by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER III
SOME EMOTIONS--WITHOUT A MORAL
Not until he was dressing, and the contents of his pockets were spreadon a table, did Medenham remember Dale's commission. It was quitetrue, as he told Mrs. Devar, that he had backed Vendetta for a smallstake on his own account. But that was an afterthought, and the betwas made with another bookmaker at reduced odds. Altogether, includingthe few sovereigns in his possession at the beginning of the day, hecounted nearly fifty pounds in gold, an exceptionally large amount tobe carried in England, where considerations of weight alone renderbanknotes preferable.
He slipped Dale's money into an envelope, and took thirty pounds to beexchanged for notes by the hotel's cashier. At the same time he wrotea telegram to his father, destroying two drafts before he evolvedsomething that left his story untold while quieting any scruples as tolack of candor. It was not that the Earl would resent his unexpecteddisappearance after nearly four years' absence from home, becausefather and son had met in South Africa during the war, and weretogether in Cannes and Paris subsequently. His difficulty was toexplain this freak journey satisfactorily. The Earl of Fairholme heldfeudal views anent the place occupied in the world by the Britisharistocracy. His own hot youth was crowded with episodes that Medenhammight regard with disdain, yet he would be shocked out of his well-fedcynicism by the notion that his son was gallivanting round the countryas the chauffeur of an unconventional American girl and a middle-agedharpy 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, perhaps earlier. GEORGE.
Of course, he meant to fill in details verbally. It was possible inconversation to impart a jesting turn to an adventure which would beunconvincing and ambiguous in the bald phrases of a telegram.
Then he dined, filled a cigarette case from the box of Salonikas whichTomkinson had not omitted to pack with his clothes, and strolled out,bare-headed, to enrich Dale. He could trust his man absolutely, andwas quite sure that the Mercury would then be in the drying stageafter a thorough cleaning. Thus far he was justified, but he had notcounted on the pride of the born mechanic. Though the car was housedfor the night, when he entered the garage the hood was off, and Dalewas annoying two brothers of the craft by explaining the superiorityof _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? Canyou break 'em, can you warp 'em, can you pit 'em? D'ye twig how themixture reaches the cylinder? None of your shoulders or kinks to chokeit up--is there?--and the same with the exhaust. Would you ever have amushroom valve again after you've once cast your peepers over thisarrangement? Now, if I took up areonotting--if _I_ wanted to fly theChannel----"
He stopped abruptly, having seen his master standing in the opendoorway.
"By gad, Dale," cried Medenham, "I have never heard your tonguewagging 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 businesselsewhere. They vanished. Dale thought it necessary to explain.
"One of them chaps has a new French car, my lord, and he was blowingso loudly about it that I had to take him down a peg or two."
Medenham grew interested. Like every keen motorist, he could "talkshop" at all times.
"What sort of car?"
"A 59 Du Vallon, my lord. It is the first of its class in England, andI 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 thatstartled 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 hisfeelings when really vexed, and it stood him in good stead now. Dale'sblunder was almost irreparable, yet he could not find it in his heartto blame the man for being an enthusiast.
"You have put me in a deuce of a fix," he said at last. "ThisFrenchman is acquainted with Miss Vanrenen. He knows she is here, andwill probably see her off in the morning. If his chauffeur recognizesthe car he will be sure to speak of it. That gives the whole showaway."
"I'm very sorry, my lord----"
"Dash it all, there you go again. But it is largely my own fault. Iought to have warned you, though I little expected this sort of amix-up. In future, Dale, while this trip lasts, you must forget mytitle. Look here, I have brought you your winnings over Eyot--can'tyou 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 'mylord'? If you have an opportunity, tell Count Marigny's man that yourjob is taken temporarily by a driver named Fitzroy. By the way, is thechauffeur a Frenchman, too?"
"No, my l----." Dale caught Medenham's eye, a very cold eye at thatinstant. "No, sir. He's just a fitter from the London agency."
"Well, we must trust to luck. He may not remember me in my chauffeur'skit, which is beastly uncomfortable, by the way. I must get you asummer rig. Here is your money--five to one I took. Don't lose sightof those two fellows, and spend this half sovereign on them. If youcan fill that chap with beer to-night he may have a head in themorning that will keep him in bed too late to cause any mischief. Whenwe meet in Bournemouth and Bristol, say nothing to anybody abouteither the car or me."
Dale was a model of sobriety, but the excitement of "fives" when helooked for "threes" was too much for him.
