"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 objection."

"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, whispered to Cynthia in the dining-room:

"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 company in general and her companion in particular by waddling from table to table and greeting these acquaintances with shrill volubility.

But to-night she was beginning to be alarmed. Her youthful protegee was carrying democratic training 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 refusal. 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 disposition 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 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-preservation. 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 vindictively.

"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 classify the traveled and the untraveled by varying degrees 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 somewhat of a miracle, and Cynthia, as was her habit, came straight to the point.

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 distinction?" 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, perhaps?"

Mrs. Devar sighed, yet she gave a moment's scrutiny 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 argument.

"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 apartment 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 outburst. Her vein of romance was imbedded in a rock of good sense, and she took the implied reproof penitently.

"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 refutation. 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 Millicent, Countess of Porthcawl. But the girl was resolved 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 evening, 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 conversation, 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 postcards, and she had just purchased some stamps from the hall porter when she saw Medenham take a telegram from the rack where it had been reposing since the afternoon. It was, she knew, addressed to "Viscount Medenham." That, and her recollection of his father, banished doubt.

"George!" she cried, with a charming air of having found the one man whom she was longing to meet, "don't say I've grown so old that you have forgotten me!"

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 telegram 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 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 alongside 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 Vanrenen. 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 equator. How—or perhaps I ought to say where—is Porthcawl?"

"In China," snapped her ladyship, fully alive to Medenham's polite evasion of her blandishments.

"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, nowadays. 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 reflective frown.

"Medenham?" he said.

"Fairholme's eldest son."

Mrs. Devar chortled.

"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 astounding 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 almost a foregone conclusion that the girl would have told how Fitzroy joined her. The luncheon provided 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 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 unawares.

But the violins were singing the Valse Bleu, and Cynthia was upstairs, longing for an excuse to venture 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.

Medenham, of course, realized that he had been vouchsafed another narrow escape. What the morrow might bring forth he neither knew nor cared. The one disconcerting fact that already shaped itself 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.

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 morning, and he was right.

At ten o'clock, when Cynthia and Mrs. Devar came out, the men lounging near the porch were too interested 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 starting 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.

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 Cynthia.

"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 Cynthia 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 pleasant 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 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-lubrication, 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 became 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 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 suggested 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 challenges 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 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 campions 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 quickened. 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," murmured the girl. "I am very ignorant of some things. What has 'Avallon' got to do with 'apples'?"

"Ha!" cried Medenham, warming to his subject and retarding speed again, "that opens up a wide field. In Celtic mythology Avallon is Ynys yr Afallon, 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 eloquent; 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 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 inquisitive.

"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 recommend you to get a guide for half an hour at least."

"Must we walk?" demanded Mrs. Devar plaintively.

"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 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 Cynthia that she must not endeavor to appreciate the architecture; with the hauteur of conscious genius, Wells refuses to allow anyone to absorb its true grandeur until it has been seen many times and in all lights.

So he hied her to the exquisite Lady Chapel, and to the Chapter-House Stairs, and to Peter Lightfoot'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. Perhaps it is that the eye is caught by the flaring advertisements 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-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 alongside 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 expect, 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. 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 FLURRY ON THE MENDIPS

It is a contrariety of human nature that men devoted 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 pursuit 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 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 Medenham 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 romance 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 escapade 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 those three memorable days was no bad recommendation 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 compact 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 beloved 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 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 Medenham 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 gesture, 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 accidental.

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, 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 instructions 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 regarded 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 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 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 hanging 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 Medenham, 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 waitress, "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 suppose?" 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 outside 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, Fitzroy. 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 Cynthia 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 insolence 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 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 dinner 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."

"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 established by Smith's weeds, the man was still furtively racking his brains to account for certain discrepancies 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 wondered why.

Medenham was sure that at the back of Smith's head lay some scheme, some arranged trick, some artifice of intrigue that would find its opportunity between Cheddar and Bristol. The distance was not great—perhaps eighteen miles—by a fairly direct second-class road, and on this fine June evening it was still safe to count on three long hours of daylight. 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 safeguarding 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 to 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:

"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 recesses, 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 Vanrenen," he said. "You ought to see it while the light is strong."

"We are going now," she answered coldly. "Monsieur 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 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 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 happened 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."

"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 indignation, 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 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 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 breathlessness, 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 bounding 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 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 himself 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 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 complete 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 comfortably 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 fantasy 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. Medenham 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 difference 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 interspersed with patches of wiry grass on which browsed some hardy sheep, resembled a disturbed ocean suddenly 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 important 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 hesitation. 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.

"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 off-hand whether they had come or gone, but, if they came from Bristol, then most certainly they had not returned.

Medenham took nothing for granted. Dusk was advancing, and he must make no mistake at this stage. He ran the Mercury slowly ahead, not taking 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.

"I mean to find Miss Vanrenen," he said. "Pray let that suffice for the hour. Any further explanation 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 unfamiliar wilderness that skirted the whole northeastern 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 surface quickly became very rough, and it needed all his skill to guide his highly-strung car over its inequalities without inflicting an injury that might prove disastrous.

His only consolation was provided by the knowledge 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 interminable 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 roadside, 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 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!"



CHAPTER VI

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S VAGARIES

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."

[Footnote A: "But needs must when the devil drives."]

"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 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 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, 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 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?