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:

DEAR MATER—I hardly had time to tell you that I am obliged to return to town this evening. Please make my apologies to Miss Vanrenen and Count Marigny. Yours ever, J.

Medenham frowned a little at the reference to Cynthia, but something of the sort was necessary if an open scandal was to be avoided. As for "Dear Mater," she was so unnerved that she actually wept. Hard and calculating though she might be, the man was her son, and the bitter experiences of twenty years warned her that he had been driven from Bristol by some ghost new risen from an evil past.

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.



CHAPTER VII

WHEREIN CYNTHIA TAKES HER OWN LINE

When the Mercury, shining from Dale's attentions, halted noiselessly opposite the College Green Hotel on the Saturday morning, Count Edouard Marigny was standing there; the Du Vallon was not in evidence, and its owner's attire bespoke other aims than motoring, at any rate for the hour.

Evidently he was well content with himself. A straw hat was set on the back of his head, a cigarette stuck between his lips, his hands were thrust into his trousers pockets, and his feet were spread widely apart. Taken altogether, he had the air of a man without a care in the world.

He smiled, too, in the most friendly fashion, when Medenham's eyes met his.

"I hear that Simmonds is unable to carry out his contract," he said cheerfully.

"You are mistaken, a second time, monsieur," said Medenham.

"Why, then, are you here this morning?"

"I am acting for Simmonds. If anything, my car is slightly superior to his, while I may be regarded as an equally competent driver, so the contract is kept in all essentials."

Marigny still smiled. The Frenchman of mid-Victorian romance would have shelved this point by indulging in "an inimitable shrug"; but nowadays Parisians of the Count's type do not shrug—with John Bull's clothing they have adopted no small share of his stolidness.

"It is immaterial," he said. "I have sent my man to offer him my Du Vallon, and Smith will go with him to explain its humors. You, as a skilled motorist, understand that a car is of the feminine gender. Like any other charming demoiselle, it demands the exercise of tact—it yields willingly to gentle handling——"

Medenham cut short the Count's neatly turned phrases.

"Simmonds has no need to avail himself of your courtesy," he said. "As for the rest, give me your address in Paris, and when next I visit the French capital I shall be delighted to analyze these subtleties with you."

"Ah, most admirable! But the really vital question before us to-day is your address in London, Mr. Fitzroy."

Marigny dwelt on the surname as if it were a succulent oyster, and, in the undeniable surprise of the moment, Medenham was forced to believe that "Captain" Devar, formerly of Horton's Horse, had dared all by telling his confederate the truth, or some part of the truth. The two men looked squarely at each other, and Marigny did not fail to misinterpret the dubious frown on Medenham's face.

He descended a step or two, and crossed the pavement leisurely, dropping his voice so that it might not reach the ears of a porter, laden with the ladies' traveling boxes, who appeared in the doorway.

"Why should we quarrel?" he asked, with an engaging frankness well calculated to reassure a startled evildoer. "In this matter I am anxious to treat you as a gentleman. Allons, donc! Hurry off instantly, and tell Simmonds to bring the Du Vallon here. Leave me to explain everything to Miss Vanrenen. Surely you agree that she ought to be spared the unpleasantness of a wrangle—or, shall we say, an exposure? You see," he continued with a trifle more animation, and speaking in French, "the game is not worth the candle. In a few hours, at the least, you will be in the hands of the police, whereas, by reaching London to-night, you may be able to pacify the Earl of Fairholme. I can help, perhaps. I will say all that is possible, and my testimony ought to carry some weight."

Medenham was thoroughly mystified. That the Frenchman was not yet aware of his identity was now clear enough, though, with Devar's probable duplicity still running in his mind, he could not solve the puzzle presented by this vaunted half-knowledge.

Again the other attributed his perplexity to anything except its real cause.

"I am willing to befriend you," he urged emphatically. "You have acted foolishly, but not criminally, I hope. In your anxiety to help a colleague you forgot the fine distinction which the law draws between meum and tuum——"

"No," said Medenham, turning to the porter. "Put the larger box on the carrier, and strap the other on top of it—the locks outwards. Then you will find that they fit exactly."

"Don't be a headstrong idiot," muttered the Count, with a certain heat of annoyance making itself felt in his patronizing tone. "Miss Vanrenen will come out at any minute——"

Medenham glanced at the clock by the side of the speed indicator.

"Miss Vanrenen is due now unless she is being purposely detained by Mrs. Devar," he commented dryly.

"But why persist in this piece of folly?" growled Marigny, to whose reluctant consciousness the idea of failure suddenly presented itself. "You must realize by this time that I know who owns your car. A telegram from me will put the authorities on your track, your arrest will follow, and Miss Vanrenen will be subjected to the gravest inconvenience. Sacre nom d'un pipe! If you will not yield to fair means I must resort to foul. It comes to this—you either quit Bristol at once or I inform Miss Vanrenen of the trick you have played on her."

Medenham turned and picked up from the seat the pair of stout driving-gloves which had caught Smith's inquiring eye by reason of their quality and substance. He drew on the right-hand glove, and buttoned it. When he answered, he spoke with irritating slowness.

"Would it not be better for all concerned that the lady in whose behalf you profess to be so deeply moved should be permitted to continue her tour without further disturbance? You and I can meet in London, monsieur, and I shall then have much pleasure in convincing you that I am a most peaceable and law-abiding person."

"No," came the angry retort. "I have decided. I withdraw my offer to overlook your offense. At whatever cost, Miss Vanrenen must be protected until her father learns how his wishes have been disregarded by a couple of English bandits."

"Sorry," said Medenham coolly.

He alighted in the roadway, as the driving seat was near the curb. A glance into the vestibule of the hotel revealed Cynthia, in motor coat and veil, giving some instructions, probably with regard to letters, to a deferential hall-porter. Walking rapidly round the front of the car, he caught Marigny's shoulder with his left hand.

"If you dare to open your mouth in Miss Vanrenen's presence, other than by way of some commonplace remark, I shall forthwith smash your face to a jelly," he said.

A queer shiver ran through the Frenchman's body, but Medenham did not commit the error of imagining that his adversary was afraid. His grip on Marigny's shoulder tightened. The two were now not twelve inches apart, and the Englishman read that involuntary tension of the muscles aright, for there is a palsy of rage as of fear.

"I have some acquaintance with the savate," he said suavely. "Please take my word for it, and you will be spared an injury. A moment ago you offered to treat me like a gentleman. I reciprocate now by being willing to accept your promise to hold your tongue. Miss Vanrenen is coming.... What say you?"

"I agree," said Marigny, though his dark eyes blazed redly.

"Ah, thanks!" and Medenham's left hand busied itself once more with the fastening of the glove.

"You understand, of course?" he heard, in a soft snarl.

"Perfectly. The truce ends with my departure. Meanwhile, you are acting wisely. I don't suppose I shall ever respect you so much again."

"Now, you two—what are you discussing?" cried Cynthia from the porch. "I hope you are not trying to persuade my chauffeur to yield his place to you, Monsieur Marigny. Once bitten, twice shy, you know, and I would insist on checking each mile by the map if you were at the wheel."



"Your chauffeur is immovable, mademoiselle," was the ready answer, though the accompanying smile was not one of the Count's best efforts.

"He looks it. Why are you vexed, Fitzroy? Can't you forgive your friend Simmonds?"

Cynthia lifted those demure blue eyes of hers, and held Medenham's gaze steadfast.

"I trust you are not challenging contradiction, Miss Vanrenen?" he said, with deliberate resolve not to let her slip back thus easily into the role of gracious employer.

She did not flinch, but her eyebrows arched a little.

"Oh, no," she said offhandedly. "Simmonds told me his misfortunes last night, and I assumed that you and he had settled matters satisfactorily between you."

"As for that," broke in the Count, "I have just offered my car as a substitute, but Fitzroy prefers to take you as far as Hereford, at any cost."

"Hereford! I understood from Simmonds that Mr. Fitzroy would see us through the remainder of the tour?"

"Monsieur Marigny is somewhat vague in our island topography: you saw that last evening," said Medenham.

He smiled. Cynthia, too, glanced from one to the other with a frank merriment that showed how fully she appreciated their mutual dislike. As for Marigny, his white teeth gleamed now in a sarcastic grin.

