened, the " Devar woman " was think- ing the same thing at the same moment, but, being nervous, dared not attempt to utter her thoughts while the car was creeping cautiously over the ruts and stones. At last, when the highroad was reached, the pace quickened, and she regained the faculty of speech. " We have had a quite eventful day," she said with an air of motherly solicitude, turning to the distrait girl by her side. " I am sure you are tired. What between an extra amount of sightseeing and poor Count Edouard's unfortunate mistake, we have been in the car nearly twelve hours." 131 Cynthia's Chauffeur " How did Fitzroy discover that we had taken the wrong road ? " asked Cynthia, rousing herself from a perplexed reverie. " Well, he drove very fast from Cheddar, much too fast, to my thinking, though the risk has been more than justified by circumstances. Of course, it is always easy to be wise after the event. At any rate, there being no sign of your car when we reached the top of a long hill, we er we discussed matters, and decided to explore the byroad." " Did you remain long in Cheddar? If Fitzroy hit up the pace, why were you so far behind? " " I waited a few minutes to address some post- cards. And that reminds me Fitzroy sent a most impertinent message by one of the servants " " Impertinent ! " " My dear, there is no other word for it some- thing about going off without me if I did not start instantly. Really, I shall be glad when Simmonds takes his place. But there! We must not renew our Bournemouth argument." " And he caused a servant in the hotel to speak to you in that manner? " " Yes the very girl who waited on us at tea a pert creature, who seemed to find the task congenial." Mrs. Devar was building better than she knew. Cynthia laughed, though not with the whole-souled merriment that was music in Medenham's ears. " She has been properly punished ; I forgot to tip her," she explained. 132 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries " Count Edouard would see to that " " He didn't. I noticed what he paid out of sheer curiosity. Perhaps I ought to send her something." " My dear Cynthia ! " But dear Cynthia was making believe to be quite amused by a notion that had just suggested itself. She leaned forward in the darkness and touched Medenham's shoulder. " Do you happen to know the name of the waitress who brought you some tea at Cheddar? " she asked. " None of us gave her anything, and I hate to omit these small items. If I had her name I could forward a postal order from Bristol." " There is no need, Miss Vanrenen," said Meden- ham. " I handed her well, sufficient to clear all claims." "Fordid? But why?" The temptation to explain that he had never seen the girl before that day was strong, but he waived it, and contented himself with saying: " I er can't exactly say force of habit, I imagine." " Is she a friend of yours ? " " No." Cynthia subsided into the tonneau. " Of all the odd things ! " she murmured, little dreaming that her chance question had sent a thrill of sheer delight through Medenham's every vein. " What is it now ? " inquired Mrs. Devar vin- dictively, for she detested these half confidences. 133 Cynthia s Chauffeur " Oh, nothing of any importance. Fitzroy footed the bill, it seems." " Very probably. He must have bribed the girl to be impudent." Cynthia left it at that. She wished these people would stop their quarreling, which threatened to spoil an otherwise perfect day. The Mercury ran smoothly into ancient Bristol, crossed the Avon by the pontoon bridge, and whirled up the hill to the College Green Hotel. There, on the steps, stood Captain James Devar. Obviously, he did not recognize them, and Medenham guessed the reason he expected to meet his mother only, and bestowed no second glance on a car containing two ladies. Indeed, his first words betrayed sheer amaze- ment. Mrs. Devar cried, " Ah, there you are, James ! " and James's eyeglass fell from its well-worn crease. " Hello, mater ! " he exclaimed. " But what's up ? Why are you where is Marigny ? " " Miles away the silly man ran short of petrol. Fortunately our car came to the rescue, or it would have been most awkward, since Miss Vanrenen was with the Count at the time. Cynthia, you have not met my son. James, this is Miss Vanrenen." The little man danced forward. Like all short and stout mortals, he was nimble on his feet, and his mother's voluble outburst warned him of an unfore- seen hitch in the arrangements. " Delighted, I'm shaw," said he. " But, by gad, 134 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries fancy losing poo-aw Eddie! What have you done with him? Dwiven a stake through him and buwied him at a cwoss woad? " Medenham dreaded that the too-faithful Sim- monds, car and all, would be found awaiting their arrival, and it was a decided relief when the only automobile in sight proved to be the state equipage of some local magnate dining at the hotel. Cynthia, apparently, had shared his thoughts so far as they concerned Simmonds. " I suppose your friend Simmonds will reveal his whereabouts during the evening," she said, while dis- encumbering herself of her wraps. Mrs. Devar had already alighted, but the girl was standing in the car and spoke over Medenham's shoulder. " Of course, he may not be here," was the answer, not given too loudly, since Mrs. Devar had hastened to give details to the perplexed James, and there was no need to let either of them overhear his words. " Oh my ! What will happen, then ? " " In that event, I should feel compelled to take his place again." " But the compulsion, as you put it, tends rather to take you to London." " I have changed my mind, Miss Vanrenen," he said simply. She tittered. There was just a spice of coquetry in her manner as she stooped nearer. " You believe that Simmonds would not have found me in that wretched lane to-night," she whispered. 135 Cynthia's Chauffeur " I am quite sure of it." " But the whole affair was a mere stupid error." " I am only too glad that I was enabled to put it right," he said with due gravity. " Cynthia," came a shrill voice, " do make haste, I am positively starving." " Guess you'd better lose Simmonds," breathed the girl, and an unaccountable fluttering of her heart induced a remarkably high color in her cheeks when she sped up the steps of the hotel and entered the brilliantly-lighted atrium. As for Medenham, though he had carefully mapped out the exact line of conduct to be followed in Bristol while watching the radiantly white arc of road that quivered in front of the car during the run from the Mendips, for a second or two he dared not trust his voice to ask the hall-porter certain necessary questions. Unaided by the glamor of birth or posi- tion he had won this delightful girl's confidence. She believed in him now as she would never again believe in Count Edouard Marigny; what that meant in such a moment, none can tell but a devout lover. Naturally, that was his point of view; it did not occur to him that Cynthia might already have re- gretted the impulse which led her to utter her thoughts aloud. Her nature was of the Martian type revealed to Swedenborg in one of his philosophic trances. " The inhabitants of Mars," said he, " ac- count it wicked to think one thing and speak an- other to wish one thing while the face expresses 136 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries another." Happy Martians, perhaps, but not quite happy Cynthia, still blushing hotly because of her daring suggestion as to the disposal of Simmonds. But she was deeply puzzled by the mishap to the Du Vallon. Unwilling to think evil of anyone, she felt, nevertheless, that Fitzroy (as she called him) would never have treated both Mrs. Devar and the Frenchman so cavalierly if he had not anticipated the very incident that happened on the Mendips. Why did he turn back? How did he really find out what had become of them? What would Simmonds have done in his stead? A hundred strange doubts throbbed in her brain, but they were jumbled in con- fusion before that more intimate and insistent ques- tion how would Fitzroy interpret her eagerness to retain him in her service? Meanwhile, the Swedish seer's theory of Martian speech and thought acting in unity was making itself at home on the pavement in front of the hotel. Medenham learnt from the hall-porter that a motor-car had reached Bristol from London about five o'clock. The driver, who was alone, had asked for Miss Vanrenen, and was told that she was ex- pected but had not yet arrived, whereupon he went