No definite plans had been made even then; but harassed Sir Samuel told his chauffeur to engage a boat, and have it ready "in case her ladyship had a whim to go in it." The motor was to be in readiness simultaneously, and then the lady could choose between the two at the last moment.

Thus matters stood when my mistress appeared at the front door, hatted and coated. At last she must decide whether she would descend the rapids of the Tarn (quite safe, kind rapids, which had never done their worst enemies any harm), or travel by a newly finished road through the gorge, in the car, missing a few fine bits of scenery and an experience, but, it was to be supposed, enjoying extra comfort. There was the big blue car; there was the swift green river, and on the river a boat with two respectful and not unpicturesque boatmen.

"Ugh! the water looks hideously cold and dangerous," she sighed, shivering in the clear sunlight, despite her long fur coat. "But I have a horror of the motor, since yesterday. I may get over it, but it will take me days. It's a hateful predicament—between two evils, one as bad as the other. I oughtn't to have been subjected to it."

"Dane says everyone does go by the river. It's the thing to do," ventured Sir Samuel, becoming subtle. "They've put a big foot-warmer in the boat, and you can have your own rugs. There's a place where we land, by the way, to get a hot lunch."

With a moan, the bride pronounced for the boat, which was a big flat-bottomed punt, as reliable in appearance as pictures of John Bull. I fetched her rugs from the car. She was helped into the boat, and then, as my fate remained to be settled, I asked her in a voice soft as silk what were her wishes in regard to her handmaiden.

"Why, you'll come with us in the boat, of course. What else did you dream?" she replied sharply.

Down went my heart with a thump like a fish dropping off its hook. But as I would have moved toward the pebbly beach, a champion rode to my defence.

"Your ladyship doesn't think a load of five might disturb the balance of the boat?" mildly suggested the chauffeur. "The usual load is two passengers and two boatmen; and though there's no danger in the rapids if—"

She did not give him time to finish. "Oh, very well, you must stop with the car, Elise," said she. "It is only one inconvenience more, among many. No doubt I can put up with it. Get me the brandy flask out of the tea-basket."

I would have tried to scoop all the green cheese out of the moon for her, if she had asked me, I was so delighted. And part of my joy was mixed up with the thought that he wanted me to be with him. He had actually schemed to get me! I envied no one in the world, not even the lovely lady of the battlement garden. He was mine for to-day, in spite of her—so there!

Sir Samuel got into the boat, and wrapped his wife in rugs. The boatmen pushed off. Away the flat-bottomed punt slid down the clear green stream, the sun shining, the cascades sparkling, the strange precipices which wall the gorge, copper-tinted in the morning light. It was the most wonderful world; yet Lady Turnour was cackling angrily. Was she afraid? Had she changed her mind? No, the saints be praised! She was only burning holes in her petticoat on the brazier supplied by the hotel! I turned away to hide a smile almost as wicked as a grin, and before I looked round again, the swift stream had swept the boat out of sight round a jutting corner of rock. We were safe. This time it really was our world, our car, and our everything. We didn't even need to "pretend."

Ste. Enemie is only at the gates of the gorge—a porter's lodge, so to speak, and in the Aigle we sped on into the fairyland of which we'd had our first pale, moonlit peep last night. There were castles made by man, and castles made by gnomes; but the gnomes were the better architects. Their dwellings, carved of rock, towered out of the river to a giddy height, and some were broken in half, as if they had been rent asunder by gnome cannon, in gnome battles. There were gnome villages, too, which looked exactly like human habitations, with clustering roofs plastered against the mountain-side. But the hand of man had not placed one of these stones upon another.

There were gigantic rock statues, and watch-towers for gnomes to warn old-time gnome populations, perhaps, when their enemies, the cave-dwellers, were coming that way from a mammoth-hunt; and there was a wonderful grotto, fitted with doors and windows, a grotto whose occupants must surely have inherited the mansion from their ancestors, the cave-dwellers. Every step of the way History, gaunt and war-stained, stalked beside us, followed hot-foot by his foster-mother, Legend; and the first stories of the one and the last stories of the other were tangled inextricably together.

Legend and history were alike in one regard; both told of brave men and beautiful women; and the people we met as we drove, looked worthy of their forebears who had fought and suffered for religion and independence, in this strange, rock-walled corridor, shared with fairies and gnomes. The men were tall, with great bold, good-natured eyes and apple-red cheeks, to which their indigo blouses gave full value. The women were of gentle mien, with soft glances; and the children were even more attractive than their elders. Tiny girls, like walking dolls, with dresses to the ground, bobbed us curtseys; and sturdy little boys, curled up beside ancient grandfathers, in carts with old boots protecting the brakes, saluted like miniature soldiers, or pulled off their quaint round caps, as they stared in big-eyed wonder at our grand, blue car. For them we were prince and princess, not chauffeur and maid.

Sometimes our road through the gorge climbed high above the rushing green river, and ran along a narrow shelf overhanging the ravine, but clear of snow and ice; sometimes it plunged down the mountain-side as if on purpose to let us hear the music of the water; and one of these sudden swoops downward brought us in sight of a chateau so enchanting and so evidently enchanted, that I was sure a fairy's wand had waved for its creation, perhaps only a moment before. When we were gone, it would disappear again, and the fairy would flash down under the translucent water, laughing, as she sent up a spray of emeralds and pearls.

"Of course, it isn't real!" I exclaimed. "But do let's stop, because such a knightly castle wouldn't be rude enough to vanish right before our eyes."

"No, it won't vanish, because it's a most courteous little castle, which has been well brought up, and even though its greatness is gone, tries to live up to its traditions," said Jack. "It always appears to everyone it thinks likely to appreciate it; and I was certain it would be here in its place to welcome you."

We smiled into each other's eyes, and I felt as if the castle were a present from him to me. How I should have loved to have it for mine, to make up for one poor old chateau, now crumbled hopelessly into ruin, and despised by the least exacting of tourists! Coming upon it unexpectedly in this green dell, at the foot of the precipice, seeing it rise from the water on one side, reflected as in a broken mirror, and draped in young, golden foliage on the other, it really was an ideal castle for a fairy tale. A connoisseur in the best architecture of the Renaissance would perhaps have been ungracious enough to pick faults; for to a critical eye the turrets and arches might fall short of perfection; and there was little decoration on the time-darkened stone walls, save the thick curtain of old, old ivy; but the fairy grace of the towers rising from the moat of glittering, bright green water was gay and sweet as a song heard in the woods.

"Some beautiful nymph ought to have lived here," I said dreamily, when we had got out of the car. "A nymph whose beauty was celebrated all over the world, so that knights from far and near came to this lovely place to woo her."

"Why, you might have heard the story of the place!" said Jack. "It's the Chateau de la Caze, usually called the Castle of the Nymphs, for instead of one, eight beautiful nymphs lived in it. But their beauty was their undoing. I don't quite know why they were called 'nymphs,' for nymphs and naiads had gone out of fashion when they reigned here as Queens of Beauty, in the sixteenth century. But perhaps in those days to call a girl a 'nymph' was to pay her a compliment. It wouldn't be now, when chaps criticize the 'nymphery' if they go to a dance! Anyhow, these eight sisters, were renowned for their loveliness, and all the unmarried gentlemen of France—according to the story—as well as foreign knights, came to pay court to them. The unfortunate thing was, when the cavaliers saw the eight girls together, they were all so frightfully pretty it wasn't possible to choose between them, so the poor gentlemen fought over their rival charms, and were either killed or went away unable to make up their minds. The sad end was, if you'll believe me, that all the eight maidens died unmarried, martyrs to their own incomparable charms."

"I can quite believe it," I answered, "and it wasn't at all sad, because I'm sure any girl who had once had this place for her home would have pined in grief at being taken away, even by the most glorious knight of the world."

"Come in and see their boudoir," said the knight who worked, if he did not fight, for me.

So we went in, without the trouble of using battering rams; for alas, the family of the eight nymphs grew tired of their chateau and the gorge in the dreadful days of the religious wars, and now it is an hotel. It would not receive paying guests until summer, but a good-natured caretaker opened the door for us, and we saw a number of stone-paved corridors, and the nymphs' boudoir.

Their adoring father had ordered their portraits to be painted on the ceiling; and there they remain to this day, simpering sweetly down upon the few bits of ancient furniture made to match the room and suit their taste.

They smiled amiably at us, too, the eight little faces framed in Henrietta Maria curls; and their eyes said to me, "If you want to be happy, m'amie, it is better not to be too beautiful; or else not to have any sisters. Or if Providence will send you sisters, go away yourself, and visit your plainest friend, till you have got a husband."