"Adversity is a strict master," he said, lapsing into his own language again. "My blunder of yesterday has shown me the need of caution, so I go no farther than Hereford in my thoughts."

"It is more to the point to tell us how far you are going in your car," cried the girl lightly.

"I, too, hope to be in Hereford to-night. Mrs. Devar says you mean to spend Sunday there. If that is a fixed thing, and you can bear with me for a few hours, I shall meet you there without fail."

"Come, by all means, if your road lies that way; but don't let us make formal engagements. I love to think that I am drifting at will through this land of gardens and apple blossom. And, just think of it—three cathedrals in one day—a Minster for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with Tintern Abbey thrown in for afternoon tea. Such a wealth of medievalism makes my head reel.... I was in there for matins," and she nodded to the grave old pile rearing its massive Gothic within a few paces of the hotel. "At high noon we shall visit Gloucester, and to-night we shall see Hereford. All that within a short hundred miles, to say nothing of Chepstow, Monmouth, the Wye Valley! Ah, me! I shall never overtake my correspondence while there are so many glories to describe. See, I have bought some darling little guidebooks which tell you just what to say in a letter. What between judicious extracts and a sheaf of picture postcards scribbled at each place I'll try and keep my friends in good humor."

She produced from a pocket three of the red-covered volumes so familiar to Americans in Britain—and to Britons themselves, for that matter, when the belated discovery is made that it is not necessary to cross the Channel in order to enjoy a holiday—and showed them laughingly to Medenham.

"Now," she cried, "I am armed against you. No longer will you be able to paralyze me with your learning. If you say 1269 at Tintern I shall retort with 1387 at Monmouth. When you point out Nell Gwynne's birthplace in Hereford, I shall take you to the Haven Inn, where David Garrick was born, and, if you aren't very, very good, I shall tell you how much the New Town Hall cost, and who laid the foundation stone."

Medenham alone held the key to the girl's lively mood, and it was a novel and quite delightful sensation to be thus admitted to the inner shrine of her emotions, as it were. She was chattering at random in order to smooth away the awkwardness of meeting him after that whispered indiscretion at their parting overnight. Here, at least, Marigny was hopelessly at sea—desoriente, as he would have put it—because he could not possibly know that Cynthia herself had counseled the disappearance of Simmonds. Indeed, he attributed her high spirits to mere politeness—to her wish that he should believe she had forgotten the fiasco on the Mendips.

This imagined salving of his wounded vanity served only to inflame him the more against Medenham. He was still afire with resentment, since no Frenchman can understand the rude Saxon usage that enforces submission under a threat of physical violence. That a man should be ready to defend his honor—to convince an opponent by endeavoring to kill him—yes, he accepted without cavil those tenets of the French social code. But the brutal British fixity of purpose displayed by this truculent chauffeur left him gasping with indignation. He was quite sure that the man meant exactly what he had said. He felt that any real departure from the compact wrung from him by force would prove disastrous to his personal appearance, and he was sensible of a certain weighing underlook in the Englishman's eyes when his seemingly harmless chatter hinted at a change of existing plans as soon as Hereford was reached.

But that was a mere feint, a preliminary flourish, such as a practiced swordsman executes in empty air before saluting his opponent. He had not the slightest intention of testing Medenham's pugilistic powers just then. The reasonable probability of having his chief features beaten to a pulp was not inviting, while the crude efficacy of the notion, in its influence on Miss Vanrenen's affairs, was not the least stupefying element in a difficult and wholly unforeseen situation. He realized fully that anything in the nature of a scuffle would alienate the girl's sympathies forever, no matter how strong a case for interference he might present afterwards. The chauffeur would be dismissed on the spot, but with the offender would go his own prospect of winning the heiress to the Vanrenen millions.

So Count Edouard swallowed his spleen, though the requisite effort must have dissipated some of his natural shrewdness, or he could not have failed to read more correctly the tokens of embarrassment given by Cynthia's heightened color, by her eager vivacity, by her breathless anxiety not to discuss the substitution of one driver for the other.

Medenham was about to disclaim any intention of measuring his lore against that in the guidebooks when Mrs. Devar bustled out.

"Awfully sorry," she began, "but I had to wire James——"

Her eyes fell on Medenham and the Mercury. Momentarily rendered speechless, she rallied bravely.

"I thought, from what Count Edouard said——"

"Miss Vanrenen has lost faith in me, even in my beautiful automobile," broke in Marigny with a quickness that spoiled a pathetic glance meant for Cynthia.

The American girl, however, was weary of the fog of innuendo and hidden purpose that seemed to be an appanage of the Frenchman and his car.

"For goodness' sake," she cried, "let us regard it as a settled thing that Fitzroy takes Simmonds's place until we reach London again. Surely we have the best of the bargain. If the two men are satisfied why should we have anything to say against it?"

Cynthia was her father's daughter, and the attribute of personal dominance that in the man's case had proved so effective in dealing with Milwaukees now made itself felt in the minor question of "transportation" presented by Medenham and his motor. Her blue eyes hardened, and a firm note rang in her voice. Nor did Medenham help to smooth the path for Mrs. Devar by saying quietly:

"In the meantime, Miss Vanrenen, the information stored in those little red books is growing rusty."

She settled the dispute at once by asking her companion which side of the car she preferred, and the other woman was compelled to say graciously that she really had no choice in the matter, but, to avoid further delay, would take the left-hand seat. Cynthia followed, and Medenham, still ready to deal harshly with Marigny if necessary, adjusted their rugs, saw to the safe disposal of the camera, and closed the door.

At that instant, the hall-porter hurried down the steps.

"Beg pardon, mum," he said to Mrs. Devar, thrusting an open telegram between Medenham and Cynthia, "but there's one word here——"

She snatched the form angrily from his outstretched hand.

"Which one?" she asked.

"The word after——"

"Come round this side. You are incommoding Miss Vanrenen."

The man obeyed. With the curious fatality which attends such incidents, even among well-bred people, not a word was spoken by any of the others. To all seeming, Mrs. Devar's cramped handwriting might have concealed some secret of gravest import to each person present. It was not really so thrilling when heard.

"That is 'Raven,' plain enough I should think," she snapped.

"Thank you, mum. 'The Raven, Shrewsbury,'" read the hall-porter.

Medenham caught Marigny's eye. He was minded to laugh outright, but forebore. Then he sprang into his seat, and the car curled in quick semicircle and climbed the hill to the left, while the Frenchman, surprised by this rapid movement, signaled frantically to Mrs. Devar, nodding farewell, that they had taken the wrong road.

"Not at all," explained Medenham. "I want you to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which is a hundred feet higher in the air than the Brooklyn Bridge."

"I'm sure it isn't," cried Cynthia indignantly. "The next thing you will tell me is that the Thames is wider than the Hudson."

"So it is, at an equal distance from the sea."

"Well, trot out your bridge. Seeing is believing, all the time."

But Cynthia had yet to learn the exceeding wisdom of Ezekiel when he wrote of those "which have eyes to see, and see not," for never was optical delusion better contrived than the height above water level of the fairylike structure that spans the Avon below Bristol. The reason is not far to seek. The mind is not prepared for the imminence of the swaying roadway that leaps from side to side of that tremendous gorge. On either crest are pleasant gardens, pretty houses, tree-shaded paths, and the opposing precipices are so prompt in their sheer fall that the eye insensibly rests on the upper level and refuses to dwell on the river far beneath.

So Cynthia was charmed but not convinced, and Medenham himself could scarce believe his recollection that the tops of the towers of the far larger bridge at Brooklyn would be only twenty-six feet higher than the roadway at Clifton. Mrs. Devar, of course, showed an utter lack of interest in the debate. Indeed, she refused emphatically to walk to the middle of the bridge, on the plea of light-headedness, and Cynthia instantly availed herself of the few minutes' tete-a-tete thus vouchsafed.

"Now," said she, looking, not at Medenham, but at the Titanic cleft cut by a tiny river, "now, please, tell me all about it."

"Just as at Cheddar, the rocks are limestone——" he began.

"Oh, bother the rocks! How did you get rid of Simmonds? And why is Count Marigny mad? And are you mixed up in Captain Devar's mighty smart change of base? Tell me everything. I hate mysteries. If we go on at the present rate some of us will soon be wearing masks and cloaks, and stamping our feet, and saying 'Ha! Ha!' or 'Sdeath!' or something equally absurd."