off, saying that he would call after dinner. " Another shuffer kem a bit later an' axed the same thing," went on the man, " but he didn't have no car, an' he left no word about callin' again." " Excellent ! " said Medenham. " Now please go and tell Captain Devar that I wish to see him." 137 Cynthia's Chauffeur Here? " " Yes. I cannot leave my car. He must be at liberty, as he is in evening dress, and the ladies will not come downstairs under half an hour." Devar soon appeared. His mother had managed to inform him that the substituted driver was re- sponsible for the complete collapse of Marigny's project, and he was puffing with annoyance, though well aware that he must not display it. " Well," said he, strutting up to Medenham and blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his thick lips, " well, what is it, my man? " For answer, Medenham disconnected a lamp and held it close to his own face. " Do you recognize me ? " he asked. Devar, in blank astonishment, affected to screw in his eyeglass more firmly. " No," he said, " nor am I particularly anxious to make your acquaintance. You have behaved wather badly, I understand, but that is of no con- sequence now, as Simmonds has bwought his car he-aw " " Look again, Devar. We last met in Calcutta, where you swindled me out of fifty pounds. Un- fortunately I did not hear of your presence in South Africa until you were cashiered at Cape Town, or I might have saved the authorities some trouble." The man wilted under those stern eyes. " Good gad ! Medenham ! " he stammered. Medenham replaced the lamp in its socket. 138 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries " I am glad you are not trying any pretense," he said. " Otherwise I would be forced to take action, with the most lamentable consequences for you, Devar. Now, I will hold my hand, provided you obey me implicitly. Send for your overcoat, go straight to the Central Station, and travel to London by the next train. You can scribble some excuse to your mother, but, if I have any cause even to suspect that you have told her who I am, I shall not hesitate to put the police on your track. You must vanish, and be dumb for three months at least. If you are hard up, I will give you some money sufficient for a fortnight's needs and you can write to me for further supplies at my London address. Even a rascal like you must be permitted to live, I suppose, so I risk breaking the law myself by screening you from justice. Those are my terms. Do you accept them ? " The red face had grown yellow, and the steel-gray eyes that were a heritage of the Devar family glis- tened with terror, but the man endeavored to obtain mercy. " Dash it all, Medenham," he groaned, " don't be too hard on me. I'm goin' stwaight now 'pon me honor. This chap, Marigny " " You fool ! I offer you liberty and money, yet you try brazenly to get me to fall in with your wretched designs against Miss Vanrenen! Which is it to be a police cell or the rail- way station ? " 139 Cynthia s Chauffeur Medenham moved as if to summon the hall-porter. In a very frenzy of fear Devar caught his arm. " For Gawd's sake " he whispered. "You go, then?" " Yes." " I am prepared to spare you to the utmost ex- tent. Tell the hall-porter to bring your overcoat and hat, and to give you a sheet of notepaper and an envelope. Show me what you write. If it is satisfactory I shall start you with twenty pounds. You can send from London to-morrow for your be- longings, as your hotel bill will be paid. But re- member! One treacherous word from you and I telegraph to Scotland Yard." Mrs. Devar had a bad quarter of an hour when a penciled note from her son was delivered at her room and she read: DEAR MATEH I hardly had time to tell you that I am obliged to return to town this evening. Please make my apologies to Miss Vanrenen and Count Marigny. Yours ever, J. Medenham frowned a little at the reference to Cynthia, but something of the sort was necessary if an open scandal was to be avoided. As for " Dear Mater," she was so unnerved that she actually wept. Hard and calculating though she might be, the man was her son, and the bitter experiences of twenty years warned her that he had been driven from Bristol by some ghost new risen from an evil past. 140 A Midsummer Night's Vagaries Medenham, however, believed that he had settled one difficulty, and prepared blithely to tackle an- other. He ran the car to the garage where he had arranged to meet Dale. " Have you seen Simmonds ? " was his first ques- tion. " Yes, my 1 , yes, sir." "Where is he?" " Just off for a snack, sir, before goin' to the hotel." " Bring him here at once. We will attend to the snack afterwards. No mistake, now, Dale. He must see no one in the hotel until he and I have had a talk." Simmonds was produced. He saluted. " Glad to meet you again, my lord," he said. " I hope I haven't caused any trouble by sending that telegram to Bournemouth, but Dale tells me that you don't wish your title to be known." " Forget it," said Medenham. " I have done you a good turn, Simmonds are you prepared to do me one?" " Just try me, sir." " Put your car out of commission. Stick a pin through the earth contact of your magneto and jam it against a cylinder, or something of the sort. Then go to Miss Vanrenen and tell her how sorry you are, but you must have another week at least to pull things straight. She will not be vexed, and I guaran- tee you against any possible loss. To put the best 14.1 Cynthia's Chauffeur face on affairs, you had better remain in Bristol a few days at my expense. Of course, it is under- stood that I deputize for you during the remainder of the tour." Simmonds, no courtier, grinned broadly, and even Dale winked at the North Star; Medenham had steeled himself against such manifestations of crude opinion his face was impassive as that of a graven image. " Of course I'll oblige you in that way, my lord. Who wouldn't ? " came the slow reply. 142 CHAPTER VH WHEREIN CYNTHIA TAKES HER OWN IJNE WHEN the Mercury, shining from Dale's atten- tions, halted noiselessly opposite the College Green Hotel on the Saturday morning, Count Edouard Marigny was standing there ; the Du Vallon was not in evidence, and its owner's attire bespoke other aims than motoring, at any rate for the hour. Evidently he was well content with himself. A straw hat was set on the back of his head, a cigarette stuck between his lips, his hands were thrust into his trousers pockets, and his feet were spread widely apart. Taken altogether, he had the air of a man without a care in the world. He smiled, too, in the most friendly fashion, when Medenham's eyes met his. " I hear that Simmonds is unable to carry out his contract," he said cheerfully. " You are mistaken, a second time, monsieur," said Medenham. " Why, then, are you here this morning? " *' I am acting for Simmonds. If anything, my car is slightly superior to his, while I may be re- 143 Cynthia's Chauffeur garded as an equally competent driver, so the con- tract is kept in all essentials." Marigny still smiled. The Frenchman of mid- Victorian romance would have shelved this point by indulging in " an inimitable shrug " ; but nowadays Parisians of the Count's type do not shrug with John Bull's clothing they have adopted no small share of his stolidness. " It is immaterial," he said. " I have sent my man to offer him my Du Vallon, and Smith will go with him to explain its humors. You, as a skilled motor- ist, understand that a car is of the feminine gender. Like any other charming demoiselle, it demands the exercise of tact it yields willingly to gentle han- dling " Medenham cut short the Count's neatly turned phrases. " Simmonds has no need to avail himself of your courtesy," he said. " As for the rest, give me your address in Paris, and when next I visit the French capital I shall be delighted to analyze these subtleties with you." " Ah, most admirable ! But the really vital ques- tion before us to-day is your address in London, Mr. Fitzroy." Marigny dwelt on the surname as if it were a succulent oyster, and, in the undeniable surprise of the moment, Medenham was forced to believe that ** Captain " Devar, formerly of Horton's Horse, had dared all by telling his confederate the truth, or some 144 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line part of the truth. The two men looked squarely at each other, and Marigny did not fail to misin- terpret the dubious frown on Medenham's face. He descended a step or two, and crossed the pave- ment leisurely, dropping his voice so that it might not reach