Gazing wistfully back, as one does gaze at places one fears never to see again, the Castle of the Nymphs looked like a fantastic water-flower standing up out of the green river, on its thick stem of rock. Then it was gone; for our time was not quite our own, and we dared not linger, lest the boat with our Betters should arrive at the meeting place before we reached it in the car. But there were compensations, for almost with every moment the gorge grew grander. Cascades sparkled in the sun like blowing diamond-dust. The rocks seemed set with jewels, or patterned with mosaic; and there were caves—caves almost too good to be true. Yet if we could believe our eyes, they were true, even the dark cavern where, once upon a time, lived a scaly dragon who terrorized the whole country for miles around, and had no relish for his meals unless they were composed of the most exquisite young maidens—though he would accept a child as an hors d'oeuvre. In such a strange world as this, after all, it was no harder to believe in dragons, than in hiding countesses, fed and tended for months upon months by faithful servants, while the red Revolution raged; yet the countess and her cave were vouched for by history, which ignored the dragon and his.

Not only had each mountain at least one cavern, but every really eligible crag had its ruined castle; and each ruin had its romance, which clung like the perfume of roses to a shattered vase. There were rocks shaped like processions of marching monks following uplifted crucifixes; and farther on, one would have thought that half the animals had scrambled out of the ark to a height where they had petrified before the flood subsided. As we wound through the gorge the landscape became so strange, hewn in such immensity of conception, that it seemed prehistoric. We, in the blue car, were anachronisms, or so I felt until I remembered how, in pre-motoring days, I used to think that owning an automobile must be like having a half-tamed minotaur in the family. As for the Aigle, she was a friendly, not a vicious, monster, and as if to make up for her mistakes of yesterday, she was to-day more like a demi-goddess serving an earthly apprenticeship in fulfilment of a vow than a dragon of any sort. Swinging smoothly round curve after curve, the noble car running free and cooing in sheer joy of fiery life, as she swooped from height to depth, I, too, felt the joy of life as I had hardly ever felt it before. The chauffeur and I did not speak often, but I looked up at him sometimes because of the pleasure I had in seeing and re-seeing the face in which I had come to have perfect confidence; and I fancied from its expression that he felt as I felt.

So we came to Les Vignes, and lunched together at a table set out of doors, close to the car, that she might not be left alone. We had for food a strange and somewhat evil combination; wild hare and wild boar; but they seemed to suit the landscape somehow, as did the mystical music of the conch-shells, blown by passing boatmen. It was like being waked from a dream of old-time romance, by a rude hand shaking one's shoulder, to hear the voices of Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour, he mildly arguing, she disputing, as usual.

Poetry fled like a dryad of some classic wood, scared by a motor omnibus; and, though the gorge as far as Le Rozier was magnificent, and the road all the way to Millau beautiful in the sunset, it was no longer our gorge, or our road. That made a difference!



CHAPTER XXIV

There was a telegram from "Bertie" at Millau. The invitation to the chateau where he was stopping near Clermont-Ferrand, had been asked for and given. I heard all about it, of course, from the conversation between the bride and groom; for Lady Turnour prides herself on discussing things in my presence, as if I were deaf or a piece of furniture. She has the idea that this trick is a habit of the "smart set"; and she would allow herself to be tarred and feathered, in Directoire style, if she could not be smart at smaller cost.

Nothing was ever more opportune than that telegram, for her ladyship had burnt her frock and chilled her liver in the boat, and though the hotel at Millau was good, she arrived there with the evident intention of making life a burden to Sir Samuel. The news from Bertie changed all that, however; and though the weather was like the breath of icebergs next morning, Lady Turnour was warmed from within. She chatted pleasantly with Sir Samuel about the big luggage which had gone on to Clermont-Ferrand, and asked his advice concerning the becomingness of various dresses. The one unpleasant thing she allowed herself to say, was that "certainly Bertie wasn't doing this for nothing," and that his stepfather might take her word for it, Bertie would be neither slow nor shy in naming his reward. But Sir Samuel only grinned, and appeared rather amused than otherwise at the shrewdness of his wife's insight into the young man's character.

I was conscious that my jacket hadn't been made for motoring, when I came out into the sharp morning air and took my place in the Aigle. I was inclined to envy my mistress her fur rugs, but to my surprise I saw lying on my seat a Scotch plaid, plaider than any plaid ever made in Scotland.

"Does that belong to the hotel?" I asked the chauffeur, as he got into the car.

"It belongs to you," said he. "A present from Millau for a good child."

"Oh, you mustn't!" I exclaimed.

"But I have," he returned, calmly. "I'm not going to watch you slowly freezing to death by my side; for it won't be exactly summer to-day. Let me tuck you in prettily."

I groaned while I obeyed. "I've been an expense to you all the way, because you wouldn't abandon me to the lions, even in the most expensive hotels, where I knew you wouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for me. And now, this!"

"It cost only a few francs," he tried to reassure me. "We'll sell it again—afterward, if that will make you happier. But sufficient for the day is the rug thereof—at least, I hope it will be. And don't flaunt it, for if her ladyship sees there's an extra rug of any sort on board she'll be clamouring for it by and by."

Northward we started, in the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter until I began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my head like champagne. Our road was a mere white thread winding loosely through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer to the cold, high level of les Causses, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. We felt the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and made the Aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it squarely. We swept on toward the snow-reaches whence the wind-torrent came. Soon we were on the flat plateau of the Causse, where last year's faded grass was frosted white, and a torn winding-sheet wrapped the limbs of a dead world. There was no beauty in this death, save the wild beauty of desolation, and a grandeur inseparable from heights. Before us grouped the mountains of Auvergne, hoary headed; and looking down we could see the twistings of the road we had travelled, whirling away and away, like the blown tail of a kite trailed over mountain and foothill.

"The people at Millau told me I should get up to St. Flour all right, in spite of the fall of snow," said the chauffeur, his eyes on the great white waves that piled themselves against a blue-white sky, "but I begin to think there's trouble before us, and I don't know whether I ought to have persisted in bringing you."

"Persisted!" I echoed, defending him against himself. "Why, do you suppose wild horses would have dragged Lady Turnour in any other direction, now that she's actually invited to be the guest of a marquis in a real live castle?"

"A railway train could very well have dragged her in the same direction and got her to the castle as soon, if not a good deal sooner than she's likely to get in this car, if we have to fight snow. I proposed this way originally because I wanted you to see the Gorge of the Tarn, and because I thought that you'd like Clermont-Ferrand, and the road there. It was to be your adventure, you know, and I shall feel a brute if I let you in for a worse one than I bargained for. Even this morning it wasn't too late. I could have hinted at horrors, and they would have gone by rail like lambs, taking you with them."

"Lady Turnour can do nothing like a lamb," I contradicted him. "I should never have forgiven you for sending me away from—the car. Besides, Lady Turnour wants to teuf-teuf up to the chateau in her sixty-horse-power Aigle, and make an impression on the aristocracy."

"Well, we must hope for the best now," said he. "But look, the snow's an inch thick by the roadside even at this level, so I don't know what we mayn't be in for, between here and St. Flour, which is much higher—the highest point we shall have to pass in getting to the Chateau de Roquemartine, a few miles out of Clermont-Ferrand."

"You think we may get stuck?"

"It's possible."

"Well, that would be an adventure. You know I love adventures."

"But I know the Turnours don't. And if—" He didn't finish his sentence.

Higher we mounted, until half France seemed to lie spread out before us, and a solitary sign-post with "Paris-Perpignans" suggested unbelievable distances. The Aigle glided up gradients like the side of a somewhat toppling house, and scarcely needed to change speed, so well did she like the rarefied mountain air. I liked it too, though I had to be thankful for the plaid; and above all I liked the wild loneliness of the Causse, which was unlike anything I ever saw or imagined. The savage monotony of the heights was broken just often enough by oases of pine wood; and the plains on which we looked down were blistered with conical hills, crowned by ancient castles which would have rejoiced the hearts of mediaeval painters, as they did mine. Severac-le-Chateau, perched on its naked pinnacle of rock, was best of all, as we saw it from our bird's-eye view, and then again, almost startlingly impressive when we had somehow whirled down below it, to pass under its old huddled town, before we flew up once more to higher and whiter levels.

Never had the car gone better; but Lady Turnour had objected to the early start which the chauffeur wanted, and the sun was nearly overhead when many a huge shoulder of glittering marble still walled us away from our journey's end. The cold was the pitiless cold of northern midwinter, and I remembered with a shiver that Millau and Clermont-Ferrand were separated from one another by nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres of such mountain roads as these. Oh yes, it was an experience, a splendid, dazzling experience; nevertheless, my cowardly thoughts would turn, sunflower-like, toward warmth; warm rooms, even stuffy rooms, without a single window open, fires crackling, and hot things to drink. Still, I wouldn't admit that I was cold, and stiffened my muscles to prevent a shudder when my brother asked me cheerfully if I would enjoy a visit to the Gouffre de Padirac, close by.