"Simmonds is a victim of science. If the earth wire of a magneto makes a metallic contact there is trouble in the cylinders, so Simmonds is switched off until he can locate the fault."

"The work of a minute."

"It will take him five days at least."

Then Cynthia did flash an amused glance at him, but he was watching a small steamer puffing against the tide, and his face was adamant.

"Go on," she cried quizzically. "What's the matter with the Count's cylinders?"

"He professed to believe that I had stolen somebody's car, and graciously undertook to shield me if I would consent to run away at once, leaving you and Mrs. Devar to finish your tour in the Du Vallon."

"And you refused?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Very little; he agreed."

"But he is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to the smiter."

"I didn't smite him," Medenham blurted out.

Cynthia fastened on to the hesitating denial with the hawklike pounce of some barrister famous for merciless cross-examination of a hostile witness.

"Did you offer to?" she asked.

"We dealt with possible eventualities," he said weakly.

"I knew it.... There was such a funny look in your eyes when I first saw you...."

"Funny is the right word. The crisis was rather humorous."

"Poor man, he only wished to be civil, perhaps—I mean, that is, in lending his car; and he may really have thought you—you were not a chauffeur—like Simmonds, or Smith, for example. You wouldn't have hit him, of course?"

"I sincerely hope not."

She caught her breath and peered at him again, and there was a light in her eyes that would have infuriated Marigny had he seen it. It was well, too, that Medenham's head was averted, since he simply dared not meet her frankly inquisitive gaze.

"You know that such a thing would be horrid for me—for all of us," she persisted.

"Yes," he said, "I feel that very keenly. Thank goodness, the Frenchman felt it also."

Cynthia thought fit to skip to the third item in her list.

"Now as to Captain Devar?" she cried. "His mother is dreadfully annoyed. She hates dull evenings, and the four of us were to play bridge to-night at Hereford. Why was he sent away?"

"Sent away?" echoed Medenham in mock amazement.

"Oh, come, you knew him quite well. You said so in London. I am not exactly the silly young thing I look, Mr. Fitzroy, and Count Marigny's coincidences are a trifle far-fetched. Both he and Captain Devar fully understood what they were doing when they arranged to meet in Bristol, and somebody must have fired a very big gun quite close to the fat little man that he should be scared off the instant he set eyes on me."

Then Medenham resolved to end a catechism that opened up illimitable vistas, for he did not want to lose Cynthia just yet, and there was no knowing what she might do if she suspected the truth. Although, if the situation were strictly dissected, Mrs. Devar's chaperonage was as useful to him as the lady herself intended it to be to Marigny, there was a vital difference between the two sets of circumstances. He had been pitchforked by fate into the company of a charming girl whom he was learning to love as he had never loved woman before, whereas the members of the money-hunting gang whose scheme he had accidentally overheard at Brighton were engaged in a deliberate intrigue, outlined in Paris as soon as Mr. Vanrenen planned the motor tour for his daughter, and perfected during Cynthia's brief stay in London.

So he appealed for her forbearance on a plea that he imagined was sure to succeed.

"I don't wish to conceal from you that Captain Devar and I have fallen out in the past," he said. "But I am genuinely sorry for his mother, who certainly does not know what a rascal he is. Don't ask me for further details now, Miss Vanrenen. He will not cross your path in the near future, and I promise to tell you the whole story long before there is any chance of your meeting him again."

For some reason, deep hidden yet delicately distinct, Cynthia extracted a good deal more from that simple speech than the mere words implied. The air of the downs was peculiarly fresh and strong in the center of the bridge, a fact which probably accounted for the vivid color that lit her face and added luster to her bright eyes. At any rate, she dropped the conversation suddenly.

"Mrs. Devar will be growing quite impatient," she said, with an admirable assumption of ease, "and I want to buy some pictures of this pretty toy bridge of yours. What a pity the light is altogether wrong for a snapshot, and it is so stupid to use films when one knows that the sun is in the camera!"

Whereat Medenham breathed freely again, while thanking the gods for the delightfully effective resources that every woman—even a candid, outspoken Cynthia—has at her fingers' ends.

The simplest means of reaching the Gloucester road was to run back past the hotel, but the goddess of happy chance elected, for her own purposes, that Medenham should ask a policeman to direct him to Cabot's Tower, and, the man having the brain of a surveyor, he was sent through by-streets that saved a few yards, perhaps, but cost him many minutes in stopping to inquire the way. Hence, he missed an amazing sight. The merest glimpse of Count Edouard Marigny's new acquaintance would surely have pulled him up, if it did not put an end to the tour forthwith. But that was not to be. Blissfully unconscious of the fact that the Frenchman was eagerly explaining to a dignified yet strangely perturbed old gentleman that the car Number X L 4000—containing a young American lady and her friend, and driven by a conceited puppy of a chauffeur who suffered badly from tete montee—had just gone up the hill to the left, Medenham at last reached the open road, and the Mercury leaped forward as if Gloucester would hardly wait till it arrived there.

The old gentleman had only that minute alighted from a station cab, and a question he addressed to the hall-porter led that civil functionary to refer him to Marigny "as a friend of the parties concerned."

But the newcomer drew himself up somewhat stiffly when the foreign personage spoke of Medenham as a "puppy."

"Before our conversation proceeds any farther I think I ought to tell you that I am the Earl of Fairholme and that Viscount Medenham is my son," he said.

Marigny looked so blank at this that the Earl's explanation took fresh shape.

"I mean," he went on, perceiving that his hearer was none the wiser, "I mean that the chauffeur you allude to is Viscount Medenham."

Marigny, though born on the banks of the Loire, was a Southern Frenchman by descent, and the hereditary tint of olive in his skin became prominent only when his emotions were aroused. Now the pink and white of his complexion was tinged with yellowish-green. Never before in his life had he been quite so surprised—never.

"He—he said his name was Fitzroy," was all he could gasp.

"So it is—the dog. Took the family name and dropped his title in order to go gallivanting about the country with this young person.... An American, I am told—and with that detestable creature, Mrs. Devar! Nice thing! No wonder Lady Porthcawl was shocked. May I ask, sir, who you are?"

Lord Fairholme was very angry, and not without good reason. He had traveled from London at an absurdly early hour in response to the urgent representations of Susan, Lady St. Maur, to whom her intimate friend, Millicent Porthcawl, had written a thrilling account of the goings-on at Bournemouth. It happened that the Countess of Porthcawl's bedroom overlooked the carriage-way in front of the Royal Bath Hotel, and, when she recovered from the stupor of recognizing Medenham in the chauffeur of the Vanrenen equipage, she gratified her spite by sending a lively and wholly distorted version of the tour to his aunt.

The letter reached Curzon Street during the afternoon, and exercised a remarkably restorative effect on the now convalescent lover of forced strawberries. Lady St. Maur ordered her carriage, and was driven in a jiffy to the Fairholme mansion in Cavendish Square, where she and her brother indulged in the most lugubrious opinions as to the future of "poor George." They assumed that he would fall an easy prey to the wiles of a "designing American." Neither of them had met many citizens of the United States, and each shared to the fullest extent the common British dislike of every person and every thing that is new and strange, so they had visions of a Countess of Fairholme who would speak in the weird tongue of Chicago, whose name would be "Mamie," who would call the earl "poppa number two," and prefix every utterance with "Say," or "My land!"

Both brother and sister had laughed many a time at the stage version of a Briton as presented in Paris, but they forgot that the average Englishman's conception of the average American is equally ludicrous in its blunders. In devising means "to save George" they flew into a panic. Lady St. Maur telegraphed a frantic appeal to Lady Porthcawl for information, but "dear Millicent" took thought, saw that she was already sufficiently committed, and caused her maid to reply that she had left Bournemouth for the weekend.

A telegram to the hotel manager produced more definite news. Cynthia, providing against the receipt of any urgent message from her father, had given the College Green Hotel as her address for the night; but this intelligence arrived too late to permit of the Earl's departure till next morning. Lady Porthcawl's hint that the "devoted George was traveling incognito" prevented the use of wire or post. If the infatuated viscount were to be brought to reason there was nothing for it but that the Earl should hurry to Bristol by an early train next morning. He did hurry, and arrived five minutes too late.