"I'll tank him all right, my l----, 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 athim. Without undue exaggeration, he craned his neck, rounded hisshoulders, and carried himself with the listless air of a Piccadillyidler. He reflected, too, that a bare-headed man in evening dresswould not readily be identified with a leather-coated chauffeur, andDale, he hoped, was sufficiently endowed with mother wit to frame astory plausible enough to account for his unforeseen appearance. Onthe whole, the position was not so bad as it seemed in that firstmoment when the owner of the 59 Du Vallon was revealed in the handsomeCount. In any event, what did it matter if his harmless subterfugewere revealed? The girl would surely laugh, while Mrs. Devar wouldsquirm. 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 unbrokensunshine. A marvelous amber light hovered beyond the level line of thesea to the west; an exquisite blue suffused the horizon from south toeast, deepening from sapphire to ultramarine as it blended with thesoft shadows of a summer's night. He found himself comparing the sky'ssoutheasterly tint with the azure depths of Cynthia Vanrenen's eyes,but he shook off that fantasy quickly, crossed the roadway andpromenade, and, propping himself against the railings, turned aresolute back on romance. He did not gain a great deal by thismaneuver, since his next active thought was centered in a species ofquest for the particular window among all those storeyed rows throughwhich Cynthia Vanrenen might even then be gazing at the shiningocean.
He looked at his watch. Half-past nine.
"I am behaving like a blithering idiot," he told himself. "MissVanrenen 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 wireSimmonds in the morning to hurry up."
A man descended the steps of the hotel and walked straight acrossKing's Road. A light gray overcoat, thrown wide on his shoulders, gavea lavish display of frilled shirt, and a gray Homburg hat was setrakishly on one side of his head. In the half light Medenham at oncediscerned the regular, wa
xen-skinned features of Count Marigny, andduring the next few seconds it really seemed as if the Frenchman weremaking directly for him. But another man, short, rotund, very erect offigure, and strutting in gait, came from the interior of a "shelter"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 acquaintancechuckled. The effort squeezed an eyeglass out of his right eye.
"Aie pas peur, mon vieux!" cried he in very colloquial French. "Mymother sent a note to say that the fair Cynthia has retired to herroom to write letters. I have been waiting here ten minutes."
Now, it chanced that Medenham's widespread touring in France hadrubbed up his knowledge of the language. It is ever the ear that needstraining more than the tongue, and in all likelihood he would not havecaught the exact meaning of the words were it not for the hap ofrecent familiarity with the accents of all sorts and conditions ofFrench-speaking folk.
"Jimmy Devar!" he breathed, and his amazement lost him Marigny'smuttered answer.
But he heard Devar's confident outburst as the two walked off togetherin the direction of the West Pier.
"You are growing positively nervous, my dear Edouard. And why? Theaffair arranges itself admirably. I shall be always on hand, ready toturn up exactly at the right moment. What the deuce, this is the luckof a lifetime...."
The squeaky, high-pitched voice--a masculine variant of Mrs. Devar'sultra-fashionable intonation--died away midst the chatter and laughterof other promenaders. Medenham's first impulse was to follow andlisten, since Devar had yielded to the common delusion of imaginingthat none except his companion on the sea-front that night understooda foreign language. But he swept the notion aside ere it had wellpresented 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? Confound Simmonds, and d----n that railwayvan! I have a good mind to hand the car over to Dale in the morningand return to town by the first train."
If he really meant what he said he ought to have gone back to hishotel, played billiards for an hour, and sought his bedroom with aneasy conscience. He was debating the point when the conceit intrudeditself that Cynthia's pretty head was at that moment bent over awriting-table in a certain well-lighted corner apartment of the secondfloor, so he compromised with his half-formed intent, whisked round toface the sea again, and lighted another cigarette from the glowing endof its predecessor. Some part of his unaccountable irritation tookwings with the cloud of smoke.
"Blessed if I can tell why I should worry," he communed. "Never sawthe girl before to-day ... shall never see her again if I put Dalein charge.... Her father must be a special sort of fool, though, totrust her to the care of the Devar woman.... What was it that rottersaid?--'The affair arranges itself admirably.' And he would be 'alwayson hand.' What is arranging itself?... And why should Jimmy Devar beready, if need be, 'to turn up exactly at the right moment?' I supposethe answer to the first bit of the acrostic is simple enough. CynthiaVanrenen is to become the Countess Marigny, and the Devar gang standsin on the cash proceeds. Oh, a nice scheme! This Frenchman is postedas to the tour. By the most curious of coincidences he will reappearat Bournemouth, or Bristol, or in the Wye Valley. What more naturalthan a day's run in company?... Ah, I've got it! Jimmy is to comealong when Marigny thinks that Cynthia will take a seat in the 59 DuVallon for a change--just to try the new French car.... By gad, Ishall have a word to say there.... Steady, now, George Augustus! Woa,my boy; keep a tight hand on the reins. Why in thunder should youconcern yourself with the wretched business, anyhow?"