A "gouffre" on such a day! Not all the splendours of the posters which I had often seen and admired, could thrill me to a desire for the expedition; but I tried to cover my real feelings with the excuse that it must now be too late to make even a small detour. Mr. Jack Dane laughed, and replied that he had no intention of making it; he had only wanted to test my pluck. "I believe you'd pretend to be delighted if I told you we had plenty of time, and mustn't miss going," said he. "But don't be frightened; this isn't a Gouffre de Padirac day, though it really is a great pity to pass it by. What do you say to lunch instead?"

And we rolled through a magnificent mediaeval gateway into the ancient and unpronounceable town of Marvejols.

Before he had time to make the same suggestion to his more important passengers, it came hastily from within the glass cage. So we stopped at an inn which proudly named itself an hotel; and chauffeur and maid were entertained in a kitchen destitute of air and full of clamour. Nevertheless, it seemed a snug haven to us, and never was any soup better than the soup of "Marvels," as Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour called the place.

The word was "push on," however, for we had still the worst before us, and a long way to go. The Quality had promised to finish its luncheon in an hour; and well before the time was up, we two Worms were out in the cold, each engaged in fulfilling its own mission. I was arranging rugs; the chauffeur was pouring some libation from a long-nosed tin upon the altar of his goddess when our master appeared, wearing such an "I haven't stolen the cream or eaten the canary" expression that we knew at once something new was in the wind.

He coughed, and floundered into explanations. "The waiter, who can speak some English, has been frightening her ladyship," said he. "After the day before yesterday she's grown a bit timid, and to hear that the cold she has suffered from is nothing to what she may have to experience higher up, and later in the day, as the sun gets down behind the mountains, has put her off motoring. It seems we can go on from here by train to Clermont-Ferrand and that's what she wants to do. I hate deserting the car, but after all, this is an expedition of pleasure, and if her ladyship has a preference, why shouldn't it be gratified?"

"Quite so, sir," responded the chauffeur, his face a blank.

"My first thought on making up my mind to the train was to have the car shipped at the same time," went on Sir Samuel, "but it seems that can't be done. There's lots of red tape about such things, and the motor might have to wait days on end here at Marvels, before getting off, to say nothing of how long she might be on the way. Whereas, I've been calculating, if you start now and go as quick as you can, you ought to be at the chateau" (he pronounced it 'chattoe') "before us. Our train doesn't leave for more than an hour, and it's a very slow one. Still, it will be warm, and we have cards and Tauchnitz novels. Then, you know, you can unload the luggage at the chateau and run back to the railway station at Clermont-Ferrand, see to having our big boxes sent out (they'll be there waiting for us) and meet our train. What do you think of the plan?"

"It ought to do very well—if I'm not delayed on the road by snow."

"Do you expect to be?"

"I hope not. But it's possible."

"Well, her ladyship has made up her mind, and we must risk it. I'll trust you to get out of any scrape."

The chauffeur smiled. "I'll try not to get into one," he said. "And I'd better be off—unless you have further instructions?"

"Only the receipt for the luggage. Here it is," said Sir Samuel. "And here are the keys for you, Elise. Her ladyship wants you to have everything unpacked by the time she arrives. Oh—and the rugs! We shall need them in the train."

"Isn't mademoiselle going with you?" asked my brother, showing surprise at last.

"No. Her mistress thinks it would be better for her to have everything ready for us at the 'chattoe.' You see, it will be almost dinner-time when we get there."

"But, sir, if the car's delayed—"

"Well," cut in Sir Samuel, "we must chance it, I'm afraid. The fact is, her ladyship is in such a nervous state that I don't care to put any more doubts into her head. She's made up her mind what she wants, and we'd better let it go at that."

If I'd been near enough to my brother I should have stamped on his foot, or seized some other forcible method of suggesting that he should kindly hold his tongue. As it was, my only hope lay in an imploring look, which he did not catch. However, in pity for Sir Samuel he said no more; and before we were three minutes older, if her ladyship had yearned to have me back, it would have been too late. We were off together, and another day had been given to us for ours.

The chauffeur proposed that I should sit inside the car; but I had regained all my courage in the hot inn-kitchen. I was not cold, and didn't feel as if I should ever be cold again.

The road mounted almost continuously. Sometimes, as we looked ahead, it seemed to have been broken off short just in front of the car, by some dreadful earth convulsion; but it always turned out to be only a sudden dip down, or a sharp turn like the curve of an apple-paring. At last we had reached the highest peak of the Roof of France—a sloping, snow-covered roof; but steep as was the slant, very little of the snow appeared to have slipped off.

The Cevennes on our right loomed near and bleak; the Auvergne stretched endlessly before us, and the virgin snow, pure as edelweiss, was darkened in the misty distance by patches of shadow, purple-blue, like beds of early violets.

At first but a thin white sheet was spread over our road, but soon the lace-like fabric was exchanged for a fleecy blanket, then a thick quilt of down, and the motor began to pant. The winds seemed to come from all ways at once, shrieking like witches, and flinging their splinters of ice, fine and small as broken needles, against our cheeks. Still I would not go inside. I could not bear to be warm and comfortable while Jack faced the cold alone. I knew his fingers must be stiff, though he wouldn't confess to any suffering, and I wished that I knew how to drive the car, so that we might have taken turns, sitting with our hands in our pockets.

In the deepening snow we moved slowly, the wheels slipping now and then, unable to grip. Then, on a steep incline, there came a report like a revolver shot. But it didn't frighten me now. I knew it meant a collapsed tyre, not a concealed murderer; but there couldn't have been a much worse place for "jacking up." Nevertheless, it's an ill tyre that blows up for its own good alone, and the forty minutes out of a waning afternoon made the chauffeur's cold hands hot and the hot engine cold.

Starting on again, we had ten miles of desolation, then a tiny hamlet which seemed only to emphasize that desolation; again another ten-mile stretch of desert, and another hamlet; here and there a glimpse of the railway line, like a great black snake, lost in the snow; now and then the gilded picture of an ancient town, crowning some tall crag that stood up from the flat plain below like a giant bottle. And there was one thrilling view of a high viaduct, flinging a spider's web of glittering steel across a vast and shadowy ravine. "Garabit!" said the chauffeur, as he saw it; and I remembered that this road was not new for him. He did not talk much. Was he thinking of the companion who perhaps had sat beside him before? I wondered. Was it because he thought continually of her that he looked at me wistfully sometimes, often in silence, wishing me away, maybe, and the woman who had spoilt his life by his side again for good or ill?

Suddenly we plunged into a deep snow-bank which deceitfully levelled a dip in the road, and the car stopped, trembling like a horse caught by the hind leg while in full gallop.

On went the first speed, most powerful of all, but not powerful enough to fight through snow nearly up to the hubs. The Aigle was prisoned like a rat in a trap, and could neither go back nor forward.

"Well?" I questioned, half laughing, half frightened, at this fulfilment of the morning's prophecy.

"Sit still, and I'll try to push her through," said Jack jumping out into the deep snow. "It's only a drift in a hollow, you see; and we should have got by the worst, just up there at St. Flour."

I looked where his nod indicated, and saw a town as dark and seemingly as old as the rock out of which it grew, climbing a conical hill, to dominate all the wide, white reaches above which it stood, like an armoured sentinel on a watch-tower. As I gazed, struck with admiration, which for an instant made me forget our plight, he began to push. The car, surprised at his strength and determination, half decided to move, then changed her mind and refused to budge. In a second, before he could guess what I meant to do, I had flashed out of my seat into the snow, and was wading in his tracks to help him when he snatched me up—a hand on either side of my waist—and swung me back into my place again.

"Little wretch!" he exclaimed. "How dare you disobey me?"

Then I was vexed, for it was ignominious to be treated as a child, when I had wanted to aid him like a comrade.

"You are very unkind—very rude," I said. "You wouldn't dare to do that, or speak like that to Her."

He laughed loudly. "What—haven't you forgotten 'Her?'" (As if I ever could!) "Well, I may tell you, it's just because I did dare to 'speak like that' to a woman, that I'm a chauffeur stuck in the snow with another man's car, and the—"

"The rest is another epithet which concerns me, I suppose," I remarked with dignity, though suddenly I felt the chill of the icy air far, far more cruelly than I had felt it yet. I was so cold, in this white desolation, that it seemed I must die soon. And it wouldn't matter at all if I were buried under the drifts, to be found in the late spring with violets growing out of the places where my eyes once had been.

"Yes," said he, in that cool way he has, which can be as irritating as a chilblain. "It was an epithet concerning you, but luckily for me I stopped to think before I spoke—an accomplishment I'm only just beginning to learn."

I swallowed something much harder and bigger than a cannon ball, and said nothing.