the ears of a porter, laden with the ladies' traveling boxes, who appeared in the doorway. " Why should we quarrel ? " he asked, with an engaging frankness well calculated to reassure a startled evildoer. " In this matter I am anxious to treat you as a gentleman. Allans, done! Hurry off instantly, and tell Simmonds to bring the Du Vallon here. Leave me to explain everything to Miss Vanrenen. Surely you agree that she ought to be spared the unpleasantness of a wrangle or, shall we say, an exposure? You see," he continued with a trifle more animation, and speaking in French, " the game is not worth the candle. In a few hours, at the least, you will be in the hands of the police, whereas, by reaching London to-night, you may be able to pacify the Earl of Fairholme. I can help, perhaps. I will say all that is possible, and my testimony ought to carry some weight." Medenham was thoroughly mystified. That the Frenchman was not yet aware of his identity was now clear enough, though, with Devar's probable duplicity still running in his mind, he could not solve the puzzle presented by this vaunted half-knowl- edge. 145 Cynthia s Chauffeur Again the other attributed his perplexity to any- thing except its real cause. " I am willing to befriend you," he urged em- phatically. " You have acted foolishly, but not criminally, I hope. In your anxiety to help a col- league you forgot the fine distinction which the law draws between meum and tuum " " No," said Medenham, turning to the porter. " Put the larger box on the carrier, and strap the other on top of it the locks outwards. Then you will find that they fit exactly." " Don't be a headstrong idiot," muttered the Count, with a certain heat of annoyance making it- self felt in his patronizing tone. " Miss Vanrenen will come out at any minute " Medenham glanced at the clock by the side of the speed indicator. " Miss Vanrenen is due now unless she is being purposely detained by Mrs. Devar," he commented dryly. " But why persist in this piece of folly? " growled Marigny, to whose reluctant consciousness the idea of failure suddenly presented itself. " You must realize by this time that I know who owns your car. A telegram from me will put the authorities on your track, your arrest will follow, and Miss Vanrenen will be subjected to the gravest inconvenience. Sacre nom d'un pipe! If you will not yield to fair means I must resort to foul. It comes to this you either quit Bristol at once or I inform 146 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line Miss Vanrenen of the trick you have played on her." Medenhara turned and picked up from the seat the pair of stout driving-gloves which had caught Smith's inquiring eye by reason of their quality and substance. He drew on the right-hand glove, and buttoned it. When he answered, he spoke with ir- ritating slowness. " Would it not be better for all concerned that the lady in whose behalf you profess to be so deeply moved should be permitted to continue her tour with- out further disturbance? You and I can meet in London, monsieur, and I shall then have much pleas- ure in convincing you that I am a most peaceable and law-abiding person." " No," came the angry retort. " I have decided. I withdraw my offer to overlook your offense. At whatever cost, Miss Vanrenen must be protected until her father learns how his wishes have been disre- garded by a couple of English bandits." " Sorry," said Medenham coolly. He alighted in the roadway, as the driving seat was near the curb. A glance into the vestibule of the hotel revealed Cynthia, in motor coat and veil, giving some instructions, probably with regard to letters, to a deferential hall-porter. Walking rap- idly round the front of the car, he caught Marigny's shoulder with his left hand. " If you dare to open your mouth in Miss Van- renen's presence, other than by way of some cora- 147 Cynthia s Chauffeur monplace remark, I shall forthwith smash your face to a jelly," he said. A queer shiver ran through the Frenchman's body, but Medenham did not commit the error of imagin- ing that his adversary was afraid. His grip on Marigny's shoulder tightened. The two were now not twelve inches apart, and the Englishman read that involuntary tension of the muscles aright, for there is a palsy of rage as of fear. " I have some acquaintance with the savate," he said suavely. " Please take my word for it, and you will be spared an injury. A moment ago you offered to treat me like a gentleman. I reciprocate now by being willing to accept your promise to hold your tongue. Miss Vanrenen is coming. . . . What say you ? " " I agree," said Marigny, though his dark eyes blazed redly. " Ah, thanks ! " and Medenham's left hand busied itself once more with the fastening of the glove. " You understand, of course? " he heard, in a soft snarl. " Perfectly. The truce ends with my departure. Meanwhile, you are acting wisely. I don't suppose I shall ever respect you so much again." " Now, you two what are you discussing? " cried Cynthia from the porch. " I hope you are not try- ing to persuade my chauffeur to yield his place to you, Monsieur Marigny. Once bitten, twice shy, you know, and I would insist on check- 148 "Now, you two what are you discussing ?" Pagt 14S Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line ing each mile by the map if you were at the wheel." " Your chauffeur is immovable, mademoiselle," was the ready answer, though the accompanying smile was not one of the Count's best efforts. " He looks it. Why are you vexed, Fitzroy ? Can't you forgive your friend Simmonds ? " Cynthia lifted those demure blue eyes of hers, and held Medenham's gaze steadfast. " I trust you are not challenging contradiction, Miss Vanrenen? " he said, with deliberate resolve not to let her slip back thus easily into the role of gra- cious employer. She did not flinch, but her eyebrows arched a little. " Oh, no," she said offhandedly. " Simmonds told me his misfortunes last night, and I assumed that you and he had settled matters satisfactorily between you." " As for that," broke in the Count, " I have just offered my car as a substitute, but Fitzroy prefers to take you as far as Hereford, at any cost." " Hereford ! I understood from Simmonds that Mr. Fitzroy would see us through the remainder of the tour? " " Monsieur Marigny is somewhat vague in our island topography: you saw that last evening," said Medenham. He smiled. Cynthia, too, glanced from one to the other with a frank merriment that showed how 149 Cynthia s Chauffeur fully she appreciated their mutual dislike. As for Marigny, his white teeth gleamed now in a sarcastic grin. " Adversity is a strict master," he said, lapsing into his own language again. " My blunder of yes- terday has shown me the need of caution, so I go no farther than Hereford in my thoughts." " It is more to the point to tell us how far you are going in your car," cried the girl lightly. " I, too, hope to be in Hereford to-night. Mrs. Devar says you mean to spend Sunday there. If that is a fixed thing, and you can bear with me for a few hours, I shall meet you there without fail." " Come, by all means, if your road lies that way ; but don't let us make formal engagements. I love to think that I am drifting at will through this land of gardens and apple blossom. And, just think of it three cathedrals in one day a Minster for break- fast, lunch, and dinner, with Tintern Abbey thrown in for afternoon tea. Such a wealth of medievalism makes my head reel. ... I was in there for mat- ins," and she nodded to the grave old pile rearing its massive Gothic within a few paces of the hotel. " At high noon we shall visit Gloucester, and to- night we shall see Hereford. All that within a short hundred miles, to say nothing of Chepstow, Mon- mouth, the Wye Valley! Ah, me! I shall never overtake my correspondence while there are so many glories to describe. See, I have bought some darling little guidebooks which tell you just what to say 150 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line in a letter. What between judicious extracts and a sheaf of picture postcards scribbled at each place I'll try and keep my friends in good humor." She produced from a pocket three of the red- covered volumes so familiar to Americans in Britain and to Britons themselves, for that matter, when the belated discovery is made that it is not necessary to cross the Channel in order to enjoy a holiday and showed them laughingly to Medenham. " Now," she cried, " I am armed against you. No longer will you be able to paralyze me with