Cynthia's Chauffeur
mother sent a note to say that the fair Cynthia has retired to her
room to write letters. I have been waiting here ten minutes."
Now, it chanced that Medenham's widespread touring in France had
rubbed up his knowledge of the language. It is ever the ear that needs
training more than the tongue, and in all likelihood he would not have
caught the exact meaning of the words were it not for the hap of
recent familiarity with the accents of all sorts and conditions of
French-speaking folk.
"Jimmy Devar!" he breathed, and his amazement lost him Marigny's
muttered answer.
But he heard Devar's confident outburst as the two walked off together
in the direction of the West Pier.
"You are growing positively nervous, my dear Edouard. And why? The
affair arranges itself admirably. I shall be always on hand, ready to
turn up exactly at the right moment. What the deuce, this is the luck
of a lifetime...."
The squeaky, high-pitched voice--a masculine variant of Mrs. Devar's
ultra-fashionable intonation--died away midst the chatter and laughter
of other promenaders. Medenham's first impulse was to follow and
listen, since Devar had yielded to the common delusion of imagining
that none except his companion on the sea-front that night understood
a foreign language. But he swept the notion aside ere it had well
presented itself as a means of solving an astounding puzzle.
"No, dash it all, I'm not a private detective," he muttered angrily.
"Why should I interfere? Confound Simmonds, and d----n that railway
van! I have a good mind to hand the car over to Dale in the morning
and return to town by the first train."
If he really meant what he said he ought to have gone back to his
hotel, played billiards for an hour, and sought his bedroom with an
easy conscience. He was debating the point when the conceit intruded
itself that Cynthia's pretty head was at that moment bent over a
writing-table in a certain well-lighted corner apartment of the second
floor, so he compromised with his half-formed intent, whisked round to
face the sea again, and lighted another cigarette from the glowing end
of its predecessor. Some part of his unaccountable irritation took
wings with the cloud of smoke.
"Blessed if I can tell why I should worry," he communed. "Never saw
the girl before to-day ... shall never see her again if I put Dale
in charge.... Her father must be a special sort of fool, though, to
trust her to the care of the Devar woman.... What was it that rotter
said?--'The affair arranges itself admirably.' And he would be 'always
on hand.' What is arranging itself?... And why should Jimmy Devar be
ready, if need be, 'to turn up exactly at the right moment?' I suppose
the answer to the first bit of the acrostic is simple enough. Cynthia
Vanrenen is to become the Countess Marigny, and the Devar gang stands
in on the cash proceeds. Oh, a nice scheme! This Frenchman is posted
as to the tour. By the most curious of coincidences he will reappear
at Bournemouth, or Bristol, or in the Wye Valley. What more natural
than a day's run in company?... Ah, I've got it! Jimmy is to come
along when Marigny thinks that Cynthia will take a seat in the 59 Du
Vallon for a change--just to try the new French car.... By gad, I
shall have a word to say there.... Steady, now, George Augustus! Woa,
my boy; keep a tight hand on the reins. Why in thunder should you
concern yourself with the wretched business, anyhow?"
It was a marvelously still night. Beneath him, on an asphalted path
nearly level with the stone-strewed beach, passed a young couple. The
man's voice came up to him.
"Jones expects to be taken into partnership after this season, and I
am pretty certain to be given the management of the woolen department.
If that comes off, no more long hours in the shop for you, Lucy, but a
nice little house up there on the hill, just as quick as we can find
it."
"Oh, Charlie dear, I shall never be tired then...."
A black arm was suddenly silhouetted across the shoulders of a white
blouse, whose wearer received a reassuring hug.
"Let's reckon up," said the owner of the arm--"July, August,
September--three months, sweetheart...."
Medenham had never given a thought to marrying until his father hinted
at the notion during dinner the previous evening, and he had laughed
at it, being absolutely heart-whole. There was something irresistibly
comical then about the Earl's bland theory that Fairholme House needed
a sprightly viscountess, yet now, twenty-four hours later, he could
extract no shred of humor from the idyl of a draper's assistant. It
seemed to be a perfectly natural thing that these lovers should talk
of mating. Of what else should they whisper on this midsummer's night,
when the gloaming already bore the promise of dawn, and the glory of
the sea and sky spread quiet harmonies through the silent air?
Perhaps he sighed as he turned away, but his own evidence on that
point would be inconclusive, since the first object his wondering eyes
dwelt on was the graceful figure of Cynthia Vanrenen. There was no
possibility of error. An arc lamp blazed overhead, and, to make
assurance doubly sure, his recognition of Cynthia was obviously
duplicated by Cynthia's recognition of her deputy chauffeur.
In the girl's case some degree of surprise was justified. It is a
truism of social life that far more distinctiveness is attached to the
seemingly democratic severity of evening dress than to any other class
of masculine garniture. Medenham now looked exactly what he was--a man
born and bred in the purple. No one could possibly mistake this
well-groomed soldier for Dale or Simmonds. His clever, resourceful
face, his erect carriage, the very suggestion of mess uniform conveyed
by his clothing, told of lineage and a career. He might, in sober
earnest, have been compelled to earn a living by driving a motor-car,
but no freak of fortune could rob him of his birthright as an
aristocrat.