"Of course you're covered with snow up to your knees, foolish child!" He was glaring ferociously at me.

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter most infernally. Don't you know that you make no more than a featherweight of difference to the car?"

"I feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds, now."

"It's that snow!"

"No. It's you. Your crossness. I can't have people cross to me, on lonely mountains, just when I'm trying to help them."

His glare of rage turned to a stare of surprise. "Cross? Do you think I was cross to you?"

"Yes. And you just stopped in time, or you would have been worse."

"Oh, I see," he said. "You thought that the 'epithet' was going to be invidious, did you?"

"Naturally."

"Well, it wasn't. I—no, I won't say it! That would be the last folly. But—I wasn't going to be cross. I can't have you think that, whatever happens. Now sit still and be good, while I push again."

I weighed no more than half the thousand pounds now, and the cannon ball had dissolved like a chocolate cream; but the car stood like a rock, fixed, immutable.

"There ought to be half a dozen of me," said the chauffeur. "Look here, little pal, there's nothing else for it; I must trudge off to St. Flour and collect the missing five. Are you afraid to be left here alone?"

Of course I said no; but when he had disappeared, walking very fast, I thought of a large variety of horrors that might happen; almost everything, in fact, from an earthquake to a mad bull. As the sun leaned far down toward the west, the level red light lay like pools of blood in the snow-hollows, and the shadows "came alive," as they used when I was a child lying awake, alone, watching the play of the fire on wall and ceiling.

Long minutes passed, and at last I could sit still no longer. Gaily risking my brother's displeasure, now I knew that he wasn't "cross," I slipped out into the snow again, opened the car door, stood in the doorway, hanging on with one hand, and after much manoeuvring extricated the tea-basket from among spare tyres and luggage on the roof. Then, swinging it down, planted it inside the car, opened it, and scooped up a kettleful of snow. As soon as the big white lump had melted over a rose and azure flame of alcohol, I added more snow, and still more, until the kettle was filled with water. By the time I had warmed and dried my feet on the automatic heater under the floor, the water bubbled; and as jets of steam began to pour from the spout I saw six figures approaching, dark as if they had been cut out in black velvet against the snow.

"Tea for seven!" I said to myself; but the kettle was large, if the cups were few.

It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest. When she stood only a foot deep, she consented readily to move. We bade good-bye to the five men, for whom we had emptied our not-too-well filled pockets, and forged, bumbling, past St. Flour. It was a great strain for a heavy car, and the chauffeur only said, "I thought so!" when a chain snapped five or six miles farther on.

"What a good thing Lady Turnour isn't here!" said I, as he doctored the wounded Aigle.



"Lots of girls would be in a blue funk," said he. "I could shake that beastly woman for not taking you with her."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "When I'm not doing you any harm!"

He glanced up from his work, and then, as if on an irresistible impulse, left the chain to come and stand beside me, as I sat wrapped up in his gift "for a good girl."

He gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and I wonderingly returned the gaze, not knowing what was to follow.

The moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over. The soft, pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had never looked so handsome.

"You don't mean to do me any harm, do you?" he said.

"I couldn't if I would, and wouldn't if I could," I answered in surprise.

"Yet you do me harm."

"You're joking!"

"I never was further from joking in my life. You do me harm because you make me wish for something I can't have, something it's a constant fight with me, ever since we've been thrown together, not to wish for, not to think of. Yet you say I'm cross! Now, do you know what I mean, and will you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of tempting me—tempting me, however unconsciously, to—to wish—for—for—what a fool I am! I'm going to finish my mending."

I sat perfectly still, with my mouth open, feeling as if it were my chain, not the car's, which had broken!

Of course if it hadn't been for all his talk of Her, I should have known, or thought that I knew, well enough what he meant. But how could I take his strange words and stammered hints for what they seemed to suggest, knowing as I did, from his own veiled confessions, that he was in love with some beautiful fiend who had ruined his career and then thrown him over!

I longed to speak, to ask him just one question, but I dared not. No words would come; and perhaps if they had, I should have regretted them, for I was so sure he was not a man who would fall out of love with one woman to tumble into love for another, that I didn't know what to make of him; but the thought which his words shot into my mind, swift and keen, and then tore away again, showed me very well what to make of myself.

If I hadn't quite known before, I knew suddenly, all in a minute, that I was in love, oh, but humiliatingly deep in love, with the chauffeur! It seemed to me that no nice, well-regulated girl could ever have let herself go tobogganing down such a steep hill, splash into such a sea of love, unless the man were at the bottom in a boat, holding out his arms to catch her as she fell. But the chauffeur hadn't the slightest intention of holding out his arms to the poor little motor maid. He went on mending the chain, and when he got into the car beside me again he began to talk about the weather.



CHAPTER XXV

It was ten o'clock when we came into Clermont-Ferrand, which looked a beautiful old place in the moonlight, with the great, white Puy de Dome floating half way up the sky, like a marble dream-palace.

I trembled for our reception at the chateau, for everything would be our fault, from the snow on the mountains to Lady Turnour's lack of a dinner dress; and the consciousness of our innocence would be our sole comfort. Not for an instant did we believe that it would help our case to stop at the railway station and arrange for the big luggage to be sent the first thing in the morning; nevertheless, we satisfied our consciences by doing it, though we were so hungry that everything uneatable seemed irrelevant.

A young woman in a book, who had just pried into the depths of her soul, and discovered there a desperate love, would have loathed the thought of food; but evidently I am unworthy to be a heroine, for my imagination called up visions of soup and steak; and because it seemed so extremely important to be hungry, I could quite well put off being unhappy until to-morrow.

It is only three miles from Clermont-Ferrand to the Chateau de Roquemartine, and we came to it easily, without inquiries, Jack having carefully studied the road map with Sir Samuel. He had only to stop at the porter's lodge to make sure we were right, and then to teuf-teuf up a long, straight avenue, sounding our musical siren as an announcement of our arrival. It was only when I saw the fine old mansion on a terraced plateau, its creamy stone white as pearl in the moonlight, its rows upon rows of windows ablaze, that I remembered my position disagreeably. I was going to stay at this charming place, as a servant, not as a member of the house-party. I would have to eat in the servants' hall—I, Lys d'Angely, whose family had been one of the proudest in France. Why, the name de Roquemartine was as nothing beside ours. It had not even been invented when ours was already old. What would my father say if he could see his daughter arriving thus at a house which would have been too much honoured by a visit from him? I was suddenly ashamed. My boasted sense of humour, about which I am usually such a Pharisee, sulked in a corner and refused to come out to my rescue, though I called upon it. Funny it might be to eat in the kitchens of inns, but I could not feel that it was funny to be relegated to the servants' brigade in the private house of a countryman of my father.

What queerly complicated creatures we little human animals are! An avalanche of love hadn't destroyed my hunger. A knife-thrust in my vanity killed it in an instant; and I can't believe this was simply because I'm female. I shouldn't be surprised if a man might feel exactly the same—or more so.

"Oh, dear!" I sighed. "It's going to be horrid here. But"—with a stab of remorse for my self-absorption—"it's just as bad for you as for me. You don't need to stay in the house, though. You're a man, and free. Don't stop for my sake. I won't have it! Please live in an inn. There's sure to be one near by."

"I'm not going to look for it," said my brother. "You needn't worry about me. I've got pretty callous. I shall have quarters for nothing here—you're always preaching economy."

But I wouldn't be convinced. "Pooh! You're only saying that, so that I won't think you're sacrificing yourself for me. Do you know anything about the Roquemartines?"

"A little."

"Good gracious, I hope you've never met them?"

"I believe I lunched here with them once three years ago, with a motoring friend of theirs."

He stated this fact so quietly, that, if I hadn't begun to know him and his ways, I might have supposed him indifferent to the situation; but—I can hardly say why—I didn't suppose it. I supposed just the contrary; and I respected him, and his calmness, twenty times more than before, if that were possible. Besides, I would have loved him twenty times more, only that was impossible. How much stronger and better he was than I—I, who blurted out my every feeling! I, a stranger, felt the position almost too hateful for endurance, simply because it was ruffling to my vanity. He, an acquaintance of these people, who had been their guest, resigned himself to herding with their servants, because—yes, I knew it!—because he would not let me bear annoyances alone.

"You can't, you shan't stop in the house!" I gasped. "Leave me and the luggage. Drive the car to the nearest village."

"I don't want to leave you. Can't you understand that?" he said. "I'm not sacrificing myself."