your learning. If you say 1269 at Tintern I shall retort with 1387 at Monmouth. When you point out Nell Gwynne's birthplace in Hereford, I shall take you to the Haven Inn, where David Garrick was born, and, if you aren't very, very good, I shall tell you how much the New Town Hall cost, and who laid the foundation stone." Medenham alone held the key to the girl's lively mood, and it was a novel and quite delightful sen- sation to be thus admitted to the inner shrine of her emotions, as it were. She was chattering at random in order to smooth away the awkwardness of meeting him after that whispered indiscretion at their parting over-night. Here, at least, Marigny was hopelessly at sea desoriente, as he would have put it because he could not possibly know that Cynthia herself had counseled the disappearance of Simmonds. Indeed, he attributed her high spirits 151 Cynthia's Chauffeur to mere politeness to her wish that he should believe she had forgotten the fiasco on the Mendips. This imagined salving of his wounded vanity served only to inflame him the more against Medenham. He was still afire with resentment, since no French- man can understand the rude Saxon usage that en- forces submission under a threat of physical violence. That a man should be ready to defend his honor to convince an opponent by endeavoring to kill him yes, he accepted without cavil those tenets of the French social code. But the brutal British fixity of purpose displayed by this truculent chauffeur left him gasping with indignation. He was quite sure that the man meant exactly what he had said. He felt that any real departure from the compact wrung from him by force would prove disastrous to his personal appearance, and he was sensible of a cer- tain weighing underlook in the Englishman's eyes when his seemingly harmless chatter hinted at a change of existing plans as soon as Hereford was reached. But that was a mere feint, a preliminary flourish, such as a practiced swordsman executes in empty air before saluting his opponent. He had not the slightest intention of testing Medenham's pugilistic powers just then. The reasonable probability of having his chief features beaten to a pulp was not inviting, while the crude efficacy of the notion, in its influence on Miss Vanrenen's affairs, was not the least stupefying element in a difficult and wholly 152 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line unforeseen situation. He realized fully that any- thing in the nature of a scuffle would alienate the girl's sympathies forever, no matter how strong a case for interference he might present afterwards. The chauffeur would be dismissed on the spot, but with the offender would go his own prospect of win- ning the heiress to the Vanrenen millions. So Count Edouard swallowed his spleen, though the requisite effort must have dissipated some of his natural shrewdness, or he could not have failed to read more correctly the tokens of embarrassment given by Cynthia's heightened color, by her eager vivacity, by her breathless anxiety not to discuss the substitution of one driver for the other. Medenham was about to disclaim any intention of measuring his lore against that in the guidebooks when Mrs. Devar bustled out. " Awfully sorry," she began, " but I had to wire James " Her eyes fell on Medenham and the Mercury. Momentarily rendered speechless, she rallied bravely. " I thought, from what Count Edouard said " " Miss Vanrenen has lost faith in me, even in my beautiful automobile," broke in Marigny with a quickness that spoiled a pathetic glance meant for Cynthia. The American girl, however, was weary of the fog of innuendo and hidden purpose that seemed to be an appanage of the Frenchman and his car. " For goodness' sake," she cried, " let us regard 153 Cynthia's Chauffeur it as a settled thing that Fitzroy takes Simmonds's place until we reach London again. Surely we have the best of the bargain. If the two men are satis- fied why should we have anything to say against it ? " Cynthia was her father's daughter, and the attri- bute of personal dominance that in the man's case had proved so effective in dealing with Milwaukees now made itself felt in the minor question of " trans- portation " presented by Medenham and his motor. Her blue eyes hardened, and a firm note rang in her voice. Nor did Medenham help to smooth the path for Mrs. Devar by saying quietly : " In the meantime, Miss Vanrenen, the information stored in those little red books is growing rusty." She settled the dispute at once by asking her companion which side of the car she preferred, and the other woman was compelled to say graciously that she really had no choice in the matter, but, to avoid further delay, would take the left-hand seat. Cynthia followed, and Medenham, still ready to deal harshly with Marigny if necessary, adjusted their rugs, saw to the safe disposal of the camera, and closed the door. At that instant, the hall-porter hurried down the steps. " Beg pardon, mum," he said to Mrs. Devar, thrusting an open telegram between Medenham and Cynthia, " but there's one word here " She snatched the form angrily from his out- stretched hand. 154 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line " Which one? " she asked. " The word after " " Come round this side. You are incommoding Miss Vanrenen." The man obeyed. With the curious fatality which attends such incidents, even among well-bred people, not a word was spoken by any of the others. To all seeming, Mrs. Devar's cramped handwriting might have concealed some secret of gravest import to each person present. It was not really so thrilling when heard. " That is * Raven,' plain enough I should think," she snapped. " Thank you, mum. ' The Raven, Shrewsbury,' ' ! read the hall-porter. Medenham caught Marigny's eye. He was minded to laugh outright, but forebore. Then he sprang into his seat, and the car curled in quick semicircle and climbed the hill to the left, while the Frenchman, surprised by this rapid movement, signaled franti- cally to Mrs. Devar, nodding farewell, that they had taken the wrong road. " Not at all," explained Medenham. " I want you to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which is a hundred feet higher in the air than the Brooklyn Bridge." " I'm sure it isn't," cried Cynthia indignantly. " The next thing you will tell me is that the Thames is wider than the Hudson." " So it is, at an equal distance from the sea." 155 Cynthia's Chaufeur " Well, trot out your bridge. Seeing is believing, all the time." But Cynthia had yet to learn the exceeding wisdom of Ezekiel when he wrote of those " which have eyes to see, and see not," for never was optical delusion better contrived than the height above water level of the fairylike structure that spans the Avon below Bristol. The reason is not far to seek. The mind is not prepared for the imminence of the swaying roadway that leaps from side to side of that tremen- dous gorge. On either crest are pleasant gardens, pretty houses, tree-shaded paths, and the opposing precipices are so prompt in their sheer fall that the eye insensibly rests on the upper level and refuses to dwell on the river far beneath. So Cynthia was charmed but not convinced, and Medenham himself could scarce believe his recollection that the tops of the towers of the far larger bridge at Brooklyn would be only twenty-six feet higher than the roadway at Clifton. Mrs. Devar, of course, showed an utter lack of interest in the debate. In- deed, she refused emphatically to walk to the middle of the bridge, on the plea of light-headedness, and Cynthia instantly availed herself of the few minutes' tete-a-tete thus vouchsafed. " Now," said she, looking, not at Medenham, but at the Titanic cleft cut by a tiny river, " now, please, tell me all about it." " Just as at Cheddar, the rocks are limestone " he began. 156 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line " Oh, bother the rocks ! How did you get rid of Simmonds ? And why is Count Marigny mad ? And are you mixed up in Captain Devar's mighty smart change of base? Tell me everything. I hate mys- teries. If we go on at the present rate some of us will soon be wearing masks and cloaks, and stamping our feet, and saying * Ha ! Ha ! ' or ' Sdeath ! ' or something equally absurd." " Simmonds is a victim of science. If the earth wire of a magneto makes a metallic contact there is trouble in the cylinders, so Simmonds is switched off until he can locate the fault." " The work of a minute." " It will take him five days at least." Then Cynthia did flash an amused glance at him, but he was watching a small steamer puffing against the tide, arid his face was adamant. " Go on," she cried quizzically. " What's the matter with the Count's cylinders ? " " He professed to believe that I had stolen some- body's car, and graciously undertook to shield me if I would consent to run away at once, leaving you and Mrs. Devar to finish your tour in the Du Vallon." " And you refused? " " Yes." "What did he say?" " Very little ; he agreed." " But he is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to the smiter." 