It was a marvelously still night. Beneath him, on an asphalted pathnearly level with the stone-strewed beach, passed a young couple. Theman's voice came up to him.
"Jones expects to be taken into partnership after this season, and Iam 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 anice little house up there on the hill, just as quick as we can findit."
"Oh, Charlie dear, I shall never be tired then...."
A black arm was suddenly silhouetted across the shoulders of a whiteblouse, whose wearer received a reassuring hug.
"Let's reckon up," said the owner of the arm--"July, August,September--three months, sweetheart...."
Medenham had never given a thought to marrying until his father hintedat the notion during dinner the previous evening, and he had laughedat it, being absolutely heart-whole. There was something irresistiblycomical then about the Earl's bland theory that Fairholme House neededa sprightly viscountess, yet now, twenty-four hours later, he couldextract no shred of humor from the idyl of a draper's assistant. Itseemed to be a perfectly natural thing that these lovers should talkof mating. Of what else should they whisper on this midsummer's night,when the gloaming already bore the promise of dawn, and the glory ofthe sea and sky spread quiet harmonies through the silent air?
Perhaps he sighed as he turned away, but his own evidence on thatpoint would be inconclusive, since the first object his wondering eyesdwelt on was the graceful figure of Cynthia Vanrenen. There was nopossibility of error. An arc lamp blazed overhead, and, to makeassurance doubly sure, his recognition of Cynthia was obviouslyduplicated by Cynthia's recognition of her deputy chauffeur.
In the girl's case some degree of surprise was justified. It is atruism of social life that far more distinctiveness is attached to theseemingly democratic severity of evening dress than to any other classof masculine garniture. Medenham now looked exactly what he was--a manborn and bred in the purple. No one could possibly mistake thiswell-groomed soldier for Dale or Simmonds. His clever, resourcefulface, his erect carriage, the very suggestion of mess uniform conveyedby his clothing, told of lineage and a career. He might, in soberearnest, have been compelled to earn a living by driving a motor-car,but no freak of fortune could rob him of his birthright as anaristocrat.
Of course, Cynthia was easily first in the effort to recover disturbedwits.
"Like myself, you have been tempted out by this beautiful night, Mr.Fitzroy," she said.
Then "Mr." was a concession to his attire; somehow she imagined itwould savor of presumption if she addressed him as an inferior.She could not define her mental attitude in words, but her quickintelligence responded to its subtle influence as a mirrored lakerecords the passing of a breeze. Very dainty and self-possessed shelooked as she stood there smiling at him. Her motor dust-coat wasutilized as a wrap. Beneath it she wore a white muslin dress of astudied simplicity that, to another woman's assessing gaze, wouldreveal its expensiveness. She had tied a veil of delicate lace aroundher hair and under her chin, and Medenham noted, with a species ofawe, that her eyes, so vividly blue in daylight, were now dark as thesky at night.
And he was strangely tongue-tied. He found nothing to say until aftera pause that verged on awkwardness. Then he floundered badly.
"I am prepared to vouch for any explanation so long as it brings youhere, Miss Vanrenen," he said.
Cynthia wanted to laugh. It was sufficiently ridiculous to becompelled, as it were, to treat a paid servant as an equal, but itsavored of madness to find him verging on the perilous borderland of aflirtation.
"Do you wish, then, to consult me on any matter?" she asked, withAmerican directness.
"I was standing here and thinking of you," he said. "Perhaps thataccounts for your appearance. Since you have visited India you mayhave heard that the higher Buddhists, when they are anxious thatanother person shall act according to their desire, remain motionlessin front of that person's residence and concentrate ardent thought ontheir fixed intent.... Sitting in _dhurma_ on a man, they call it. Isuppose the same principle applies to a woman."
"It follows that you are a higher Buddhist, and that you willed Ishould come out. Your theory of sitting on the door-mat, is it?wobbles a bit in practice, because I really ran downstairs to tellMrs. Devar som
ething I had forgotten previously. Not finding her, Idecided on a stroll. Instead of crossing the road I walked up to theleft a couple of blocks. Then I noticed the pier, and meant to have alook at it before returning to the hotel. Anyhow, you wanted me, Mr.Fitzroy, and here I am. What can I do for you?"
Her tone of light raillery, supplemented by that truly daringadaptation of the method of gaining a cause favored by the esotericphilosophy of the East, went far to restore Medenham's wanderingfaculties.
"I wanted to ask you a few questions, Miss Vanrenen," he explained.