We were at the door. We had been heard. If I had suddenly been endowed with the eloquence of Demosthenes, the gift would have come too late. The door was thrown open, not by servants, but by a merry, curious crowd of ladies and gentlemen, anxious to see the arrival of the belated, no doubt much talked of, automobile. Light streamed out from a great hall, which seemed, at first glance, to be half full of people in evening dress, girls and young men, gay and laughing. Everybody was talking at the same time, chattering both English and French, nobody listening to anybody else, all intent on having a glimpse of the car. I believe they were disappointed not to see it battered by some accident; sensations are so dear to the hearts of idle ones.

Sir Samuel Turnour came out, with two young men and a couple of girls, while Lady Turnour, afraid of the cold, remained on the threshold in a group of other women among whom she was violently conspicuous by the blazing of her jewels. The others were all in dinner dress, with very few jewels. She had attempted to atone for her blouse and short skirt by putting on all her diamonds and a rope or two of pearls. Poor woman! I knew her capable of much. I had not supposed her capable of this.

Instinct told me that one of the young men with Sir Samuel was the Marquis de Roquemartine, and I trembled with physical dread, as if under a lifted lash, of his greeting to Jack. But the pince-nez over prominent, near-sighted eyes, gave me hope that my chauffeur might be spared an unpleasant ordeal. Joy! the Marquis did not appear to recognize him, and neither did the Marquise, if she were one of the young women who had run out to the car. Maybe, if he could escape recognition now, he might escape altogether. Once swept away among the flotsam and jetsam below stairs, he would be both out of sight and out of mind. I did not care about myself now, only for him, and I was beginning to cheer up a little, when I noticed that the other young man was gazing at the chauffeur very intently.

His flushed face, and small fair moustache, his light eyes and hair, looked as English as the Marquis' short, pointed chestnut beard and sleek hair en brosse, looked French. "Bertie!" I said to myself, flashing a glance at him from under my veil.

Bertie, if Bertie it was, did not speak. He simply stared, mechanically pulling an end of his tiny moustache, while Sir Samuel talked. But he was so much interested in his stepfather's chauffeur that when the really very pretty girl near him spoke, over his shoulder, he did not hear.

"Well, we began to think you'd tumbled over a precipice!" exclaimed Sir Samuel, with the jovial loudness that comes to men of his age from good champagne or the rich red wines of Southern France.

Jack explained. The fair-haired young man let him finish in peace, and then said, slowly, "Isn't your name Dane?"

"It is," replied my brother.

"Thought I knew your face," went on the other. "So you've taken to chauffeuring as a last resort—what?"

He was intended by Providence to be good looking, but so snobbish was his expression as he spoke, so cruelly sarcastic his voice, that he became hideous in my eyes. A bleached skull grinning over a tall collar could not have seemed more repulsive than the pink, healthy features of that young man with his single eye-glass and his sneer.

Jack paid no more attention than if he had not heard, but the slight stiffening of his face and raising of his eyebrows as he turned to Sir Samuel, made him look supremely proud and distinguished, incomparably more a gentleman in his dusty leather livery, than Bertie in his well-cut evening clothes.

"I called at the railway station, and the luggage will be here before eight to-morrow morning," he said, quietly.

"All right, all right," replied Sir Samuel, slow to understand what was going on, but uncomfortable between the two young men. "I didn't know that you were acquainted with my stepson, Dane."

"It was scarcely an acquaintance, sir," said the chauffeur. "And I wasn't aware that Mr. Stokes was your stepson."

"If you had been, you jolly well wouldn't have taken the engagement—what?" remarked Bertie, with a hateful laugh.

This time Jack condescended to look at him; from the head down, from the feet up. "Really," he said, after an instant's reflection, "it wouldn't have been fair to Sir Samuel to feel a prejudice on account of the relationship. If one of the servants would kindly show me the garage—"



CHAPTER XXVI

If it hadn't been for the hope of seeing Jack again, I should have said that I wanted nothing to eat, when I was asked; but I thought that he might come to the servants' dining-room, if only because he would expect to find me there; and I was right: he came.

"What an imbroglio!" I whispered, as he joined me at the table, where hot soup and cold chicken were set forth.

"Not at all," said he, cheerfully. "Things are better for me than I thought. Roquemartine didn't recognize me, I'm sure, for if he had, he would have said so. He isn't a snob. But I rather hoped he would have forgotten. I came as a stranger, brought by a friend of his and mine, was here only for a meal (we were motoring then, too)—and it's three years ago."

"But the marquise?"

"She's a bran new one. I fancied I'd heard that the wife died. This one has the air of a bride, and I should say she's an American."

"Yes. She is. The maid who showed me my room told me. The other girl who came out of doors, is her sister. They're fearfully rich, it seems, and that young brute wants to marry her."

"Thank you for the descriptive adjective, my little partizan, but you're troubling yourself for me more than you need. I don't mind, really. It's all in a life-time, and I knew when I went in for this business, that I should have to take the rough with the smooth. I was down on my luck, and glad to get anything. What I have got is honest, and something that I know I can do well—something I enjoy, too; and I'm not going to let a vulgar young snob like that make me ashamed of myself, when I've nothing to be ashamed of."

"You ought to be proud of yourself, not ashamed!" I cried to him, trying to keep my eyes cold.

"Heaven knows there's little enough to be proud of. You'd see that, if I bored you with my history—and perhaps I will some day. But anyhow, I've nothing which I need to hide."

"As if I didn't know that! But Bertie hates you."

"I don't much blame him for that. In a way, the position in which we stand to each other is a kind of poetical justice. I don't blame myself, either, for I always did loathe a cad and Stokes is a cad par excellence. He visited, more or less on suffrance, at two or three houses where I used to go a good deal, in my palmy days. How he got asked, originally, I don't exactly know, for the people weren't a bit his sort; but money does a lot for a man in these days; and once in, he wasn't easy to get rid of. He had a crawling way with any one he hoped to squeeze any advantage out of—"

"I suppose he crawled to you then," I broke in.

"He did try it on, a bit, because I knew people he wanted to know; but it didn't work. I rather put myself out to be rude to him, for I resented a fellow like that worming himself into places where he had no earthly right to be—no right of brains, or heart, or breeding. I must admit, now I think of it, that he has several scores to wipe off; and judging from the way he begins, he will wipe hard. Let him!"

"No, no," I protested. "You mustn't let him. It's too much. You will have to tell Sir Samuel that he must find a new chauffeur at once. It hurts me like a blow to think of such a creature humiliating you. I couldn't see it done."

He looked at me very kindly, with quite all a brother's tenderness. "My dear little pal," he said, "you won't have to see it."

"You mean—you will go?" Of course, I wanted him to take my advice, or I wouldn't have offered it, yet it gave me a heartache to think he was ready to take it so easily.

"I mean that I'm not the man to let myself be humiliated by a Bertie Stokes. Possibly he may persuade his stepfather to sack me, but I don't think he'll succeed in doing that, even if he tries. Sir Samuel, I suppose, has given him every thing he has; sent him to Oxford (I know he was there, and scraped through by the skin of his teeth), and allows him thousands enough to mix with a set where he doesn't belong; but though the old boy is weak in some ways, he has a strong sense of justice, and where he likes he is loyal. I think he does like me, and I don't believe he'd discharge me to please his stepson. Not only that, I should be surprised if the promising Bertie wanted me discharged. It would be more in his line to want me kept on, so that he might take it out of me."

I shuddered; but Jack smiled, showing his white teeth almost merrily. "You may see some fun," he said, "but it shan't be death to the frogs; not so bad as that. And I shall have you to be kind to me."

"Kind to you!" I echoed, rather tremulously. (If he only knew how kind I should like to be!) "Yes, I will be kind. But I can't do anything to make up for what you'll have to bear. You had better go."

"Perhaps I would, if I could take you away with me, but that can't be. And, no, even in that case, I should prefer to stick it out. I shouldn't like to let that young bounder drive me from a place, whether I wanted to go or not. And do you think I would clear out, and leave him to worry you?"

"He can't," I said.

"I wish I were sure of that. When the beast sees you without your veil—oh, hang it, you mustn't let him come near you, you know."

"He isn't likely to take the slightest notice of his stepfather's wife's maid," said I, "especially as he's dying to marry the American heiress here."

"Anyhow, be careful."

"I shan't look at him if I can help it. And we shall be gone before long. I believe the Turnours' invitation, which their Bertie was bribed to ask for, is only for two or three days. How you must have been feeling when you were told to drive here! But you showed nothing."

"I had a qualm or two when I was sure of the place; but then it was over. It's far worse for you than for me. And I told you I've been learning from you a lesson of cheerfulness. I was merely a Stoic before."

"It's nothing for me, comparatively," I said, and by this time, I was quite sincere; but I didn't know then what the next twenty-four hours were to bring.

We were not left alone for long, but in ten minutes we had had our talk out, while we played at eating the meal we had looked forward to with eagerness before our appetites were crowded into the background. A fat sous chef flitted about; maids and valets glanced in; nevertheless, we found time for a heart-warming hand pressure before we parted for the night. Altogether, I had not had more than fifteen minutes in the dining-room; yet when I left I felt a hundred times braver and more cheerful.