157 Cynthia's Chauffeur " I didn't smite him," Medenham blurted out. Cynthia fastened on to the hesitating denial with the hawklike pounce of some barrister famous for merciless cross-examination of a hostile witness. " Did you offer to ? " she asked. "We dealt with possible eventualities," he said weakly. " I knew it. ... There was such a funny look in your eyes when I first saw you. ..." " Funny is the right word. The crisis was rather humorous." " Poor man, he only wished to be civil, perhaps I mean, that is, in lending his car ; and he may really have thought you you were not a chauffeur like Simmonds, or Smith, for example. You wouldn't have hit him, of course? " " I sincerely hope not." She caught her breath and peered at him again, and there was a light in her eyes that would have infuriated Marigny had he seen it. It was well, too, that Medenham's head was averted, since he simply dared not meet her frankly inquisitive gaze. " You know that such a thing would be horrid for me for all of us," she persisted. " Yes," he said, " I feel that very keenly. Thank goodness, the Frenchman felt it also." Cynthia thought fit to skip to the third item in her list. " Now as to Captain Devar ? " she cried. " His mother is dreadfully annoyed. She hates dull even- 158 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line ings, and the four of us were to play bridge to-night at Hereford. Why was he sent away ? " " Sent away ? " echoed Medenham in mock amaze- ment. " Oh, come, you knew him quite well. You said so in London. I am not exactly the silly young thing I look, Mr. Fitzroy, and Count Marigny's coincidences are a trifle far-fetched. Both he and Captain Devar fully understood what they were do- ing when they arranged to meet in Bristol, and some- body must have fired a very big gun quite close to the fat little man that he should be scared off the instant he set eyes on me." Then Medenham resolved to end a catechism that opened up illimitable vistas, for he did not want to lose Cynthia just yet, and there was no knowing what she might do if she suspected the truth. Al- though, if the situation were strictly dissected, Mrs. Devar's chaperonage was as useful to him as the lady herself intended it to be to Marigny, there was a vital difference between the two sets of circum- stances. He had been pitchforked by fate into the company of a charming girl whom he was learning to love as he had never loved woman before, whereas the members of the money-hunting gang whose scheme he had accidentally overheard at Brighton were engaged in a deliberate intrigue, outlined in Paris as soon as Mr. Vanrenen planned the motor tour for his daughter, and perfected during Cynthia's brief stay in London. 159 Cynthia's Chauffeur So he appealed for her forbearance on a plea that he imagined was sure to succeed. " I don't wish to conceal from you that Captain Devar and I have fallen out in the past," he said. " But I am genuinely sorry for his mother, who cer- tainly does not know what a rascal he is. Don't ask me for further details now, Miss Vanrenen. He will not cross your path in the near future, and I promise to tell you the whole story long before there is any chance of your meeting him again." For some reason, deep hidden yet delicately dis- tinct, Cynthia extracted a good deal more from that simple speech than the mere words implied. The air of the downs was peculiarly fresh and strong in the center of the bridge, a fact which probably ac- counted for the vivid color that lit her face and added luster to her bright eyes. At any rate, she dropped the conversation suddenly. " Mrs. Devar will be growing quite impatient," she said, with an admirable assumption of ease, " and I want to bu} r some pictures of this pretty toy bridge of yours. What a pity the light is altogether wrong for a snapshot, and it is so stupid to use films when one knows that the sun is in the camera ! " Whereat Medenham breathed freely again, while thanking the gods for the delightfully effective re- sources that every woman even a candid, outspoken Cynthia has at her fingers' ends. The simplest means of reaching the Gloucester road was to run back past the hotel, but the goddess 160 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line of happy chance elected, for her own purposes, that Medenham should ask a policeman to direct him to Cabot's Tower, and, the man having the brain of a surveyor, he was sent through by-streets that saved a few yards, perhaps, but cost him many minutes in stopping to inquire the way. Hence, he missed an amazing sight. The merest glimpse of Count Edou- ard Marigny's new acquaintance would surely have pulled him up, if it did not put an end to the tour forthwith. But that was not to be. Blissfully un- conscious of the fact that the Frenchman was eagerly explaining to a dignified yet strangely perturbed old gentleman that the car Number X L 4000 contain- ing a young American lady and her friend, and driven by a conceited puppy of a chauffeur who suffered badly from tete montee had just gone up the hill to the left, Medenham at last reached the open road, and the Mercury leaped forward as if Gloucester would hardly wait till it arrived there. The old gentleman had only that minute alighted from a station cab, and a question he addressed to the hall-porter led that civil functionary to refer him to Marigny " as a friend of the parties concerned." But the newcomer drew himself up somewhat stiffly when the foreign personage spoke of Medenham as a "puppy." " Before our conversation proceeds any farther I think I ought to tell you that I am the Earl of Fairholme and that Viscount Medenham is my son," he said. 161 Cynthia's Chauffeur Marigny looked so blank at this that the Earl's explanation took fresh shape. " I mean," he went on, perceiving that his hearer was none the wiser, " I mean that the chauffeur you allude to is Viscount Medenham." Marigny, though born on the banks of the Loire, was a Southern Frenchman by descent, and the hereditary tint of olive in his skin became prominent only when his emotions were aroused. Now the pink and white of his complexion was tinged with yellow- ish-green. Never before in his life had he been quite so surprised never. " He he said his name was Fitzroy," was all he could gasp. " So it is the dog. Took the family name and dropped his title in order to go gallivanting about the country with this young person . . . An Amer- ican, I am told and with that detestable creature, Mrs. Devar ! Nice thing ! No wonder Lady Porth- cawl was shocked. May I ask, sir, who you are?" Lord Fairholme was very angry, and not without good reason. He had traveled from London at an absurdly early hour in response to the urgent repre- sentations of Susan, Lady St. Maur, to whom her intimate friend, Millicent Porthcawl, had written a thrilling account of the goings-on at Bournemouth. It happened that the Countess of Porthcawl's bed- room overlooked the carriage-way in front of the Royal Bath Hotel, and, when she recovered from 162 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line the stupor of recognizing Medenham in the chauffeur of the Vanrenen equipage, she gratified her spite by sending a lively and wholly distorted version of the tour to his aunt. The letter reached Curzon Street during the after- noon, and exercised a remarkably restorative effect on the now convalescent lover of forced strawberries. Lady St. Maur ordered her carriage, and was driven in a jiffy to the Fairholme mansion in Cavendish Square, where she and her brother indulged in the most lugubrious opinions as to the future of " poor George." They assumed that he would fall an easy prey to the wiles of a "designing American." Neither of them had met many citizens of the United States, and each shared to the fullest extent the common British dislike of every person and every thing that is new and strange, so they had visions of a Countess of Fairholme who would speak in the weird tongue of Chicago, whose