Marigny, of course, saw that lightning had darted from a summer sky. If the despised chauffeur had proved such a tough opponent, what would happen now that he turned out to be a sprig of the aristocracy? He guessed at once that the Earl of Fairholme appraised Cynthia Vanrenen by the Devar standard. He knew that five minutes in Cynthia's company would alter this doughty old gentleman's views so greatly that his present fury would give place to idolatry. No matter what the cost, they two must not meet, and it was very evident that if Hereford were mentioned as the night's rendezvous, the Earl would proceed there by the next train.

What was to be done? He decided promptly. Lifting his hat, and offering Lord Fairholme his card, he made up his mind to lie, and lie speciously, with circumstantial detail and convincing knowledge.

"I happened to meet the Vanrenens in Paris," he said. "Business brought me here, and I was surprised to see Miss Vanrenen without her father. You will pardon my reference to your son, I am sure. His attitude is explicable now. He resented my offer of friendly assistance to the young lady. Perhaps he thought she might avail herself of it."

"Assistance? What is the matter?"

"She had arranged for a car to meet her here. As it was not forthcoming, she altered her plans for a tour of Oxford, Kenilworth, and Warwick, and has gone in Viscount—Viscount——"

"Medenham's."

"Ah, yes—I did not catch the name precisely—in your son's car to London."

By this time Lord Fairholme had ascertained the Frenchman's description, and he was sufficiently well acquainted with the Valley of the Loire to recollect the Chateau Marigny as a house of some importance.

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Comte, if I seemed to speak brusquely at first," he said, "but we all appear to be mixed up in a comedy of errors. I remember now that my son telegraphed from Brighton to say that he would return to-day. Perhaps my journey from town was unnecessary, and he may be only engaged in some harmless escapade that is now nearing its end. I am very much obliged to you, and—er—I hope you will call when next you are in London. You know my name—my place is in Cavendish Square. Good-day."

So Marigny was left a second time on the steps of the hotel, while the cab which brought the Earl of Fairholme from the railway station took him back to it.

The Du Vallon came panting from the garage, but the Frenchman sent it away again. Hereford was no great distance by the direct road, and he had already determined not to follow the tortuous route devised by Cynthia for the day's run. Moreover, he must now reconsider his schemes. The long telegrams which he had just dispatched to Devar in London and to Peter Vanrenen in Paris might demand supplements.

And to think of that accursed chauffeur being a viscount! His gorge rose at that. The thought almost choked him. It was well that the hall-porter did not understand French, or the words that were muttered by Marigny as he turned on his heel and re-entered the hotel might have shocked him. And, indeed, they were most unsuited for the ears of a hall-porter who dwelt next door to a cathedral.



CHAPTER VIII

BREAKERS AHEAD

The Earl's title-borrowing from Shakespeare was certainly justified by current events, for Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, to say nothing of their masters, were no bad prototypes of the chief actors in this Bristol comedy.

Simmonds, not knowing who might have it in mind to investigate the latest defect in his car, decided it would be wise to disappear until Viscount Medenham was well quit of Bristol. By arrangement with Dale, therefore, he picked up the latter soon after the Mercury was turned over to Medenham's hands; in effect, the one chauffeur took the other on a 'bus-driver's holiday. Dale was free until two o'clock. At that hour he would depart for Hereford and meet his master, with arrangements made for the night as usual; meanwhile, the day's programme included a pleasant little run to Bath and back.

It was a morning that tempted to the road, but both men had risen early, and a pint of bitter seemed to be an almost indispensable preliminary. From Bristol to Bath is no distance to speak of, so a slight dallying over the beer led to an exchange of recent news.

Dale, it will be remembered, was of sporting bent, and he told Simmonds gleefully of his successful bet at Epsom.

"Five golden quidlets his lordship shoved into me fist at Brighton," he chortled. "Have you met Smith, who is lookin' after the Frenchman's Du Vallon? No? Well, he was there, an' his goggles nearly cracked when he sawr the money paid—two points over the market price, an' all."

"Sometimes one spots a winner by chanst," observed Simmonds judicially. "An' that reminds me. Last night a fella tole me there was a good thing at Kempton to-day.... Now, what was it?"

Dale instantly became a lexicon of weird-sounding words, for the British turf is exceedingly democratic in its pronunciation of the classical and foreign names frequently given to racehorses. His stock of racing lore was eked out by reference to a local paper; still Simmonds scratched an uncertain pate.

"Pity, too!" he said at last. "This chap had it from his nevvy, who married the sister of a housemaid at Beckhampton."

Dale whistled. Here was news, indeed. Beckhampton! the home of "good things."

"Is that where it comes from?"

"Yes. Something real hot over a mile."

"Can't you think? Let's look again at the entries."

"Wait a bit," cried Simmonds. "I've got it now. Second horse from the top of the column in to-morrow's entries in yesterday's Sportsman."

Dale understood exactly what the other man meant, and, so long as he understood, the fact may suffice for the rest of the world.

"Tell you wot," he suggested eagerly, "when you're ready we'll just run to the station an' arsk the bookstall people for yesterday's paper."

The inquiry, the search, the triumphant discovery, the telegraphing of the "information" and a sovereign to Tomkinson in Cavendish Square—"five bob each way" for each of the two—all these things took time, and time was very precious to Dale just then. Unhappily, time is often mute as to its value, and Bath is really quite close to Bristol.

The choice secret of the Beckhampton stable was safely launched—in its speculative element, at any rate—and Dale was about to seat himself beside Simmonds, when an astonished and somewhat irate old gentleman hooked the handle of an umbrella into his collar and shouted:

"Confound you, Dale! What are you doing here, and where is your master?"

Dale's tanned face grew pale, his ears and eyes assumed the semblance of a scared rabbit's, and the power of speech positively failed him.

"Do you hear me, Dale?" cried the Earl, that instant alighted from a cab. "I am asking you where Viscount Medenham is. If he has gone to town, why have you remained in Bristol?"

"But his lordship hasn't gone to London, my lord," stuttered Dale, finding his voice at last, and far too flustered to collect his wits, though he realized in a dazed way that it was his duty to act exactly as Viscount Medenham would wish him to act in such trying circumstances.

And, indeed, many very clever people might have found themselves sinking in some such unexpected quicksand and be not one whit less bemused than the miserable chauffeur. Morally, he had given the only possible answer that left open a way of escape, and he had formed a sufficiently shrewd estimate of the relations between his master and the remarkably good-looking young lady whom the said master was serving with exemplary diligence to fear dire consequences to himself if he became the direct cause of a broken idyl. The position was even worse if he fell back on an artistic lie. The Earl was a dour person where servants were concerned, and Salome did not demand John the Baptist's head on a salver with greater gusto than the autocrat of Fairholme would insist on Dale's dismissal when he discovered the facts. Talk of the horned dilemma—here was an unfortunate asked to choose which bristle of a porcupine he would sit upon.

The mere presence of his lordship in Bristol betokened a social atmosphere charged with electricity—a phase of the problem that constituted the only clear item in Dale's seething brain: it was too much for him; in sudden desperation he determined to stick to the plain truth.

He had to elect very quickly, for the peppery-tempered Earl would not brook delay.

"Not gone to London, you say? Then where the devil has he gone to? A gentleman at the hotel, a French gentleman, who said he had met these—these persons with whom my son is gadding about the country, told me that they had left Bristol this morning for London, because a car that was expected to meet them here had broken down."

Suddenly his lordship, a county magistrate noted for his sharpness, glanced at Simmonds. He marched round to the front of the car and saw that it was registered in London. He waved an accusing umbrella in air.

"What car is this? Is this the motor that won't go? It seems to have reached Bristol all right? Now, my men, I must have a candid tale from each of you, or the consequences may be most disagreeable. You, I presume," and he lunged en tierce at Simmonds, "have an employer of some sort, and I shall make it my business——"

"This is my own car, my lord," said Simmonds stiffly. He could be stubborn as any member of the Upper House when occasion served. "Your lordship needn't use any threats. Just ask me what you like an' I'll answer, if I can."

Fairholme, by no means a hasty man in the ordinary affairs of life, and only upset now by the unforeseen annoyances of an unusually disquieting mission, realized that he was losing caste. It was a novel experience to be rebuked by a chauffeur, but he had the sense to swallow his wrath.

