Cynthia's Chauffeur
despairing effort to regain control of a situation that had slipped
from her grasp nearly an hour ago.
"Please do be sensible, Fitzroy!" she almost screamed. "Even if he
_has_ made a mistake in a turning, Count Marigny will take every care
of Miss Vanrenen----"
It was useless. She was appealing to a man of stone, and, indeed,
Medenham could not pay heed to her then in any circumstances, for the
road surface quickly became very rough, and it needed all his skill to
guide his highly-strung car over its inequalities without inflicting
an injury that might prove disastrous.
His only consolation was provided by the knowledge that the risk to a
stout Mercury was as naught compared with the tortures endured by a
French-built racer, with its long wheel-base and low chassis. After a
couple of miles of semi-miraculous advance his respect for Smith's
capability as a driver increased literally by leaps and bounds.
But the end was nearer than he thought. On reaching the top of one
of those seemingly interminable land-waves, he saw a blurred object
in the hollow. Soon he distinguished Cynthia's fawn-colored dust
cloak, and his heart throbbed exultantly when the girl fluttered a
handkerchief to show that she, too, had seen.
Mrs. Devar rose and clutched the back of the seat behind him.
"I apologize, Fitzroy," she piped tremulously. "You were right. They
have lost their way and met with some accident. How glad I am that I
did not insist on your making straight for Bristol!"
Her unparalleled impudence won his admiration. Such a woman, he
thought, was worthy of a better fate than that which put her in the
position of a bought intriguer. But Cynthia was near, waving her hands
gleefully, and executing a nymph-like thanksgiving dance on a strip of
turf by the roadside, so Medenham's views of Mrs. Devar's previous
actions were tempered by conditions extraordinarily favorable to her
at the moment.
She seemed to be aware instinctively of the change in his sentiments
wrought by sight of Cynthia. It was in quite a friendly tone that she
cried:
"Count Edouard is there; but where is his man?... Something serious
must have happened, and the chauffeur has been sent to obtain help....
Oh, how lucky we hurried, and how clever of you to find out which way
the car went!"
CHAPTER VI
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S VAGARIES
Cynthia, notwithstanding that spirited _pas seul_, was rather pale
when Medenham stopped the car close beside her. She had been on
tenterhooks during the past quarter of an hour--there were silent
moments when she measured her own slim figure against the natty
Count's in half-formed resolution to take to her heels along the
Cheddar Road.
At first, she had enjoyed the run greatly. Although Dale spoke of
Smith as a mechanic, the man was a first-rate driver, and he spun the
Du Vallon along at its best speed. But the change from good macadam
to none soon made itself felt, and Cynthia was more troubled than she
cared to show when the French flier came to a standstill after panting
and jolting alarmingly among the ruts. Marigny's excited questions
evoked only unintelligible grunts from Smith; for all that, the
irritating truth could not be withheld--the petrol tank was empty; not
only had the chauffeur forgotten to fill it that morning, but, by some
strange mischance, the supply usually held in reserve had been left at
Bristol!
The Frenchman was very angry with Smith, and Smith was humbly
apologetic. The pair must have acted convincingly, because each knew
to a nicety how soon a gallon of petrol would vaporize in the Du
Vallon's six cylinders. Having taken the precaution to measure that
exact quantity into the tank before leaving Cheddar, they were
prepared for a breakdown at any point within a few hundred yards of
the precise locality where it occurred.
Cynthia, being generous-minded, tried to make little of the mishap. By
taking that line she strove to reassure herself.
"Fitzroy is always prepared for emergencies," she said. "He will
soon catch up with us. But what a road! I didn't really notice it
before. Surely this cannot be the only highway between Bristol and
Cheddar?--and in England, too, where the roads are so perfect!"
"There are two roads, but this is the nearest one," explained the
glib-tongued Count, seemingly much relieved by the prospect of
Fitzroy's early arrival. "You don't deserve to be pulled out of a
difficulty so promptly, Smith," he went on, eying the chauffeur
sternly.
"There's a village not very far ahead, sir," said the abashed Smith.
"Oh, never mind! We must wait for Miss Vanrenen's car."
"Wait?" inquired Cynthia. "What else can we do?"
"I take it he meant to walk to some village, and bring a stock of
spirit."
"Oh, dear! I hope no such thing will be necessary."
From that half hint of latent and highly disagreeable developments
dated Cynthia's uneasiness. She accepted Marigny's suggestion that
they should stroll to the top of the slight hill just descended,
whence they would be able to watch their rescuer's approach from a
considerable distance--she even remembered to tell him to smoke--but
she answered his lively sallies at random, and agreed unreservedly
with his voluble self-reproach.
The obvious disuse of the road, a mere lane providing access to sheep
inclosures on the hills, caused her no small perplexity, though she
saw fit not to add to her companion's distress by commenting on it. In
any other circumstances she would have been genuinely alarmed, but her
well-established acquaintanceship with the Count, together with the
apparently certain fact that Fitzroy and Mrs. Devar were coming nearer
each second, forbade the tremors that any similar accident must have
evoked if, say, they were marooned on some remote mountain range of
the continent, and no friendly car was speeding to their aid.