name would be " Mamie," who would call the earl " poppa number two," and prefix every utterance with " Say," or " My land ! " Both brother and sister had laughed many a time at the stage version of a Briton as presented in Paris, but they forgot that the average Englishman's con- ception of the average American is equally ludicrous in its blunders. In devising means " to save George " they flew into a panic. Lady St. Maur telegraphed a frantic appeal to Lady Porthcawl for information, but " dear Millicent " took thought, saw that she was already sufficiently committed, and caused her maid 163 Cynthia's Chauffeur to reply that she had left Bournemouth for the week- end. A telegram to the hotel manager produced more definite news. Cynthia, providing against the re- ceipt of any urgent message from her father, had given the College Green Hotel as her address for the night; but this intelligence arrived too late to permit of the Earl's departure till next morning. Lady Porthcawl's hint that the " devoted George was traveling incognito " prevented the use of wire or post. If the infatuated viscount were to be brought to reason there was nothing for it but that the Earl should hurry to Bristol by an early train next morning. He did hurry, and arrived five min- utes too late. Marigny, of course, saw that lightning had darted from a summer sky. If the despised chauffeur had proved such a tough opponent, what would happen now that he turned out to be a sprig of the aristoc- racy? He guessed at once that the Earl of Fair- holme appraised Cynthia Vanrenen by the Devar standard. He knew that five minutes in Cynthia's company would alter this doughty old gentleman's views so greatly that his present fury would give place to idolatry. No matter what the cost, they two must not meet, and it was very evident that if Hereford were mentioned as the night's rendezvous, the Earl would proceed there by the next train. What was to be done? He decided promptly. Lifting his hat, and offering Lord Fairholme his 164 Wherein Cynthia Takes Her Own Line card, he made up his mind to lie, and lie speciously, with circumstantial detail and convincing knowledge. " I happened to meet the Vanrenens in Paris," he said. " Business brought me here, and I was sur- prised to see Miss Vanrenen without her father. You will pardon my reference to your son, I am sure. His attitude is explicable now. He resented my offer of friendly assistance to the young lady. Perhaps he thought she might avail herself of it." " Assistance? What is the matter? " " She had arranged for a car to meet her here. As it was not forthcoming, she altered her plans for a tour of Oxford, Kenilworth, and Warwick, and has gone in Viscount Viscount " " Medenham's." " Ah, yes I did not catch the name precisely in your son's car to London." By this time Lord Fairholme had ascertained the Frenchman's description, and he was sufficiently well acquainted with the Valley of the Loire to recollect the Chateau Marigny as a house of some importance. " I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Comte, if I seemed to speak brusquely at first," he said, " but we all appear to be mixed up in a comedy of errors. I remember now that my son telegraphed from Brigh- ton to say that he would return to-day. Perhaps my journey from town was unnecessary, and he may be only engaged in some harmless escapade that is now nearing its end. I am very much obliged to you, and er -I hope you will call when next you are 165 Cynthia's Chauffeur in London. You know my name my place is in Cavendish Square. Good-day." So Marigny was left a second time on the steps of the hotel, while the cab which brought the Earl of Fairholme from the railway station took him back to it. The Du Vallon came panting from the garage, but the Frenchman sent it away again. Hereford was no great distance by the direct road, and he had already determined not to follow the tortuous route devised by Cynthia for the day's run. More- over, he must now reconsider his schemes. The long telegrams which he had just dispatched to Devar in London and to Peter Vanrenen in Paris might de- mand supplements. And to think of that accursed chauffeur being a viscount! His gorge rose at that. The thought almost choked him. It was well that the hall-porter did not understand French, or the words that were muttered by Marigny as he turned on his heel and re-entered the hotel might have shocked him. And, indeed, they were most unsuited for the ears of a hall-porter who dwelt next door to a cathedral. 166 CHAPTER VIH BREAKERS AHEAD THE Earl's title-borrowing from Shakespeare was certainly justified by current events, for Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, to say nothing of their masters, were no bad prototypes of the chief actors in this Bristol comedy. Simmonds, not knowing who might have it in mind to investigate the latest defect in his car, decided it would be wise to disappear until Viscount Meden- ham was well quit of Bristol. By arrangement with Dale, therefore, he picked up the latter soon after the Mercury was turned over to Medenham's hands ; in effect, the one chauffeur took the other on a 'bus- driver's holiday. Dale was free until two o'clock. At that hour he would depart for Hereford and meet his master, with arrangements made for the night as usual; meanwhile, the day's programme in- cluded a pleasant little run to Bath and back. It was a morning that tempted to the road, but both men had risen early, and a pint of bitter seemed to be an almost indispensable preliminary. From Bristol to Bath is no distance to speak of, so a slight 167 Cynthia s Chauffeur dallying over the beer led to an exchange of recent news. Dale, it will be remembered, was of sporting bent, and he told Simmonds gleefully of his successful bet at Epsom. " Five golden quidlets his lordship shoved into me fist at Brighton," he chortled. " Have you met Smith, who is lookin' after the Frenchman's Du Val- lon? No? Well, he was there, an' his goggles nearly cracked when he sawr the money paid two points over the market price, an' all." " Sometimes one spots a winner by chanst," ob- served Simmonds judicially. "An' that reminds me. Last night a fella tole me there was a good thing at Kempton to-day. . . . Now, what was it ? " Dale instantly became a lexicon of weird-sounding words, for the British turf is exceedingly democratic in its pronunciation of the classical and foreign names frequently given to racehorses. His stock of racing lore was eked out by reference to a local paper; still Simmonds scratched an uncertain pate. " Pity, too ! " he said at last. " This chap had it from his nevvy, who married the sister of a house- maid at Beckhampton." Dale whistled. Here was news, indeed. Beck- hampton ! the home of " good things.'* "Is that where it comes from?" " Yes. Something real hot over a mile." " Can't you think? Let's look again at the en- tries." 168 Breakers Ahead " Wait a bit," cried Simmonds. " I've got it now. Second horse from the top of the column in to-mor- row's entries in yesterday's Sportsman" Dale understood exactly what the other man meant, and, so long as he understood, the fact may suffice for the rest of the world. " Tell you wot," he suggested eagerly, " when you're ready we'll just run to the station an' arsk the bookstall people for yesterday's paper." The inquiry, the search, the triumphant discovery, the telegraphing of the " information " and a sov- ereign to Tomkinson in Cavendish Square " five bob each way " for each of the two all these things took time, and time was very precious to Dale just then. Unhappily, time is often mute as to its value, and Bath is really quite close to Bristol. The choice secret of the Beckhampton stable was safely launched in its speculative element, at any rate and Dale was about to seat himself beside Sim- monds, when an astonished and somewhat irate old gentleman hooked the handle of an umbrella into his collar and shouted: " Confound you, Dale ! What are you doing here, and where is your master? " Dale's tanned face grew pale, his ears and eyes assumed the semblance of a scared rabbit's, and the power of speech positively failed him. " Do you hear me, Dale ? " cried the Earl, that instant alighted from a cab. " I am asking you 169 Cynthia s Chauffeur where Viscount Medenham is. If he has gone to town, why have you remained in Bristol? " " But his lordship hasn't gone to London, my lord," stuttered Dale, finding his voice at last, and far too flustered to collect his wits, though he realized in a dazed way