Louis Tracy

Cynthia, notwithstanding that spirited pas seul, was rather pale when Medenham stopped the car close beside her. She had been on tenterhooks during 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. Although 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 excited 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!

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 precaution 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 Vanrenen’s car.”

“Wait?” inquired Cynthia. “What else can we do?”

“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 necessary.”

From that half hint of latent and highly disagreeable 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 providing 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 acquaintanceship with the Count, together with the apparently 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 main road was invisible from where they stood. Marigny had laid his plans with skill, so his humorous treatment of their plight was not marred by any lurking fear of the Mercury’s unwelcome appearance.

“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 pursuit.”

“My imagination fails me there, Monsieur Marigny,” 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 advance 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.[A] 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 first began to estimate her running powers.

“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 prevented him.”

That the girl should yield to slight panic was precisely what Count Edouard desired. True, Cynthia’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 in 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 vibrated 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 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 affected 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 vagueness.”

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 unscrupulous 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 implicitly 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 summer, 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 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 tenderness, 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-confessed trickster utterly at the mercy of some haphazard 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 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-conspirator’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 SalomÉ 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 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 Vanrenen,” 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 compelled to wait till he returns, Monsieur Marigny.”

Though Medenham did not endeavor to check the contemptuous note that crept into his voice, he certainly ought not to have uttered those two concluding words. Had he ransacked his ample vocabulary of the French language he could scarcely have hit upon another set of syllables offering similar difficulties to the foreigner. It was quite evident that his accurate pronunciation startled the accomplices. Each arrived at the same conclusion, though by different 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, chÈres 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 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 Cynthia’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-bye! 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 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, Medenham 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 revealed it.

“X L 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 thinking 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.”

“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 postcards. 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—something 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.

“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 Medenham. “I handed her—well, sufficient to clear all claims.”

“You did? 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 vindictively, for she detested these half confidences.

“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 amazement. 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 unforeseen hitch in the arrangements.

“Delighted, I’m shaw,” said he. “But, by gad, 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 Simmonds, 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 disencumbering 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.

“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 position 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 regretted 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, “account it wicked to think one thing and speak another—to wish one thing while the face expresses 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 confusion before that more intimate and insistent question—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 expected 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.”

“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 responsible 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 consequence 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. Unfortunately 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.

“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 glistened 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 railway station?”

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 extent. Tell the hall-porter to bring your overcoat and hat, and to give you a sheet of note-paper 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 belongings, as your hotel bill will be paid. But remember! 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:

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.

Medenham, however, believed that he had settled one difficulty, and prepared blithely to tackle another. He ran the car to the garage where he had arranged to meet Dale.

“Have you seen Simmonds?” was his first question.

“Yes, my l——, 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 guarantee you against any possible loss. To put the best face on affairs, you had better remain in Bristol a few days at my expense. Of course, it is understood 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.