"Perhaps I ought to explain that I am particularly anxious to see Lord Medenham," he said more calmly. "I left London at eight o'clock this morning, and it is most irritating to have missed him by a few minutes. I only wish to be assured as to his whereabouts, and, of course, I have no reason to believe that any sort of responsibility for my son's movements rests with you."

"That's all right, my lord," said Simmonds. "Viscount Medenham was very kind to me last Wednesday. I had a first-rate job, and was on my way to the Savoy Hotel to take it up, when a van ran into me an' smashed the transmission shaft. His lordship met me in Down Street, an' offered to run my two ladies to Epsom an' along the south coast for a day or two while I repaired damages. I was to turn up here—an' here I am—but it suited his arrangements better to go on with the tour, an' that is all there is to it. A bit of a joke, I call it."

"Yes, my lord, that's hit hexactly," put in Dale, with a nervous eagerness that demanded the help of not less than two aspirates.

The Earl managed to restrain another outburst.

"Nothing to cavil at so far," he said with forced composure. "The only point that remains is—where is Lord Medenham now?"

"Somewhere between here an' Gloucester, my lord," said Simmonds.

"Gloucester—that is not on the way to London!"

No reply; neither man was willing to bell the cat. Finding Simmonds a tough customer, Fairholme tackled Dale.

"Come, come, this is rather absurd," he cried. "Fancy my son's chauffeur jibbing at my questions! Once and for all, Dale, where shall I find Lord Medenham to-night?"

There was no escape now. Dale had to blurt out the fatal word:

"Hereford!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, my lord. I'm goin' there with his lordship's portmanteaux."

The head of the Fitzroy clan turned to Simmonds again.

"Will you drive me to Gloucester?" he asked.

"No, my lord. I'm under contract to remain in Bristol five days."

"Very well. Stop in Bristol, and be d——d to you. Is there any reason why you should not take me to pick up my son's belongings? Then Dale and I can go to Hereford by train. Viscount Medenham is devilish particular about his linen. If I stick to his shirts I shall meet him sometime to-day, I suppose."

Simmonds sought Dale's counsel by an underlook, but that hapless sportsman could offer no suggestion, so the other made the best of a bad business.

"I'll do that, of course, my lord," he said with alacrity. "Just grab his lordship's dressing-case from that porter and shove it inside," he went on, eying Dale fiercely, well knowing that the whole collapse arose from a cause but too easily traced.

"No, no," broke in the Earl, whose magisterial experiences had taught him the wisdom of keeping witnesses apart, "Dale comes with me. I want to sift this business thoroughly. Put the case in front. We can pile the other luggage on top of it. Now, Dale, jump inside. Your friend knows where to go, I expect."

Thus did two bizarre elements intrude themselves into the natural order of things on that fine morning in the West of England. The very shortness of the road between Bristol and Bath apparently offered an insuperable obstacle to the passage of Simmonds's car along it, and some unknown "chap," whose "nevvy" had married the sister of a Beckhampton housemaid, became the predominating factor in a situation that affected the fortunes of several notable people.

For his part, Lord Fairholme gave no further thought to Marigny. It did not even occur to him it might be advisable to call again at the College Green Hotel, since Medenham had slept elsewhere, and Hereford was now the goal. Certainly, the Frenchman's good fairy might have pushed her good offices to excess by permitting him to see, careering about Bristol with a pair of chauffeurs, the man whom he believed to be then on the way to London. But fairies are unreliable creatures, apt to be off with a hop, skip, and a jump, and, in any case, Marigny was writing explicit instructions to Devar, though he would have been far more profitably employed in lounging outside the hotel.

So everybody was dissatisfied, more or less, the quaking Dale more, perhaps, than any, and the person who had absolutely no shadow of care on his soul was Medenham himself, at that moment guiding the Mercury along the splendid highway that connects Bristol with Gloucester—taking the run leisurely, too, lest Cynthia should miss one fleeting glimpse of the ever-changing beauties of the Severn estuary.

During one of these adagio movements by the engine, Cynthia, who had been consulting a guidebook, leaned forward with a smile on her face.

"What is a lamprey?" she asked.

"A special variety of eel which has a habit of sticking to stones by its mouth," said Medenham. Then he added, after a pause: "Henry the First was sixty-seven years of age when he died, so the dish of lampreys was perhaps blamed unjustly."

"You have a good memory," she retorted.

"Oh, is that in your book, Miss Vanrenen? Well, here is another fact about Gloucester. Alfred the Great held a Witenagemot there in 896. Do you know what a Witenagemot is?"

"Yes," she said, "a smoking concert."

Mrs. Devar invariably resented these bits of by-play, since she could no more extract their meaning than if they were uttered in Choctaw.

"Some very good people live in Gloucestershire," she put in. "There are the——" She began to give extracts from Burke's "Landed Gentry," whereupon the speedometer index sprang to forty-five, and a noble fifteenth century tower soon lifted its stone lacework above the trees and spires of the ancient city.

Cynthia wished to obtain some photographs of old inns, so, when they had admired the cathedral, and shuddered at the memory of Richard the Third—who wrote at Gloucester the order to Brackenbury for the murder of the princes in the Tower of London—and smiled at Cromwell's mordant wit in saying that the place had more churches than godliness when told of the local proverb, "As sure as God's in Gloucester," Medenham brought them to Northgate Street, where the New Inn—which is nearly always the most antiquated hostelry in an English country-town—supplied a fine example of massive timberwork, with courtyard and external galleries.

The light was so perfect that he persuaded Cynthia to stand in a doorway and let him take a picture. During the focusing interval, he suggested that the day's route should be varied by leaving the coast road at Westbury and running through the Forest of Dean, where a secluded hotel in the midst of a real woodland would be an ideal place for luncheon.

She agreed. Something in his tone told her that Mrs. Devar's consent to the arrangement had better be taken for granted. So they sped through the blossom-laden lanes of Gloucestershire to the leafy depths of the Forest, and saw the High Beeches, and the Old Beech, and the King's Walk, and many of the gorgeous vistas that those twin artists Spring and Summer etched on the wooded undulations of one of Britain's most delightful landscapes; as a fitting sequel to a run through fairyland they lunched at the Speech House Hotel, where once the skins of daring trespassers on the King's preserves were wont to be nailed on the Court House door by the Verderers.

It was Cynthia who pointed the moral.

"There is always an ogre's cave near the Enchanted Garden," she said, "and those were surely ogerish days when men were flayed alive for hunting the King's deer."

It is not to be wondered at if they dawdled somewhat by the way, when that way led past Offa's Dyke, through Chepstow, and Tintern, and Monmouth, and Symon's Yat. Indeed, Cynthia's moods alternated between wide-eyed enjoyment and sheer regret, for each romantic ruin and charming countryside not only aroused her enthusiasm but evoked a longing to remain riveted to the spot. Yet she would not be a woman if there were not exceptions to this rule, as shall be seen in due course.

Mrs. Devar, perchance tempted by the word "Castle," quitted the car at Chepstow, and climbed to the nail-studded oak door of one of the most perfect examples of a Norman stronghold now extant. Once committed to the role of sightseer, she was compelled to adhere to it, and before the fourth court was reached, had she known the story, she would have sympathized with the pilgrim who did not boil the peas in his shoes of penance. Chepstow Castle is a splendid ruin, but its steep gradients and rough pavements are not fitted for stout ladies who wear tight boots.

To make matters worse, the feelings of Cynthia's chaperon soon became as sore as her toes. The only feature of Marten's Tower that appealed to her was its diabolical ingenuity in providing opportunities for that interfering chauffeur to assist, almost to lift, Cynthia from one mass of fallen masonry to another. Though she knew nothing of Henry Marten she reviled his memory. She heard "Fitzroy" telling her wayward charge that the reformer really hated Charles I. because the King called him "an ugly rascal" in public, and directed that he should be turned out of Hyde Park; the words supplied a cue.

"Pity kings are not as powerful nowadays," she snapped. "The presumption of the lower orders is becoming intolerable."

"Unfortunately, Marten retaliated by signing the King's death warrant," said Medenham.

"Of course. What else could one expect from a person of his class?"