that it was his duty to act exactly as Viscount Medenham would wish him to act in such trying circumstances. And, indeed, many very clever people might have found themselves sinking in some such unexpected quicksand and be not one whit less bemused than the miserable chauffeur. Morally, he had given the only possible answer that left open a way of escape, and he had formed a sufficiently shrewd estimate of the relations between his master and the remarkably good-looking young lady whom the said master was serving with exemplary diligence to fear dire con- sequences to himself if he became the direct cause of a broken idyl. The position was even worse if he fell back on an artistic lie. The Earl was a dour person where servants were concerned, and Salome did not demand John the Baptist's head on a salver with greater gusto than the autocrat of Fairholme would insist on Dale's dismissal when he discovered the facts. Talk of the horned dilemma here was an unfortunate asked to choose which bristle of a porcupine he would sit upon. The mere presence of his lordship in Bristol be- tokened a social atmosphere charged with electricity a phase of the problem that constituted the only 170 Breakers Ahead clear item in Dale's seething brain: it was too much for him; in sudden desperation he determined to stick to the plain truth. He had to elect very quickly, for the peppery- tempered Earl would not brook delay. " Not gone to London, you say? Then where the devil lias he gone to? A gentleman at the hotel, a French gentleman, who said he had met these these persons with whom my son is gadding about the country, told me that they had left Bristol this morning for London, because a car that was ex- pected to meet them here had broken down." Suddenly his lordship, a county magistrate noted for his sharpness, glanced at Simmonds. He marched round to the front of the car and saw that it was registered in London. He waved an accusing um- brella in air. " What car is this ? Is this the motor that won't go? It seems to have reached Bristol all right? Now, my men, I must have a candid tale from each of you, or the consequences may be most disagree- able. You, I presume," and he lunged en tierce at Simmonds, " have an employer of some sort, and I shall make it my business " " This is my own car, my lord," said Simmonds stiffly. He could be stubborn as any member of the Upper House when occasion served. " Your lord- ship needn't use any threats. Just ask me what you like an' I'll answer, if I can." Fairholme, by no means a hasty man in the ordi- 171 Cynthia's Chauffeur nary affairs of life, and only upset now by the un- foreseen annoyances of an unusually disquieting mis- sion, realized that he was losing caste. It was a novel experience to be rebuked by a chauffeur, but he had the sense to swallow his wrath. " Perhaps I ought to explain that I am particu- larly anxious to see Lord Medenham," he said more calmly. " I left London at eight o'clock this morn- ing, and it is most irritating to have missed him by a few minutes. I only wish to be assured as to his whereabouts, and, of course, I have no reason to believe that any sort of responsibility for my son's movements rests with you." " That's all right, my lord," said Simmonds. "" Viscount Medenham was very kind to me last Wednesday. I had a first-rate job, and was on my way to the Savoy Hotel to take it up, when a van ran into me an' smashed the transmission shaft. His lordship met me in Down Street, an' offered to run my two ladies to Epsom an' along the south coast for a day or two while I repaired damages. I was to turn up here an' here I am but it suited his arrangements better to go on with the tour, an' that is all there is to it. A bit of a joke, I call it." " Yes, my lord, that's hit hexactly," put in Dale, with a nervous eagerness that demanded the help of not less than two aspirates. The Earl managed to restrain another outburst. " Nothing to cavil at so far," he said with forced 172 Breakers Ahead composure. " The only point that remains is > | where is Lord Medenham now ? " " Somewhere between here an' Gloucester, my lord," said Simmonds. " Gloucester that is not on the way to London ! " No reply; neither man was willing to bell the cat. Finding Simmonds a tough customer, Fairholme tackled Dale. " Come, come, this is rather absurd," he cried. " Fancy my son's chauffeur jibbing at my questions! Once and for all, Dale, where shall I find Lord Meden- ham to-night? " There was no escape now. Dale had to blurt out the fatal word: " Hereford ! " " Are you sure ? " " Yes, my lord. I'm goin' there with his lord- ship's portmanteaux." The head of the Fitzroy clan turned to Simmonds again. " Will you drive me to Gloucester? " he asked. " No, my lord. I'm under contract to remain in Bristol five days." " Very well. Stop in Bristol, and be d d to you. Is there any reason why you should not take me to pick up my son's belongings? Then Dale and I can go to Hereford by train. Viscount Medenham is devilish particular about his linen. If I stick to his shirts I shall meet him sometime to-day, I sup- pose." 173 Cynthia s Chauffeur Simmonds sought Dale's counsel by an undertook, but that hapless sportsman could offer no suggestion, so the other made the best of a bad business. " I'll do that, of course, my lord," he said with alacrity. " Just grab his lordship's dressing-case from that porter and shove it inside," he went on, eying Dale fiercely, well knowing that the whole collapse arose from a cause but too easily traced. " No, no," broke in the Earl, whose magisterial experiences had taught him the wisdom of keeping witnesses apart, " Dale comes with me. I want to sift this business thoroughly. Put the case in front. We can pile the other luggage on top of it. Now, Dale, jump inside. Your friend knows where to go, I expect." Thus did two bizarre elements intrude themselves into the natural order of things on that fine morning in the West of England. The very shortness of the road between Bristol and Bath apparently offered an insuperable obstacle to the passage of Simmonds's car along it, and some unknown " chap," whose " nevvy " had married the sister of a Beckhampton housemaid, became the predominating factor in a situation that affected the fortunes of several notable people. For his part, Lord Fairholme gave no further thought to Marigny. It did not even occur to him it might be advisable to call again at the College Green Hotel, since Medenham had slept elsewhere, 174 Breakers Ahead and Hereford was now the goal. Certainly, the Frenchman's good fairy might have pushed her good offices to excess by permitting him to see, careering about Bristol with a pair of chauffeurs, the man whom he believed to be then on the way to London. But fairies are unreliable creatures, apt to be off with a hop, skip, and a jump, and, in any case, Marigny was writing explicit instructions to Devar, though he would have been far more profitably em- ployed in lounging outside the hotel. So everybody was dissatisfied, more or less, the quaking Dale more, perhaps, than any, and the per- son who had absolutely no shadow of care on his soul was Medenham himself, at that moment guiding the Mercury along the splendid highway that con- nects Bristol with Gloucester taking the run lei- surely, too, lest Cynthia should miss one fleeting glimpse of the ever-changing beauties of the Severn estuary. During one of these adagio movements by the engine, Cynthia, who had been consulting a guide- book, leaned forward with a smile on her face. " What is a lamprey ? " she asked. " A special variety of eel which has a habit of sticking to stones by its mouth," said Medenham. Then he added, after a pause : " Henry the First was sixty-seven years of age when he died, so the dish of lampreys was perhaps blamed unjustly." " You have a good memory," she retorted. " Oh, is that in your book, Miss Vanrenen ? Well, 175 Cynthia's Chauffeur here is another fact about Gloucester. Alfred the Great held a Witenagemot there in 896. Do you know what a Witenagemot is ? " " Yes," she said, " a smoking concert." Mrs. Devar invariably resented these bits of by- play, since she could no more extract their meaning than if they were uttered in Choctaw. " Some very good people live in Gloucestershire," she put in. " There are the " She began to give extracts from Burke's " Landed Gentry," where- upon the speedometer index sprang to forty-five, and a noble fifteenth century tower soon lifted its stone lacework above the trees and spires of the ancient city. Cynthia