Already I had been to my mistress's quarters. The maid who took charge of me on my arrival showed me that room before she showed me mine, and explained the way from one to the other. My "bump of locality" was tested, however, in getting back to her ladyship's part of the house, for the castle has its intricacies.

The word "chateau," in France, covers a multitude of comfortable, unpretentious family mansions, as I had not to find out now, for the first time; and the dwelling of the Roquemartines, though a fine old house of the seventeenth century, is no more imposing, under its high, slate roof, than many another. It is Lady Turnour's first experience, though, as a visitor in the "mansions of the great," and when I had been briskly unpacking for half an hour or so, she came in, somewhat subdued by her new emotions. I think that she was rather glad to see a familiar face, to have someone to talk to of whom she did not feel in awe, with whom she need not be afraid of making some mistake; and she seemed quite human to me, for the first time.

Never had I seen her in such an expansive mood, not even when she gave me the blouse. Instead of the cross words I had braced myself to expect, she was almost friendly. She had felt a fool, she said, not being able to dress for dinner, but then no one else could touch her, for jewels; and didn't every one just stare, at the table, though, of course, she hadn't put on her tiara, as that wouldn't have been suitable with a blouse and short skirt! Sir Samuel's stepson had been quite nasty and superior about the jewels, when he got at her, afterward, and she believed would have been rude if he'd dared, but luckily he didn't know her well enough for that; and he'd better be careful how far he went, or he'd find things very different from what they'd been with him, since his mother married Sir Samuel. As if men knew when women ought to wear their jewels, and when not! But he was green with jealousy of the things his stepfather had given her; wanted everything himself.

She went on to describe the other members of the house party, and mouthed their titles with delight, though she had only her own maid to impress. Everyone had a title, it seemed, except Bertie, and the American girl he wanted to marry, Miss Nelson, a sister of the young marquise. Some of the titles were very high ones, too. There were princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses all over the place, mostly French and Italian, though one of the duchesses was American, like the marquise and her sister.

"Not the Duchesse de Melun!" I exclaimed, before I stopped to think.

"Yes, that's the name," said her ladyship, twisting round to look up at me, as I wound her back hair in curling-pins. "What do you know about her?"

How I wished that I knew nothing—and that I hadn't spoken!

The name had popped out, because the Duchesse de Melun is the only American-born duchess of my acquaintance, and because I was hoping very hard that the duchess of the Chateau de Roquemartine might not be the Duchesse de Melun. What bad luck that the Roquemartines had selected that particular duchess for this particular house party, when they must know plenty, and could just as well have chosen another specimen!

"I have heard her name," I admitted, primly. And so I had, too often. "A friend of mine was—was with her, once."

"As her maid?"

"Not exactly."

"Another sort of servant, I suppose?"

As her ladyship stated this as a fact, rather than asked it as a question, I ventured to refrain from answering. Fortunately she didn't notice the omission, as her thoughts had jumped to another subject. But mine were not so readily displaced. They remained fastened to the Duchesse de Melun; and while Lady Turnour talked, I was wondering whether I could successfully contrive to keep out of the duchess's way. She is quite intimate with Cousin Catherine; and I told myself that she was pretty sure already to have heard the truth about my disappearance. Or, if even with her friends, Cousin Catherine clings to conventionalities, and pretends that I'm visiting somewhere by her consent, people are almost certain to scent a mystery, for mysteries are popular. "If that duchess woman sees me, she'll write to Cousin Catherine at once," I thought. "Or I wouldn't put it past her to telegraph!"

("Put it past" is an expression of Cousin Catherine's own, which I always disliked; but it came in handy now.)

I tried to console myself, though, by reflecting that, if I were careful, I ought to be able to avoid the duchess. The ways of great ladies and little maids lie far apart in grand houses and—

"There is going to be a servants' ball to-morrow night," announced Lady Turnour, while my thoughts struggled out of the slough of despond. "And I want you to be the best dressed one there, for my credit. We're all going to look on, and some of the young gentlemen may dance. The marquise and Miss Nelson say they mean to, too, but I should think they are joking. I may not be a French princess nor yet a marquise, but I am an English lady, and I must say I shouldn't care to dance with my cook, or my chauffeur."

Her chauffeur would be at one with her there! But I could think of nothing save myself in this crisis. "Oh, miladi, I can't go to a servants' ball!" I exclaimed.

She bridled. "Why not, I should like to know? Do you consider yourself above it?"

"It isn't that," I faltered. (And it wasn't; it was that duchess!) "But—but—" I searched for an excuse. "I haven't anything to wear."

"I will see to that," said my mistress, with relentless generosity. "I intend to give you a dress, and as you have next to nothing to do to-morrow, you can alter it in time. If you had any gratitude in you, Elise, you'd be out of yourself with joy at the idea."

"Oh, I am out of myself, miladi," I moaned.

"Well, you might say 'Thank your ladyship,' then."

I said it.

"When you have unpacked the big luggage in the morning, I will give you the dress. I have decided on it already. Sir Samuel doesn't like it on me, so I don't mind parting with it; but it's very handsome, and cost me a great deal of money when I was getting my trousseau. It is scarlet satin trimmed with green beetle-wing passementerie, and gold fringe."

My one comfort, as I gasped out spasmodic thanks, was this: I would look such a vulgar horror in the scarlet satin trimmed with green beetle-wings and gold fringe, that the Duchesse de Melun might fail to recognize Lys d'Angely.



CHAPTER XXVII

I dusted and shook out every cell in my brain, during the night, in the hope of finding any inspiration which might save me from the servants' ball; but I could think of nothing, except that I might suddenly come down with a contagious disease. The objection to this scheme was that a doctor would no doubt be sent for, and would read my secret in my lack of temperature.

When morning came, I was sullenly resigned to the worst. "Kismet!" said I, as I unfolded her ladyship's dresses, and was blinded by the glare of the scarlet satin.

"Try it on," commanded my mistress. "I want to get an idea how you will look."

Naturally, the red thing was a Directoire thing; and putting it on over my snug little black frock, I was like a cricket crawling into an empty lobster-shell. But to my surprise and annoyance, the lobster-shell was actually becoming to the cricket.

I didn't want to look nice and be a credit to Lady Turnour. I wanted to look a fright, and didn't care if I were a disgrace to her. But the startling scarlet satin was Liberty satin, and therefore had a sheen, and a soft way of folding that redeemed it somewhat. Its bright poppy colour, its emerald beetle-wings shading to gold, and its glittering fringes that waved like a wheat-field stirred by a breeze, all gave a bizarre sort of "value," as artists say, to my pale yellow hair and dark eyes. I couldn't help seeing that the dreadful dress made my skin pearly white; and I was afraid that, when I had altered the thing, instead of looking like a frump, I should only present the appearance of a rather fast little actress. I should be looked at in my scarlet abomination. People would stare, and smile. The Duchesse de Melun would say to the Marquise de Roquemartine: "Who is that young person? She looks exactly like someone I know—that little Lys d'Angely the millionaire-man, Charretier, is so silly about."

"You see, you can alter it very easily," said Lady Turnour.

"Yes, miladi."

"Have you got any dancing slippers?"

"No—that is—I don't know—"

"Don't be stupid. I will give you ten francs to buy yourself a pair of red stockings and red slippers to match. The stockings needn't be silk. They won't show much. Dane can take you in the car to Clermont-Ferrand this afternoon. I want you to be all right, from head to feet—different from any of the other maids."

I didn't doubt that I would be different—very different.

Tap, tap, a knock at the door.

"Ontray!" cried her ladyship.

The door opened. Mr. Herbert Stokes stood on the threshold.

"I say, Lady T—" he began, when he saw the scarlet vision, and stopped.

"What is it?" inquired the wife of his stepfather—rather a complicated relation.

"I—er—wanted—" drawled Bertie. "But it doesn't matter. Another time."

"You needn't mind her," said Lady Turnour, with a nod toward me. "It's only my maid. I'm giving her a dress for the servants' ball to-night."

Bertie gave vent to the ghost of a whistle, below his breath. He looked at me, twisting the end of his small fair moustache, as he had looked at Jack Dane last night; and though his expression was different, I liked it no better.

"Thought it was a new guest," said he.

"I suppose you didn't take her for a lady, did you?" my mistress was curious to know. "You pride yourself on your discrimination, your stepfather says."

"There's nothing the matter with my discrimination," replied the young man, smiling. But his smile was not for her ladyship. It was for me; and it was meant to be a piquant little secret between us two.