"But Sir Henry Marten was a celebrated judge, and the son of a baronet, and he married a rich widow—these are not the prevalent democratic vices," persisted Medenham.

"You must have sat up half the night reading the guidebook," she cried in vexation at her blunder.

Cynthia laughed so cheerfully that Mrs. Devar thought she had scored. Medenham left it at that, and was content. Both he and Cynthia knew that lack of space forbade indulgence in such minor details of history on the part of the book's compiler.

Another little incident heated Mrs. Devar to boiling-point. Cynthia more than once hinted that, if tired, she might wait for them in the lowermost court, where a fine tree spread its shade over some benches, but the older woman persisted in visiting every dungeon and scrambling up every broken stair. The girl took several photographs, and had reached the last film in a roll, when the whim seized her to pose Medenham in front of a Norman arch.

"You look rather like a baron," she said gleefully. "I wish I could borrow some armor and take you in character as the gentleman who built this castle. By the way, his name was Fitz-something-or-other. Was he a relation?"

"Fitz Osborne," said Medenham.

"Ah, yes. Fitzroy means King's son, doesn't it?"

"I—er—believe so."

"Well, I can imagine you scowling out of a vizor. It would suit you admirably."

"But I might not scowl."

"Oh, yes, you would. Remember this morning. Just force yourself to think for a moment that I am Monsieur——"

She stopped abruptly.

"A little more to the left, please—and turn your face to the sun. There, that is capital."

"Why should Fitzroy scowl at the recollection of Count Edouard?" demanded Mrs. Devar, her eyes devouring the telltale blush that suffused the girl's face and neck.

"Only because the Count wished to supplant him as our chauffeur," came the ready answer.

"I thought Monsieur Marigny's offer a very courteous one."

"Undoubtedly. But as I had to decide the matter I preferred to travel in a car that was at my own disposal."

Mrs. Devar dared not go farther. She relapsed into a sulky silence. She said not a word when Cynthia occupied the front seat for the climb through Chepstow's High Street, and when the girl turned to call her attention to the view from the crest of the famous Wyndcliff she was nodding asleep!

Cynthia told Medenham, and there was a touch of regret in her voice.

"Poor dear," she said in an undertone, "the Castle was too much for her, and the fresh air has made her drowsy."

He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and instantly made up his mind to broach a project that he had thought out carefully since his quarrel with the Frenchman.

"You mean to stay in Hereford during the whole of to-morrow, Miss Vanrenen?" he asked.

"Yes. Somehow, I don't see myself scampering across the map on the British Sabbath. Besides, I am all behindhand with my letters, and my father will be telegraphing something emphatic if I don't go beyond 'Much love' on a picture postcard."

"Symon's Yat is exceptionally beautiful, and there is a capital little hotel there. The Wye runs past the front door, the boating is superb, and there will be a brilliant moon after dinner."

"And the answer is?"

"That we could run into Hereford before breakfast, leaving you plenty of time to attend the morning service at the cathedral."

Cynthia did not look at him or she would have seen that he was rather baronial in aspect just then. Sad to relate, they were speeding down the Wyndcliff gorge without giving it the undisturbed notice it merited.

"I have a kind of notion that Mrs. Devar wouldn't catch on to the boating proposition," she said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps not, but the river takes a wide bend there, and she could see us from the hotel veranda all the time."

"Guess it can't be fixed up, anyhow," she sighed.

Twice had she lapsed into the idioms of her native land. What, then, was the matter with Cynthia that she had forgotten her self-imposed resolution to speak only in that purer English which is quite as highly appreciated in New York as in London?

It was Saturday afternoon, and they overtook and passed a break-load of beanfeasters going to Tintern. There is no mob so cruelly sarcastic as the British, and it may be that the revelers in the break envied the dusty chauffeur his pretty companion. At any rate, they greeted the passing of the car with jeers and cat-calls, and awoke Mrs. Devar. It is a weakness of human nature to endeavor to conceal the fact that you have been asleep when you are supposed to be awake, so she leaned forward now, and asked nonchalantly:

"Are we near Hereford?"

"No," said Cynthia. "We have a long way to go yet." She paused. "Are you really very tired?" she added, as an afterthought.

"Yes, dear. The air is positively overpowering."

There was another pause.

"Ah, well," sighed the girl, "we shall have a nice long rest when we stop for tea at—at—what is the name of the place?"

"Symon's Yat."

Medenham's voice was husky. Truth to tell, he was rather beside himself. He had played for a high stake and had nearly won. Even now the issue hung on a word, a mere whiff of volition: and if he knew exactly how much depended on that swing of the balance he might have been startled into a more earnest plea, and spoiled everything.

"But that will throw us late in arriving at Hereford," said Mrs. Devar.

"Does it really matter? We shall be there all day to-morrow."

"No, it is of no consequence, though Count Edouard said he would meet us there."

"And I refused to pledge myself to any arrangement. In fact, I would much prefer that his Countship should scorch on to Liverpool or Manchester, or wherever he happens to be going."

"Oh, Cynthia! And he going out of his way to be so friendly and agreeable!"

"Well, perhaps that was an unkind thing to say. What I mean is that we must feel ourselves at liberty to depart from a cut-and-dried schedule. Half the charm of wandering through England in an automobile is in one's freedom from timetables."

Back dropped Mrs. Devar, and Medenham recovered sufficient self-control to point out to Cynthia her first glimpse of the gray walls that vie with Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx for pride of place as the most beautiful ruin in England.

Certainly those old Cistercians knew how and where to build their monasteries. They had the true sense of beauty, whether in site or design, and at Tintern they chose the loveliest nook of a lovely valley. Cynthia silently feasted her vision on each new panorama revealed by the winding road, and ever the gray Abbey grew more distinct, more ornate, more completely the architectural gem of an entrancing landscape.

But disillusion was at hand.

Rounding the last bend of the descent, the Mercury purred into the midst of a collection of horsed vehicles and frayed motors. By some unhappy chance the whole countryside seemed to have chosen Tintern as a rendezvous that Saturday. The patrons of a neighboring hotel overflowed into the roadway; the brooding peace of the dead-and-gone monks had fled before this invasion; instead of memories of mitered abbots and cowled friars there were the realities of loud-voiced grooms and porkpie-eating excursionists.

"Please drive on," whispered Cynthia. "I must see Tintern another time."

Although Medenham hoped to consume a precious hour or more in showing her the noble church, the cloisters, the chapter-house, the monks' parlor, and the rest of the stone records of a quiet monastic life, he realized to the full how utterly incongruous were the enthusiastic trippers with their surroundings. The car threaded their ranks gingerly, and was soon running free along the tree-shaded road to Monmouth.

Happily, that delightful old town was sufficiently familiar to him in earlier days that he was now able to supplement the general knowledge of its past gleaned already by the girl's reading. He halted in front of the Welsh Gate on Monnow Bridge, and told her that although the venerable curiosity dates back to 1270 it is nevertheless the last defensive work in Britain in which serious preparations were made for civil war, as it was expected that the Chartists would march from Newport to attack Monmouth Jail in 1839.

"Six hundred years," mused Cynthia aloud. "If there are sermons in stones what a history is pent in these!"

"And how greatly it would differ from the accepted versions," laughed Medenham.

"Do we never know the truth, then?"

"Oh, yes, if we are actually mixed up in some affair of worldwide importance, but that is precisely the reason why the actors remain dumb."

Oddly enough, this was the first of Medenham's utterances that Mrs. Devar approved of.

"Evidently you have moved in high society, Fitzroy," she chimed in.

"Yes, madam," he said. "More than once, when in a hurry, I have run madly through Mayfair."

"Oh, nonsense!" she cried, resenting the studied civility of the "madam" and ruffled by the quip, "you speak of Mayfair, yet I don't suppose you really know where it is."

"I shall never forget where Down Street is, I assure you," he said cheerfully.

"And pray, why Down Street in particular?"

"Because that is where I met Simmonds, last Wednesday, and arranged to take on his job."

"In your mind, then, it figures as broken-down-street," cooed Cynthia.

After that the Mercury crossed the Monnow, and Mrs. Devar muttered something about the mistake one made when one encouraged servants to be too familiar. But Cynthia was not to be repressed. She was bubbling over with high spirits, and amused herself by telling Medenham that Henry V. was born at Monmouth and afterwards won the battle of Agincourt—"scraps of history not generally known," she confided to him.