"Pray do, as they say in Boston."
But he was not quite himself yet. He noticed that the lights wereextinguished 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 eachother. You see, Mr. Fitzroy, we Americans are rather pleased thanotherwise if a man acts and speaks like a gentleman even though he hasto earn a living by hustling an automobile, but your sure-enoughBritish dames exact a kind of servility from a chauffeur that doesn'tseem to fit in with your make-up. Servility is a hard word, but it isthe best I can throw on the screen at the moment, and I'm real sorryif I have hurt your feelings by using it."
Medenham smiled. Each instant his calmer judgment showed more and moreclearly that he could not offer any valid excuse for interference inthe girl's affairs. For all he knew to the contrary, she might betremulous with delight at the prospect of becoming a French countess;if that were so, the fact that he disapproved of Mrs. Devar'smatchmaking tactics would be received very coldly. Cynthia's naturalinterpretation of his allusion to her chaperon offered a means ofescape from a difficult position.
"I am greatly obliged by your hint," he said. "Not that my lack ofgood manners is of much account, seeing that I am only a stop gap forthe courtly Simmonds, but I shall endeavor to profit by it in my nextsituation."
"Now you are getting at me," cried Cynthia, her eyes sparklingsomewhat. "Do you know, Mr. Fitzroy, I am inclined to think you arenot a chauffeur at all."
"I assure you there is not a man living who understands my specialtype of car better," he protested.
"That isn't what I mean, so don't wriggle. You met Simmonds when hewas 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 reachedthe hotel, but you understand, of course, that I pay your expensesduring this trip. The arrangement with Simmonds was that my fatherante'd for petrol and allowed twelve shillings a day for thechauffeur's meals and lodgings. Is that satisfactory?"
"Quite satisfactory, Miss Vanrenen," said Medenham, fully alive to thegirl's effective ruse for the re-establishment of matters on a properfooting.
"So you don't need to worry about Mrs. Devar. In any event, since yourefused my offer to hire you for the tour, you will not see a greatdeal 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?" shedemanded with a sudden lifting of eyebrows, for the hope was strong inher that he might be induced to change his plans so far as the nextnine days were concerned.
"A man in my present position ought always to ascertain thewhereabouts of millionaires interested in motoring," he answeredpromptly. "And now, pardon me for advising you not to walk towards thepier alone."
"Gracious me! Why not?"
"There is a certain class of boisterous holiday-maker who might annoyyou--not by downright ill-behavior, but by exercising a crude humorwhich is deemed peculiarly suitable to the seaside, though it would benone the less distressing to you."
"In the States that sort of man gets shot," she said, and her cheeksglowed with a rush of color.
"Here, on the contrary, he often takes the young lady's arm and walksoff with her," persisted Medenham.
"I'm going to that pier," she announced. "Guess you'd better escortme, Mr. Fitzroy."
"Fate closes every door in my face," he said sadly. "I cannot go withyou--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 nothelp 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 Iimagine you would not care to have him see you walking with yourchauffeur."
Cynthia looked up and down the broad sea front, with its thousands oflamps and droves of promenaders.
"At last I am beginning to size up this dear little island," she said."I may go with you to a racetrack, I may sit by your side for days inan 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 myhotel to a pier. Very well, I'll quit. But before I go, do tell me onething. Did you really mean to bring your aunt to Epsom to-day?"
"Yes."
"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 amonth from the twelfth of August. After that we shall be in the SavoyHotel about six weeks. Bring her to see me."
Medenham almost jumped when he heard of the projected visit to theHighlands, 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 shepossessed of stirring this man's emotions, did not fail to detect hisair of restraint.
"It isn't a proposition that calls for such a lot of calculation," shesaid sharply. "Good-night, Mr. Fitzroy. I hope you are punctualmorning-time. When there is a date to be kept, I'm a regular alarmclock, my father says."
She sped across the road, and into the hotel. Then Medenham noticedhow dark it had become--reminded him of the tropics, he thought--andmade for his own caravanserai, while his brain was busy with a numberof disturbing but nebulous problems that seemed to be pronounced incharacter yet singularly devoid of a beginning, a middle, or an end.Indeed, so puzzling and contradictory were they that he soon fellasleep. When he rose at seven o'clock next morning the said problemshad vanished. They must have been part and parcel with the glamor of aJune night, and a starlit sky, and the blue depths of the sea and of agirl'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 Medenham ranit some distance along the front before drawing up at the Metropole.By that means he dissipated any undue curiosity that might beexperienced by some lounger on the pavement who happened to notice thechange of chauffeurs, while he avoided a prolonged scrutiny by thevisitors already packed in chairs on both sides of the porch. He kepthis face hidden during the luggage strapping process, and professednot to be aware of Cynthia's presence until she bade him a cheery"Good-morning."