How well I remembered asking the chauffeur, "Could you know a Bertie?" And how he answered that he had known one, and consequently didn't want to know another. Here was the same Bertie; and now that I too knew him, I thought I would prefer to know another, rather than know more of him. Yet he was good-looking, almost handsome. He had short, curly light hair, eyes as blue as turquoises, seen by daylight, full red lips under the little moustache, a white forehead, a dimple in the chin, and a very good figure. He had also an educated, perhaps too well educated, voice, which tried to advertise that it had been made at Oxford; and he had hands as carefully kept as a pretty woman's, with manicured, filbert-shaped nails.

"You're making her jolly smart," he went on. "She'll do you credit."

"I want she should," retorted her ladyship, gratified and ungrammatical.

"She must give me a dance—what?" condescended the gilded youth. "Does she speak English?"

"Yes. So you'd better be careful what you say before her."

Bertie telegraphed another smile to me. I looked at the faded damask curtains; at the mantelpiece with its gilded clock and two side-pieces, Louis Seize at his worst, considered good enough for a bedroom; at the drapings of the enormous bed; at the portiere covering the door of Sir Samuel's dressing-room; at the kaleidoscopic claret-and-blue figures on the carpet; in fact, at everything within reach of my eyes except Mr. Herbert Stokes.

"I've nothing to say that she can't hear," said he, virtuously. "I only wanted to know if you'd like to see the gardens? The marquise sent me to ask. Several people who haven't been here before are goin'. It's a lot warmer this mornin', so you won't freeze."

Lady Turnour said that she would go, and ordered me to find her hat and coat. As I turned to get them, Bertie smiled at me again, and threw me a last glance as he followed my mistress out of the room.

I begin to be afraid there is an innate vanity in me which nothing can thoroughly eradicate without tearing me up by the roots; for when I was ready to alter that red dress, instead of trying to make it look as ridiculous as possible, something forced me to do my best, to study fitness and becomingness. I do hope this is self-respect and not vanity; but to hope that is, I fear, like believing in a thing which you know isn't true.

I worked all the morning at ensmalling the gown (if one can enlarge, why can't one ensmall?) and by luncheon time it was finished. I had seen Jack at breakfast, but had no chance for a word with him alone, although he succeeded valiantly in keeping other chauffeurs, and valets, from making my acquaintance. As I stopped only long enough for a cup of coffee and a roll, I didn't give him too much trouble; but at luncheon it was different. Everyone was chattering about the ball in the evening (a privilege promised, it seemed, as a reward for hard work on the occasion of a real ball above stairs), and house servants and visitors alike were all so gay and good-natured that it would have been stupid to snub them. Jack saw this, and though he protected me as well as he could in an unobtrusive way, he put out no bristles.

The general excitement was contagious, and if it hadn't been for the panic I was in about the duchess, I should have thrown myself wholly into the spirit of the hive, buzzing like the busiest bee in it. Even as it was, I couldn't help entering into the fun of the thing, for it was fun in its queer way. Something like being on the stage of a third-rate theatre in the midst of a farce, where the actors mistake you for one of themselves, calling upon you to play your part, while you alone know that you are a leading member of the Comedie Francaise, just dropped in at this funny place to look on.

Here, the stage was on a much grander scale, and the play more amusing than in the couriers' dining-rooms at the hotels where I had been. At the hotels, the maids and valets scarcely knew each other. Some were in a hurry, others were tired or in a bad humour. Here the little company had been together for days. Meals were a relaxation, a time for flirtation and gossip about their own and each other's masters and mistresses. Each servant felt the liveliest interest in the "Monsieur" or "Madame" of his or her neighbour; and the stories that were exchanged, the criticisms that were made, would have caused the hair of those messieurs and those mesdames to curl.

If I was openly approved by the gentlemen's gentlemen, Mr. Jack Dane had the undisguised admiration of the ladies' ladies; and he received their advances with tact. Dances for the evening were asked for and promised right and left, among the assemblage, always dependent upon summons from Above. It was agreed that, if a Monsieur or Madame wished to dance with you, no previous engagement was to stand, for all the castles and big houses from far and near would be emptied in honour of the ball, from drawing-rooms to servants' halls, and quality was to mingle with quantity, as on similar occasions in England, whence—the chef explained—came the fashion. It was a feature of l'entente cordiale, and the same agreeable understanding was to level all barriers, for the night, between high and low.

Some of the visitors' femmes de chambres were pretty, coquettish creatures, and I was delighted to find that they were all called by their mistresses' titles. The maid of my bete noire was "Duchesse"; she who pertained to our hostess was "Marquise," and I blossomed into "Miladi." The girls were looking forward to rivalling their mistresses in chic, and also in the admiration of the real princes and dukes and counts; that they would have an exclusive right to the attentions of these gentlemen's understudies also seemed to be expected.

After half an hour at table in the servants' hall, there was nothing left for me to find out about the owners of the castle and their guests; but the principal interest of everyone seemed to centre upon the affair between Mr. Herbert Stokes and the heiress sister of Madame la Marquise. There were even bets among the valets as to how it was to end, and Bertie's man, who looked as if he could speak volumes if he would, was a person of importance.

All the men admired Miss Nelson extremely, but the women were divided in opinion. Her own maid, a bilious Frenchwoman, with a jealous eye, said that the American miss was une petite chatte, who was playing off Mr. Stokes against the Duc de Divonne, and it was a pity that the handsome young English monsieur could not be warned of her unworthiness. The duke was not handsome, and he was neither young nor rich, but—these Americans were out for titles, just as titles were out for American money. Why else had the marriage of Madame la Marquise, Miss Daisy's elder sister, made itself? Miss Daisy liked Mr. Stokes, but he could not give her a title. The duke could—if he would. But would he? She was rich, but there were others richer. People said that he was wary. Yet he admired Miss Daisy, it was true, and if by her flirtation with Mr. Stokes she could pique him into a proposal, she would have her triumph.

This was only one of many dramas going on in the house, but it was the most interesting to me, as to others, and I determined to look with all my might at the duke and at pretty Miss Nelson, of whom I had only had a glimpse on arriving. If she were really nice, I did hope that Bertie wouldn't get her!

My costume pressed as weightily on her ladyship's mind, as if I had been a favourite poodle about to be sent, all ribboned and clipped, to a dog show. She did not forget the slippers and stockings, and the chauffeur was ordered to take me into Clermont-Ferrand to buy them. Fortunately she didn't know how much I looked forward to the excursion!

At precisely three o'clock I walked out to the castle garage, near the stables, and found Jack getting the car ready; but I did not find him alone. The garage is a big and splendid one, and not only were the three household dragons in their stalls, but four or five strange beasts, pets of visitors; and the finest of these (after our blue Aigle) was the white Majestic of the Duc de Divonne. That gentleman, whom I recognized easily from a description breathed into my ear by a countess's countess, at luncheon, was in the garage when I arrived, showing off his automobile to Miss Nelson. The ducal chauffeur lurked in the background, duster in hand, and Mr. Herbert Stokes occupied as large a space as possible in the foreground.

Nobody deigned to take any open notice of me, though Bertie threw me a stealthy smile of recognition, carefully screened from Miss Nelson, but as the Aigle was swallowing a last refreshing draught of petrol, I had time to observe the actors in the little drama whose plot I had already heard.

Yes, though Miss Daisy Nelson looked even prettier than I thought her last night, I could quite believe the bilious maid's statement that she was une petite chatte. Her green-gray eyes, very effective under thick masses of auburn hair, were turned up at the outer corners in a fascinating, sly little way; and her cupid-bow lips, which turned down at their corners, were a bit redder than Nature's formula ordains. Nevertheless I couldn't help liking her, just as one likes a lovely, playful Persian kitten which may rub its adorable nose against your hand, or scratch with its naughty claws. And she was enjoying herself so much, the pretty, expensive-looking creature! As Pamela would say, it was evident that she was "having the time of her life," revelling in the admiration and rivalry of the two men; delighted with her own power over them, and her importance as a beauty and an heiress, the only unmarried girl in the house party; amusing herself by making one man miserable and the other happy, sending them up and down on a mental sea-saw, by turns.

As for the little Duc de Divonne, his profile is of the Roman Emperor order, and his eyes like the last coals in a dying fire. I said to myself that, if Miss Nelson should become a duchess, she would have to pay for some of her girlish antics in pre-duchess days. Still, I decided that if I had to choose, it would be the duke before Bertie.

The girl kept both her men busy, and after the first glance Bertie ignored my existence: but the Duke, fired by a moment's neglect, flamed out with an inspiration. He "dared" Miss Nelson to take a lesson from him in driving his car, with no other chaperon than the chauffeur. "All right, I will," said she, "and I bet you I'll be an expert after one trial."

"What do you bet?" asked the Duke.