From the back of the car Mrs. Devar watched them with a hawklike intentness that showed how thoroughly those "forty winks" snatched while in the Wyndcliff had restored her flagging energies. Though it was absurd to suppose that Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a millionaire, a girl dowered with all that happy fortune had to give, would so far forget her social position as to flirt with the chauffeur of a hired car, this experienced marriage-broker did not fail to realize what a stumbling-block the dreadful person was in the path of Count Edouard Marigny.

For once in her life, "Wiggy" Devar forced herself to think clearly. She saw that "Fitzroy" was a man who might prove exceedingly dangerous where a girl's susceptible heart was concerned. He had the address and semblance of a gentleman; he seemed to be able to talk some jargon of history and literature and art that appealed mightily to Cynthia; worst of all, he had undoubtedly ascertained, by some means wholly beyond her ken, that she and the Frenchman were in league. She was quite in the dark as to the cause of her son's extraordinary behavior the previous evening, but she was beginning to suspect that this meddlesome Fitzroy had contrived, somehow or other, to banish Captain Devar as he had outwitted Marigny on the Mendips. Talented schemer that she was, she did not believe for a moment that Simmonds had told the truth at Bristol. She argued, with cold logic, that the man would not risk the loss of an excellent commission by bringing from London a car so hopelessly out of repair that it could not be made available under four or five days. But her increasing alarm centered chiefly in Cynthia's attitude. If, by her allusion to a "cut-and-dried schedule," the girl implied a design to depart from the tour planned in London, then the Count's wooing became a most uncertain thing, since it was manifestly out of the question that he should continue to waylay them at stopping-places chosen haphazard during each day's run.

So Mrs. Devar noted with a malignant eye each friendly glance exchanged by the couple in front, and listened to the snatches of their talk with a malevolence that was fanned to fury by their obvious heedlessness of her presence. She felt that the crisis called for decisive action. There was only one person alive to whose judgment Cynthia Vanrenen would bow, and Mrs. Devar began seriously to consider the advisability of writing to Peter Vanrenen.

If any lingering doubt remained in her mind as to the soundness of this view, it was dispelled soon after they reached Symon's Yat. She was sitting in the inclosed veranda of a cozy hotel perched on the right bank of the Wye when Cynthia suddenly leaped up, teacup in hand, and looked down at the river.

"There are the duckiest little yachts I have ever seen skimming about on that stretch of water," she cried over her shoulder. "The mere sight of them makes me taste all the dust I have swallowed between here and London. Don't you think it would be real cute to remain here to-night and run into Hereford to-morrow after an early cup of tea?"

Cynthia need not have taken the trouble to avert her scarlet face from Mrs. Devar's inquisitive eyes; indeed, Mrs. Devar herself was glad that her quick-witted and perhaps quick-tempered young friend had not surprised the wry smile that twisted her own lips.

"Just as you please, Cynthia," said she amiably.

Then the girl resolutely crushed the absurd emotion that led her to shirk her companion's scrutiny: she was so taken aback by this unexpected complaisance in a quarter where she was prepared for opposition that she turned and laid a grateful hand on the other woman's arm.

"Now that is perfectly sweet of you," she said softly. "I would just love to see that river by moonlight, and—and—I fancied you were a bit weary of the road. It wouldn't matter if the country were not so wonderful, but when one has to screw one's head round quickly or one misses a castle or a prize landscape, a hundred miles of that sort of thing becomes a strain."

"This seems to be quite a restful place," agreed Mrs. Devar. "Have you—er—told Fitzroy of the proposed alteration in our arrangements?"

Cynthia grew interested in the yachts again.

"No," she said, "I've not mentioned it to him—yet."

A maid-servant entered, and Cynthia inquired if the hotel could provide three rooms for her party.

The girl, a pretty Celt of the fair-haired type, said she was sure there was accommodation.

"Then," said Cynthia, with what she felt to be a thoroughly self-possessed air, "please ask my chauffeur if he would like another cup of tea, and tell him to house the car and have our boxes sent in, as we shall stay here till half-past eight to-morrow morning."

Mrs. Devar's letter to Peter Vanrenen forthwith entered the category of things that must be done at the earliest opportunity. She wrote it before dinner, taking a full hour in the privacy of her room to compose its few carefully considered sentences. She posted it, too, and was confirmed in her estimate of its very real importance when she saw a muslined Cynthia saunter out and join "Fitzroy," who happened to be standing on a tiny landing-stage near a boathouse.

Yet, so strangely constituted is human nature of the Devar variety, she would have given half the money she possessed if she could have recalled that letter an hour later. But His Majesty's mails are inexorable as fate. A twopence-ha'penny stamp had linked Symon's Yat and Paris, and not all Mrs. Devar's world-worn ingenuity could sunder that link.



CHAPTER IX

ON THE WYE

For this is what happened. To Mrs. Devar, gazing darkly at Cynthia's too innocent discovery of Medenham standing on the tiny quay, came the Welsh maid, saying:

"Beg pardon, mam, but iss your chauf-feur's name Fitz-roy?"

"Yes."

"Then he iss wan-ted on the tel-e-phone from Her-e-ford, mam."

"There he is, below there, near the river."

Mrs. Devar smiled sourly at the thought that the interruption was well-timed, since Medenham was just raising his cap with a fine assumption of surprise at finding Miss Vanrenen strolling by the water's edge. The civil-spoken maid was about to trip off in pursuit of him, when Mrs. Devar changed her mind. The notion suddenly occurred to her that it would be well if she intervened in this telephonic conversation, and Fitzroy could still be summoned a minute later if desirable.

"Don't trouble," she cried, "I think that Miss Vanrenen wishes to go boating, so I will attend to the call myself. Perhaps Fitzroy's presence may be dispensed with."

The felt-lined telephone box was well screened off; as first impressions might be valuable, she adjusted the receivers carefully over both ears before she shouted "Hallo!"

"That you, my lord?" said a voice.

"Hallo!—who wants Fitzroy?" she asked in the gruffest tone she could adopt.

"It's Dale, my—— But who is talking? Is that you, sir?"

"Go on. Can't you hear?"

"Not very well, my lord, but I'm that upset.... It wasn't my fault, but your lordship's father dropped on to me at Bristol, an' he's here now. What am I to do?"

"My lordship's father! What are you talking about? Who are you?"

"Isn't that Lord—— Oh, dash it, aren't you Miss Vanrenen's chauffeur, Fitzroy?"

"No. This is the Symon's Yat Hotel. The party is out now, and Fitzroy as well, but I can tell him anything you wish to say."

Mrs. Devar fancied that the speaker, whose words thus far had excited her liveliest curiosity, would imagine that he was in communication with the proprietors of the hotel. She was not mistaken. Dale fell into the trap instantly, though, indeed, he was not to be blamed, since he had asked most earnestly that "Mr. Fitzroy, Miss Vanrenen's chauffeur" should be brought to the telephone.

"Well, mam," he said, "if I can't get hold of—of Fitzroy—I must leave a message, as I don't suppose I'll have another chanst. I'm his man, I'm Dale; have you got it?"

"Yes—Dale."

"Tell him the Earl of Fairholme turned up in Bristol an' forced me to explain everything. I couldn't help it. The old gentleman fell from the blooming sky, he did. Will you remember that name?"

"Oh, yes: the Earl of Fairholme."

"Well, his lordship will understand. I mean you must tell Fitzroy what I said. Please tell him privately. I expect I'll get the sack anyhow over this business, but I'm doin' me best in tryin' the telephone, so you'll confer a favor, mam, if you call Fitzroy on one side before tellin' him."

Though the telephone-box was stuffy when the door was closed, Mrs. Devar felt a cold chill running down her spine.

"I don't quite understand," she said thickly. "You're Dale, somebody's man; whose man?"

"His lordship's. Oh, d——n. Beg pardon, mam, but I'm Fitzroy's chauffeur."

It was a glorious night of early summer, yet lightning struck in that little shut-off section of the hotel.

"Do you mean that you are Viscount Medenham's chauffeur?" she gasped, and her hands trembled so much that she could scarce hold the receivers to her ears.