Of course, Marigny was there, and Mrs. Devar gushed loudly for thebenefit of the other people while settling herself comfortably in thetonneau.
"It was awfully devey of you, Count Edouard, to enliven our firstevening 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, Ican only say that _my_ good fortune has exhausted itself already,madame," said th
e Frenchman. "When do you return to London?"
"About the end of next week," put in Cynthia.
"And your father--that delightful Monsieur Vanrenen," 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 toSalisbury--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 direction popularlyassigned to heaven as the porch of the Metropole would permit. He wasframing a suitable speech, but the Mercury shot out into the open roadwith 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 werequite 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 onlycar that can hit up twenty at the first buzz."
"Unpardonable rudeness," murmured Mrs. Devar.
"On the Count's part?" asked the girl demurely.
"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 lastnight 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, andthe 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 scandalized.
"Ah, well!" she sighed, "one must relax a little when touring, but youAmericans have such free and easy manners that we staid Britons areapt to lose our breath occasionally when we hear of something out ofthe common."
"From what Fitzroy said when I told him I was going as far as the pierunaccompanied it seems to me that you staid Britons can be freer ifnot easier," retorted Miss Vanrenen.
Her friend smiled sourly.
"If he disapproved he was right, I admit," she purred.
Cynthia withheld any further confidences.
"What a splendid morning!" she said. "England is marvelouslyattractive on a day like this. And now, where is the map? I didn'tlook up our route yesterday evening. But Fitzroy has it. We lunch atWinchester, I know, and there I see my first English Cathedral. Fatheradvised me to leave St. Paul's until I visit it with him. He says itis the most perfect building in the world architecturally, but that noone would realize it unless the facts were pointed out. When we werein Rome he said that St. Peter's, grand as it is, is all wrong inconstruction. The thrust downwards from the dome is false, it seems."
"Really," said Mrs. Devar, who had just caught sight of LadySomebody-or-other at the window of a house in Hove, and hoped that herladyship's eyes were sufficiently good to distinguish at least oneoccupant of the car.
"Yes; and Sir Christopher Wren mixed beams of oak with the stoneworkof his pillars, too. It gave them strength, he believed, thoughMichael Angelo had probably never heard of such a thing."
"You don't say so."
The other woman had traveled far on similar conversational 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 atBramber, with its stone-roofed cottages gilded with lichen, its tinygardens gay with flowers, and the ruins of its twelfth-century castlefrowning from the crest of an elm-clothed hill. Two miles to thenorthwest they came upon ancient Steyning, now a sleepy country town,but of greater importance than Bath or Birmingham or Southampton inthe days of the Confessor, and redolent of the past by reason of itschurch, with an early Norman chancel, its houses bearing stonemoldings and window mullions of the Elizabethan period, and its quaintstreet 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, whenthe Mercury crept softly through Midhurst and Petersfield intoHampshire, and so to Winchester, where Cynthia, enraptured with thecathedral, used up a whole reel of films, and bought some curioscarved out of oak imbedded in the walls when the Conqueror heldEngland in his firm grip.
They lunched at a genuine old coaching-house in the main street, andMedenham persuaded the girl to turn aside from Salisbury in order topass through the heart of the New Forest. She sat with him in frontthen, and their talk dealt more with the magnificent scenery than withpersonal matters until they reached Ringwood, where they halted fortea.
Before alighting at the inn there she asked him where he meant to stayin Bournemouth. He answered the one question by another.
"You put up at the Bath Hotel, I think?" he said.
"Yes. Someone told me it was more like a Florentine picture gallerythan a hotel. Is that true?"
"I have not been to Florence, but the picture gallery notion is allright. When I was a youngster I came here often, and my--my peoplealways--well, you see----"
He nibbled his mustache in dismay, for it was hard to keep up apretense 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 objection."
"Just the opposite. But--please forgive me for touching on moneymatters--the charges may be rather dear. Won't you let me tell thehead waiter to--to include your bill with ours?"
"On the strict condition that you deduct twelve shillings from myaccount," 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 thehostelry where he had booked a room for his master, and that Mrs.Devar, after one stony and indignant glare, whispered to Cynthia inthe dining-room:
"Can that man in evening dress, sitting alone near the window, by anypossibility be our chauffeur?"
"Yes," laughed the girl. "That is Fitzroy. Say, doesn't he look fineand dandy? Don't you wish he was with us--to order the wine? And, bythe way, is there a pier at Bournemouth?"