She smiled flirtatiously in answer and Bertie stood forlorn, his nice pink complexion turning an ugly salmon colour. In a minute the white car was off, Miss Nelson beside the duke, the chauffeur like a small nut in a large shell, lolling in the tonneau. Bertie turned to us, and having looked kindly at me, sharply demanded of Jack where he was going.

"Mademoiselle has an errand."

"Ah! then I'll drive Mademoiselle. Wish I had a tenner for every time I've driven an Aigle! You can sit inside, in case there's work to do."

My eyes opened widely, but I said nothing. I glanced at Jack, and saw his face harden.

"I have been told to drive the car, and it is my duty to drive it unless I receive different orders," said he.

"I'm giving you different orders," said Bertie.

"I take my orders only from the owner of the car."

"You're beastly impertinent," snapped Bertie, "and I'll report you to Sir Samuel."

"As you choose," returned Jack, turning the starting-handle.

"Why don't you say 'sir' when you speak to me? You don't seem to have trained into chauffeur manners yet."

"If I were your chauffeur, you would have the right to criticize. As I'm not, and never will be, you haven't. Mademoiselle, the car's ready. Will you get in?"

I jumped into my usual place, beside the driver's seat.

"Ah, you sit by the chauffeur, do you?" said Bertie. "I don't wonder he wants to keep his job."

For an instant I was afraid that Jack would strike him.

My blood rushed to my head, and I half rose from the seat, with a choked, warning whisper of "Jack!"

It was the first time I'd called him that, except to myself, and I saw him give the faintest start. He looked at the other man, and then, though Bertie stepped quickly forward as if to open the car door and jump in, he sprang to his place, and we were off.

"He means mischief," I said, when I felt able to speak.

"So do I, if he does," answered Jack.

"I wish you'd do me a favour," I went on. "Keep away from that awful ball to-night."

"What! With you there? I know my business better."

I couldn't help laughing. "Your present business, I believe," said I, "is that of a chauffeur."

"With extra duty as watch-dog."

"I can't bear to have you see me in the ridiculous get-up Lady Turnour is making me wear, that's the selfish part of my reason—and—and it will be so horrid for you, in every way."

"I'm callous to anything they can do now, except one thing."

"What?"

"If you don't know already, I mean where you're concerned."

"You're very kind to me."

"Kind? Yes, I am very 'kind.' A man has to be abnormally 'kind' to want to look after a girl like you."

"How bitterly you speak!" I exclaimed, hardly understanding him.

"I feel bitter sometimes. Do you wonder? But for heaven's sake, don't let's talk of me. Let's talk of something pleasant. Would you care to do a little sight-seeing in Clermont-Ferrand, if your shopping doesn't take us too long?"

I assured him that it would not take ten minutes; and it didn't take more. I saved a franc on the transaction, too, which would console her ladyship if I got back a few minutes late; and with that thought in my mind, I abandoned myself to the joy of the expedition. We went to the Petrifying Fountain, and inspected its strange menagerie of stone animals; we made a dash into the Cathedral where St. Louis was married, and looked at the beautiful thirteenth-century glass in the windows, and the strange frescoes; we rushed in and out of Notre Dame du Port, stopping on the way in the Place where the first Crusade was proclaimed, and to gaze at the house and statue of Pascal. Jack would squander some of his extremely hard earned money on a box of the burnt almonds for which Clermont-Ferrand is celebrated; and when we had seen everything I dared stop to see, he ran the car to Montferrand, to show me some ancient and wonderful houses, famous all over France. Eventually he threatened to spin me out to Royat, but I pleaded the certainty that Lady Turnour would wish to change into her smartest tea-gown for "feef oclocky" and that I must be there to assist at the ceremony.

So we turned castleward, with all the speed the law allows, if not a little more; and I arrived with a pair of red stockings, cheap high-heeled slippers, a franc in change, and a queer presentiment of dangerous things to happen.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Although a good many neighbours were coming to the Chateau de Roquemartine to look on at the servants' ball, they were all to drive or motor over in their ordinary dinner dress; it was only the servants themselves who were to "make toilettes."

Lady Turnour, however, who regretted having missed the smart ball for the great world, given a few nights before, determined that people should be forced to appreciate her wealth and position; and the wardrobe of Solomon in all his glory could hardly have produced anything to exceed her gold tissue, diamante.

When I had squeezed, and poked, and pushed her into it, and was bejewelling her, Sir Samuel came, as usual, to have his white cravat tied by me. Bertie, too, appeared, dressed for dinner, and watched me with silent amusement as I performed my evening duty for his stepfather.

"Pretty gorgeous, aren't you?" he remarked to Lady Turnour; but she was flattered rather than annoyed by the criticism, and sailed away good-natured, leaving me to gather up the few jewels of her collection which she had discarded. Lately I had been trusted with her treasures, and felt the responsibility disagreeably, especially as my mistress—when she remembered it—counted everything ostentatiously over, after relieving me of my charge.

To-night I had just begun picking up the brooches, bracelets, diamond stars, coronets and bursting suns which illuminated the dressing-table firmament, when Bertie walked in again, through the door that he had left ajar.

"I came back because my necktie's a failure," said he. "My man must be in love, I should think. Probably with you! Anyhow, something's the matter; his fingers are all thumbs. But you turned out my old governor rippin'ly. You'll do me, won't you?"

As he spoke, he untied his cravat, and produced another.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know how to do that kind of tie."

"What—what?" he stared. "It's just the same as the governor's—only a little better. Come along, there's a dear." He had pushed the door to; now he shut it.

I walked to the other end of the room, and began folding a blouse. "You'd better give your valet another trial," I said. "I'm not a valet. I'm Lady Turnour's maid."

"She's in luck to get you."

"I'm engaged to wait upon her."

"You are stiff! You do the governor's tie."

"Sir Samuel's very kind to me."

"Well, I'll be kind, too. I'd like nothing better. I'll be a lot kinder than he'd dare to be. I say, I've got a present for you—something rippin', that you'll like. You can wear it at the ball to-night, but you'd better not tell anyone who gave it to you—what? You shall have it for tyin' my necktie. Now, don't you call that 'kind'?"

I stopped folding the blouse, and increased my height by at least an inch. "No," I said, "I call it impertinent, and I shall be obliged if you will leave Lady Turnour's room. That's the only thing you can do for me."

"By Jove!" said Bertie. "What theatre were you at before you took to lady's maidin'?"

To this I deigned no answer.

"Anyhow, you're a rippin' little actress."

Silence.

"And a pretty girl. As pretty as they make 'em."

I invented a new kind of sigh, a cross between a snarl and a moan.

"Tell me, what's the mystery? There is a mystery about you, you know. Not a bit of good tryin' to deceive me.... You might as well own up. I can keep a secret as well as the next one."

A tapping of my foot. A slamming of a wardrobe door, which was able to squeak furiously without loss of dignity.

"What were you before my lady took you on?... Look here, if you don't answer, I shall begin to think the secret's got to do with those." And he pointed to the dressing table, where the jewels still lay. He even put out his hand and took up the bursting sun. (How I sympathized with it for bursting!) "Worth somethin'—what?"

"You can think whatever you like," I flashed at him, "if only you'll go out of this room."

"Pity your chauffeur isn't at hand for you to run to," Bertie half sneered, half laughed, for he was keeping his hateful, teasing good nature. "And by the way, talkin' of him, since you're such a little prude, I'll just warn you in a friendly way to look out for that chap. You don't know his history—what? I'm sure the governor doesn't."

"Sir Samuel knows he can drive, and that he's a gentleman," said I, with meaning emphasis.

"Well, I've warned you," replied Bertie, injured. "You may see which one of us is really your friend, before you're out of this galley. But if you want to be a good and happy little girl, you'd best be nice to me. I shall find out all about you, you know."

That was his exit speech; and the only way in which I could adequately express my opinion of it was to bang the door on his back.

* * * * *

The ball was in a huge vault of a room which had once been a granary. The stone floor had been worn smooth by many feet and several centuries, and the blank gray walls were brightened with drapery of flags, yards of coloured cotton, paper flowers and evergreens, arranged with an effect which none save Latin hands could have given. Dinner above and below stairs was early, and before ten the guests began to assemble in the ballroom. All the servant-world had dined in ball costume, excepting Jack and myself, and it was only at the last minute that the cricket hopped upstairs and wriggled into its neatly reduced lobster shell.

I had visions of my brother lurking gloomily yet observantly in obscure corners, ready at any moment for a sortie in my defence; but when I sneaked, sidled, and slid into the ballroom, making myself as small as possible that I might pass unobserved in spite of my sensational redness, I had a surprise. Near the door stood the chauffeur in evening dress, out-princing and out-duking every prince and duke among the Marquise de Roquemartine's guests. And I, who hadn't even known that he possessed evening clothes, could not have opened my eyes wider if my knight had appeared in full armour.