"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 choosing her words quite happily. Mrs. Devar, still sugary, ended the sentence.
"In fact, it was he who recommended me to Mr. Vanrenen as your chaperon. Yes, my dear, Monsieur 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 pleasing 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 G.o.ds 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 have never before visited this part of England."
"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 geographically. 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 afterwards."
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 unknown Frenchman with a suspicion that was already active enough so far as Mrs. Devar was concerned. And the Marchioness of Belfort, too! A decrepit old cadger with an infallible system for roulette!
Perhaps his mood communicated itself to the accelerator. At any rate, the Mercury seemed to sympathize, 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 Suss.e.x, the undulating parklands on both sides of the smooth highway appearing to float past in stately procession, 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 shoulder.
"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 b.u.t.ter from a plate deposited on the bonnet by a waiting-maid.
When the ladies reappeared from the interior of 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 millionaire"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 almost interpreted his unspoken thought. She watched his deft manipulation of levers and brakes, and fancied that his hands dwelt on the steering-wheel with a caress.
"You have a real lovely automobile, Fitzroy," 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 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 perceptibly.
"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 overwhelming force.
"I am very much obliged to you, Miss Vanrenen," he said, venturing to look once more into those alluring eyes, so shy, so daring, so divinely wise and childishly candid. "If circ.u.mstances 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 chauffeurs who lauded it in such phrases.
Up and down Handcross Hill they whirred, treating that respectable eminence as if it were a snow b.u.mp 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 d.y.k.e, 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 d.y.k.e.
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 expatiate on the beauties of Suss.e.x, 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 circ.u.mspect as though it had just quitted the garage.
"Mrs. Devar, Miss Vanrenen! what a delightful surprise!" cried the stranger with an accompaniment of wide smiles and hat flourishing.
"Who would have thought of meeting you here? _Voyez_, _donc_, I was moping in solitude when suddenly the sky opens and you appear."
"_Deae ex machina_, 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 Edouard," 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.