The two halted on the rising ground, and one of them, at least, gazed
anxiously into the purple shadows now mellowing the gray monotony of
the plateau. The point where the Du Vallon left the main road was
invisible from where they stood. Marigny had laid his plans with
skill, so his humorous treatment of their plight was not marred by any
lurking fear of the Mercury's unwelcome appearance.
"What a terrible collapse this would be if I were running away with
you, Miss Cynthia," he said slyly. "Let us imagine a priest waiting in
some ancient castle ten miles away, and an irate father, or a pair of
them, starting from Cheddar in hot pursuit."
"My imagination fails me there, Monsieur Marigny," she replied, and
the shade of emphasis on his surname showed that she was fully aware
of the boundary crossed by the "Miss Cynthia," an advance which
surprised her more than the Frenchman counted on. "At present I am
wholly absorbed in a vain effort to picture an automobile somewhere
down there in the gathering mists; still, it _must_ arrive soon."
Then Marigny put forth a tentative claw.
"I hate to tell you," he said, "_mais il faut marcher quand le diable
est aux trousses_.[A] I am unwillingly forced to believe that your
chauffeur has taken the other road."
[Footnote A: "But needs must when the devil drives."]
"The other road!" wailed Cynthia in sudden and most poignant
foreboding. It was then that she first began to estimate her running
powers.
"Yes, there are two, you know. The second one is not so direct----"
"If you think that, your man had better go at once to the village he
spoke of. Is it certain that he will obtain petrol there?"
"Almost certain."
"Really, Monsieur Marigny, I fail to understand you. Why should you
express a doubt? He appeared to be confident enough five minutes ago.
He was ready to start until we prevented him."
That the girl should yield to slight panic was precisely what Count
Edouard desired. True, Cynthia's sparkling eyes and firm lips were
eloquent of keen annoyance rather than fear, but Marigny was an adept
in reading the danger signals of beauty in distress, and he saw in
these symptoms the heralds of tears and fright. His experience did not
lead him far astray, but he had not allowed for racial difference
between the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon. Cynthia might weep, she might
even attempt to run, but in the last resource she would face him with
dauntless courage.
"I assure you I would not have had this thing happen on any account,"
he said in a voice that vibrated with sympathy. "Indeed, I pray your
pity in my own behalf, Miss Vanrenen. After all, it is I who suffer
the agony of failure when I meant only to please. You will reach
Bristol this evening, a little late, perhaps, but quite safely, and I
hope that you will laugh then at the predicament which now looks so
ill-starred."
His seeming sincerity appeased her to some extent. In rapid swing back
to the commonplace, she affected to laugh.
"It is not so serious, after all," she said, with more calmness than
she felt. "Just for a moment you threw me off the rails by your
lawyer-like vagueness."
Drawing a little apart, she looked steadily back along the deserted
road.
"I see nothing of my car," she murmured at last. "It will soon be
dusk. We must take no more chances. Please send for that benzine right
away."
Smith was dispatched forthwith on what he knew to be a fool's errand,
since both he and Marigny were practically sure of their ground. The
nearest petrol was to be found at Langford, two miles along the
Bristol road from the fork, and four miles in the opposite direction
to that taken by Smith, who, when he returned empty-handed an hour
later, must make another long journey to Langford. The Du Vallon was
now anchored immovably until eleven o'clock, and it was well that the
girl could not realize the true nature of the ordeal before her, or
events might have taken an awkward twist.
The Frenchman meant no real harm by his rascally scheme, for Cynthia
Vanrenen, daughter of a well-known American citizen, was not to be
wooed and won in the fashion that commended itself to unscrupulous
lovers in by-gone days. Yet his design blended subtlety and daring in
a way that was worthy of ancestors who had ruffled it at Versailles
with the cavaliers of old France. He trusted implicitly to the effect
of a somewhat exciting adventure on the susceptible feminine heart.
The phantom of distrust would soon vanish. She would yield to the
spell of a night scented with the breath of summer, languorous with
soft zephyrs, a night when the spirit of romance itself would
emparadise the lonely waste, and a belated moon, "like to a silver bow
new-bent in heaven," would lend its glamor to a sky already spangled
with glowing sapphires.
In such a night, all things were possible.
In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage.
Marigny had indeed arranged a situation worthy of his nurturing among
the decadents of Paris. He believed that in these surroundings an
impressionable girl would admit him to a degree of intimacy not to be
attained by many days of prosaic meetings. At the right moment, when
his well-bribed servant was gone to Langford, he would remember a
bottle of wine and some sandwiches stored in the car that morning to
provide the luncheon that he might not obtain at a wayside inn.
Cynthia and he would make merry over the feast. The magnetism that had
never yet failed him in affairs of the heart would surely prove
potent now at this real crisis in his life. Marriage to a rich woman
could alone snatch him from the social abyss, and the prospect became
doubly alluring when it took the guise of Cynthia. He would restore
her to a disconsolate chaperon some time before midnight, and he was