"Yes'm. Now you've got it. But, look here, I daren't stop another minnit. Tell his lordship—tell Mr. Fitzroy—that I'll dodge the Earl in some way an' remain here. He says he has been tricked, wot between me an' the Frenchman, but he means to go back to London to-morrow. Good-by, mam. You won't forget—strickly private?"

"Oh, no, I won't forget," said Mrs. Devar grimly; nevertheless, she felt weak and sick, and in her anxiety to rush out into the fresh air she did forget to hang up the receivers, and the Symon's Yat Hotel was cut off from the world of telephones until someone entered the box early next morning.

She was of a not uncommon type—a physical coward endowed with nerves of steel, but, for once in her life, she came perilously near fainting. It was bad enough that a money-making project of some value should show signs of tumbling in ruins, but far worse that she, an experienced tuft-hunter, should have lived in close companionship with a viscount for four long days and snubbed him rancorously and without cease. There was no escaping the net she had contrived for her own entanglement. She had actually written to Peter Vanrenen that she deemed it her duty as Cynthia's chaperon to acquaint him with Simmonds's defection and the filling of his place by Fitzroy, "a most unsuitable person to act as Miss Vanrenen's chauffeur"—indeed, a young man who, she was sure, "would never have been chosen for such a responsible position" by Mr. Vanrenen himself.

And Fitzroy was Viscount Medenham, heir to the Fairholme estates, one of the most eligible young bachelors in the kingdom! Oh, blind and crass that she had not guessed the truth! The car, the luncheon-basket, the rare wine, the crest on the silver, the very candor of the wretch in giving his real name, his instant recognition of "Jimmy" Devar's mother, the hints of a childhood passed in Sussex—why, even the aunt he spoke of on Derby Day must be Susan St. Maur, while Millicent Porthcawl had actually met him in the Bournemouth hotel!—these and many another vivid index pointed the path of knowledge to one so well versed as she in the intricacies of Debrett. The very attributes which she had taken for an impertinent aping of the manners of society had shouted his identity into her deaf ears time and again. Even an intelligent West-end housemaid would have felt some suspicion of the facts when confronted by these piled-up tokens. She remembered noticing his hands, the quality of his linen, his astonishingly "good" appearance on the only occasion that she had seen him in evening dress; she almost groaned aloud when she recalled the manner of her son's departure from Bristol, and some imp in her heart raked the burnt ashes of the fire that had devoured her when she heard why Captain Devar was requested to resign his commission. Of course, this proud young aristocrat recognized him at once, and had brushed him out of his sight as one might brush a fly off a windowpane.

But how was she to act in face of the threatened disaster? Why had not her son warned her? Did Marigny know, and was that the explanation of his sheepish demeanor when she and Cynthia were about to enter the car that morning? Indeed, Marigny's quiet acceptance of the position was quite as difficult to understand as her own failure to grasp the significance of all that happened since noon on Wednesday. This very day, before breakfast, he had come to her room with the cheering news that information to hand from London would certainly procure the dismissal of "Fitzroy" forthwith. The Mercury was registered in the name of the Earl of Fairholme, the obvious deduction being that his lordship's chauffeur was careering through England in a valuable car without a shred of permission; the merest whisper to Cynthia of this discovery, said the Frenchman, would send "Fitzroy" packing.

And again, what had Cynthia meant when she referred at Chepstow to the "Norman baron scowl" with which "Fitzroy" had favored Marigny? Was she, too, in the secret? Unhappy Mrs. Devar! She glowered at the darkening Wye, and wriggled on her chair in torture.

"Wass it all right a-bout the tel-e-phone, mam?" said a soft voice at her ear.

She started violently, and the maid was contrite.

"I'm ver-ry sor-ry, mam," she said, "but I see Mr. Fitz-roy down there on the riv-er——"

"Where, where?" cried the other, rather to gain time to collect her wits than to ascertain Medenham's whereabouts.

The girl pointed.

"In that lit-tle boat, all by its-self, mam," she said.

"Oh, it was of no importance. By the way," and Mrs. Devar produced her purse, "you might tell the people in the office not to pay any attention to the statements of a man named Dale, if he rings up from Hereford. He is only a chauffeur, and we shall see him in the morning; perhaps it will be best, if he asks for Fitzroy again to-night, to tell him to await our arrival."

"Yess, mam," and the maid went off, the richer by half-a-crown. Mrs. Devar's usual "tip" was a sixpence for a week's attentions, so it would demand an abstruse arithmetical calculation to arrive at an exact estimate of the degree of mental disturbance that led to the present lack of proportion.

Left alone once more, her gaze followed a small skiff speeding upstream over the placid surface of the silvery Wye; Medenham was rowing, and Cynthia held the tiller ropes; but Mrs. Devar's thoughts turned her mind's eyes inward, and they surveyed a gray prospect. Dale, the unseen monster who had struck this paralyzing blow, spoke of "the Frenchman." Lord Fairholme had charged both Dale and "the Frenchman" with tricking him. Therefore, the Earl and Marigny had met at Bristol. If so, and there could be little doubt of it, Marigny would hardly appear in Hereford, and if she attempted to telephone to the Green Dragon Hotel, where Cynthia had engaged rooms, she would not only fail to reach Marigny but probably reveal to a wrathful Earl the very fact which Dale seemed to have withheld from him, namely, his son's address at the moment.

She assumed that Dale knew how to communicate with his master because Medenham had telegraphed the name of the hotel at Symon's Yat. Therein she was right. Medenham wanted his baggage, and, having ascertained that there was a suitable train, sent instructions that Dale was to travel by it. This, of course, the man could not do. Lord Fairholme had carried off his son's portmanteaux, and had actually hired a room in the Green Dragon next to that reserved for Cynthia.

Suddenly grown wise, Mrs. Devar decided against the telephone. But there remained the secrecy of the post-office. What harm if she sent a brief message to both the Green Dragon and the Mitre Hotels—Marigny would be sure to put up at one or the other if he were in Hereford—and demand his advice? She hurried to the drawing-room and wrote:

Remaining Symon's Yat Hotel to-night. Suppose you are aware of to-day's developments. F. is son of gentleman you met in Bristol. Wire reply. DEVAR.

She went to the hotel bureau, but a sympathetic landlady shook her head.

"The post-office is closed. No telegrams can be dispatched until eight o'clock on Monday," she said. "But there is the telephone——"

"It is matterless," said Mrs. Devar, crushing the written forms in her fingers as though she had reason to believe they might sting her.

She resolved to let events drift now. They had passed beyond her control. Perhaps a policy of masterly inactivity might rescue her from the tornado which had swept her off her feet. In any case, she must fight her own battles, irrespective of the cabal entered into in Paris. Captain James Devar was an impossible ally; the French Count was a negligible quantity when compared with an English viscount whose ancestry threw back to the Conquest and whose estates covered half of a midland shire; but there remained, active as ever, the self-interest of a poor widow from whose despairing grasp was slipping a golden opportunity.

"Is it too late?" she asked herself. "Can anything be done? Maud, my dear, you are up against it, as they say in America. Pull yourself together, and see if you can't twist your mistakes to your own advantage."

Cynthia, meanwhile, was enjoying herself hugely. The placid reaches of the Wye offered a delightful contrast to the sun-baked roads of Monmouthshire; and, it may be added, there was enough of Mother Eve in her composition to render the proceeding none the less attractive because it was unconventional. Perhaps, deep hidden in her consciousness, lurked a doubt—but that was successfully stifled for the hour.

Indeed, her wits were trying to solve a minor puzzle. Her woman's eye had seen and her quick brain was marveling at certain details in Medenham's costume. There are conditions, even in England, in which a flannel suit is hard to obtain, and the manner of their coming to Symon's Yat seemed to preclude the buying of ready-made garments, a solution which would occur to an American instantly. Yet here was that incomprehensible chauffeur clad in the correct regalia of the Thames Rowing Club, though Cynthia, of course, did not recognize the colors.

"How did you manage it?" she asked, wide-eyed and smiling.

"I hunted through the hotels and met a man about my own size who was just off to town," he said.

"But—there are gaps."

"I thought they fitted rather well. In fact, he was slightly the stouter of the two."

"Don't be stupid. The gaps are in your story. Did you borrow or buy?"

"I borrowed. Luckily, he was a decent fellow, and there was no trouble."