wished to obtain some photographs of old inns, so, when they had admired the cathedral, and shuddered at the memory of Richard the Third who wrote at Gloucester the order to Brackenbury for the murder of the princes in the Tower of Lon- don and smiled at Cromwell's mordant wit in saying that the place had more churches than godliness when told of the local proverb, " As sure as God's in Gloucester," Medenham brought them to North- gate Street, where the New Inn which is nearly always the most antiquated hostelry in an English country-town supplied a fine example of massive timberwork, with courtyard and external galleries. The light was so perfect that he persuaded Cynthia to stand in a doorway and let him take a picture. During the focusing interval, he suggested that the day's route should be varied by leaving the coast 176 Breakers Ahead road at Westbury and running through the Forest of Dean, where a secluded hotel in the midst of a real woodland would be an ideal place for luncheon. She agreed. Something in his tone told her that Mrs. Devar's consent to the arrangement had better be taken for granted. So they sped through the blossom-laden lanes of Gloucestershire to the leafy depths of the Forest, and saw the High Beeches, and the Old Beech, and the King's Walk, and many of the gorgeous vistas that those twin artists Spring and Summer etched on the wooded undulations of one of Britain's most delightful landscapes ; as a fitting sequel to a run through fairyland they lunched at the Speech House Hotel, where once the skins of daring trespassers on the King's preserves were wont to be nailed on the Court House door by the Verderers. It was Cynthia who pointed the moral. " There is always an ogre's cave near the En- chanted Garden," she said, " and those were surely ogerish days when men were flayed alive for hunting the King's deer." It is not to be wondered at if they dawdled some- what by the way, when that way led past Offa's Dyke, through Chepstow, and Tintern, and Mon- mouth, and Symon's Yat. Indeed, Cynthia's moods alternated between wide-eyed enjoyment and sheer re- gret, for each romantic ruin and charming country- side not only aroused her enthusiasm but evoked a longing to remain riveted to the spot. Yet she would 177 Cynthia's Chauffeur not be a woman if there were not exceptions to this rule, as shall be seen in due course. Mrs. Devar, perchance tempted by the word " Castle," quitted the car at Chepstow, and climbed to the nail-studded oak door of one of the most perfect examples of a Norman stronghold now ex- tant. Once committed to the role of sightseer, she was compelled to adhere to it, and before the fourth court was reached, had she known the story, she would have sympathized with the pilgrim who did not boil the peas in his shoes of penance. Chepstow Castle is a splendid ruin, but its steep gradients and rough pavements are not fitted for stout ladies who wear tight boots. To make matters worse, the feelings of Cynthia's chaperon soon became as sore as her toes. The only feature of Marten's Tower that appealed to her was its diabolical ingenuity in providing oppor- tunities for that interfering chauffeur to assist, al- most to lift, Cynthia from one mass of fallen masonry to another. Though she knew nothing of Henry Marten she reviled his memory. She heard " Fitz- roy " telling her wayward charge that the reformer really hated Charles I. because the King called him " an ugly rascal " in public, and directed that he should be turned out of Hyde Park; the words sup- plied a cue. " Pity kings are not as powerful nowadays," she snapped. " The presumption of the lower orders is becoming intolerable." 178 Breakers Ahead " Unfortunately, Marten retaliated by signing the King's death warrant," said Medenham. " Of course. What else could one expect from a person of his class? " " But Sir Henry Marten was a celebrated judge, and the son of a baronet, and he married a rich widow these are not the prevalent democratic vices," persisted Medenham. " You must have sat up half the night reading the guidebook," she cried in vexation at her blunder. Cynthia laughed so cheerfully that Mrs. Devar thought she had scored. Medenham left it at that, and was content. Both he and Cynthia knew that lack of space forbade indulgence in such minor de- tails of history on the part of the book's compiler. Another little incident heated Mrs. Devar to boil- ing-point. Cynthia more than once hinted that, if tired, she might wait for them in the lowermost court, where a fine tree spread its shade over some benches, but the older woman persisted in visiting every dun- geon and scrambling up every broken stair. The girl took several photographs, and had reached the last film in a roll, when the whim seized her to pose Medenham in front of a Norman arch. " You look rather like a baron," she said glee- fully. " I wish I could borrow some armor and take you in character as the gentleman who built this castle. By the way, his name was Fitz-some- thing-or-other. Was he a relation ? " " Fitz Osborne," said Medenham. 179 Cynthia's Chauffeur " Ah, yes. Fitzroy means King's son, doesn't it? " " I er believe so." " Well, I can imagine you scowling out of a vizor. It would suit you admirably." " But I might not scowl." " Oh, yes, you would. Remember this morning. Just force yourself to think for a moment that I am Monsieur " She stopped abruptly. " A little more to the left, please and turn your face to the sun. There, that is capital." " Why should Fitzroy scowl at the recollection of Count Edouard ? " demanded Mrs. Devar, her eyes devouring the telltale blush that suffused the girl's face and neck. " Only because the Count wished to supplant him, as our chauffeur," came the ready answer. " I thought Monsieur Marigny's offer a very cour- teous one." " Undoubtedly. But as I had to decide the matter I preferred to travel in a car that was at my own disposal." Mrs. Devar dared not go farther. She relapsed into a sulky silence. She said not a word when Cynthia occupied the front seat for the climb through Chepstow's High Street, and when the girl turned to call her attention to the view from the crest of the famous Wyndcliff she was nodding asleep ! Cynthia told Medenham, and there was a touch of regret in her voice. 180 Breakers Ahead " Poor dear," she said in an undertone, " the Castle was too much for her, and the fresh air has made her drowsy." He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and instantly made up his mind to broach a project that he had thought out carefully since his quarrel with the Frenchman. " You mean to stay in Hereford during the whole of to-morrow, Miss Vanrenen? " he asked. " Yes. Somehow, I don't see myself scampering across the map on the British Sabbath. Besides, I am all behindhand with my letters, and my father will be telegraphing something emphatic if I don't go beyond ' Much love ' on a picture postcard." " Symon's Yat is exceptionally beautiful, and there is a capital little hotel there. The Wye runs past the front door, the boating is superb, and there will be a brilliant moon after dinner." " And the answer is ? " " That we could run into Hereford before break- fast, leaving you plenty of time to attend the morn- ing service at the cathedral." Cynthia did not look at him or she would have seen that he was rather baronial in aspect just then. Sad to relate, they were speeding down the Wynd- cliff gorge without giving it the undisturbed notice it merited. " I have a kind of notion that Mrs. Devar wouldn't catch on to the boating proposition," she said thoughtfully. 181 Cynthias Chauffeur " Perhaps not, but the river takes a wide bend there, and she could see us from the hotel veranda all the time." " Guess it can't be fixed up, anyhow," she sighed. Twice had she lapsed into the idioms of her native land. What, then, was the matter with Cynthia that she had forgotten her self-imposed resolution to speak only in that purer English which is quite as highly appreciated in New York as in London? It was Saturday afternoon, and they overtook and passed a break-load of beanfeasters going to Tin- tern. There is no mob so cruelly sarcastic as the British, and it may be that the revelers in the break envied the dusty chauffeur his pretty companion. At any rate, they greeted the passing of the car with jeers and cat-calls, and awoke Mrs. Devar. It is a weakness of human nature to endeavor to conceal the fact that you have been asleep when you are supposed to be awake, so she leaned forward now, and asked nonchalantly :