Of course, Cynthia was easily first in the effort to recover disturbed
wits.
"Like myself, you have been tempted out by this beautiful night, Mr.
Fitzroy," she said.
Then "Mr." was a concession to his attire; somehow she imagined it
would savor of presumption if she addressed him as an inferior.
She could not define her mental attitude in words, but her quick
intelligence responded to its subtle influence as a mirrored lake
records the passing of a breeze. Very dainty and self-possessed she
looked as she stood there smiling at him. Her motor dust-coat was
utilized as a wrap. Beneath it she wore a white muslin dress of a
studied simplicity that, to another woman's assessing gaze, would
reveal its expensiveness. She had tied a veil of delicate lace around
her hair and under her chin, and Medenham noted, with a species of
awe, that her eyes, so vividly blue in daylight, were now dark as the
sky at night.
And he was strangely tongue-tied. He found nothing to say until after
a pause that verged on awkwardness. Then he floundered badly.
"I am prepared to vouch for any explanation so long as it brings you
here, Miss Vanrenen," he said.
Cynthia wanted to laugh. It was sufficiently ridiculous to be
compelled, as it were, to treat a paid servant as an equal, but it
savored of madness to find him verging on the perilous borderland of a
flirtation.
"Do you wish, then, to consult me on any matter?" she asked, with
American directness.
"I was standing here and thinking of you," he said. "Perhaps that
accounts for your appearance. Since you have visited India you may
have heard that the higher Buddhists, when they are anxious that
another person shall act according to their desire, remain motionless
in front of that person's residence and concentrate ardent thought on
their fixed intent.... Sitting in _dhurma_ on a man, they call it. I
suppose the same principle applies to a woman."
"It follows that you are a higher Buddhist, and that you willed I
should come out. Your theory of sitting on the door-mat, is it?
wobbles a bit in practice, because I really ran downstairs to tell
Mrs. Devar something I had forgotten previously. Not finding her, I
decided on a stroll. Instead of crossing the road I walked up to the
left a couple of blocks. Then I noticed the pier, and meant to have a
look at it before returning to the hotel. Anyhow, you wanted me, Mr.
Fitzroy, and here I am. What can I do for you?"
Her tone of light raillery, supplemented by that truly daring
adaptation of the method of gaining a cause favored by the esoteric
philosophy of the East, went far to restore Medenham's wandering
faculties.
"I wanted to ask you a few questions, Miss Vanrenen," he explained.
"Pray do, as they say in Boston."
But he was not quite himself yet. He noticed that the lights were
extinguished in the corner of the second floor.
"Is that your room?" he asked, pointing to it.
"Yes."
Her air of blank amazement supplied a further tonic.
"Queer thing!" he said. "I thought so. More of the occult, I suppose.
But I really wished to speak to you about Mrs. Devar."
Cynthia was obviously relieved.
"Dear me!" she cried. "You two have taken a violent dislike to each
other. You see, Mr. Fitzroy, we Americans are rather pleased than
otherwise if a man acts and speaks like a gentleman even though he has
to earn a living by hustling an automobile, but your sure-enough
British dames exact a kind of servility from a chauffeur that doesn't
seem to fit in with your make-up. Servility is a hard word, but it is
the best I can throw on the screen at the moment, and I'm real sorry
if I have hurt your feelings by using it."
Medenham smiled. Each instant his calmer judgment showed more and more
clearly that he could not offer any valid excuse for interference in
the girl's affairs. For all he knew to the contrary, she might be
tremulous with delight at the prospect of becoming a French countess;
if that were so, the fact that he disapproved of Mrs. Devar's
matchmaking tactics would be received very coldly. Cynthia's natural
interpretation of his allusion to her chaperon offered a means of
escape from a difficult position.
"I am greatly obliged by your hint," he said. "Not that my lack of
good manners is of much account, seeing that I am only a stop gap for
the courtly Simmonds, but I shall endeavor to profit by it in my next
situation."
"Now you are getting at me," cried Cynthia, her eyes sparkling
somewhat. "Do you know, Mr. Fitzroy, I am inclined to think you are
not a chauffeur at all."
"I assure you there is not a man living who understands my special
type of car better," he protested.
"That isn't what I mean, so don't wriggle. You met Simmonds when he
was in trouble, and just offered to take his place for a day or so,
thereby doing him a good turn--isn't that the truth?"
"Yes."
"And you are not in the automobile business?"
"I am, for the time being."
"Well, I am glad to hear it. I was shy of telling you when we reached
the hotel, but you understand, of course, that I pay your expenses
during this trip. The arrangement with Simmonds was that my father
ante'd for petrol and allowed twelve shillings a day for the
chauffeur's meals and lodgings. Is that satisfactory?"
"Quite satisfactory, Miss Vanrenen," said Medenham, fully alive to the
girl's effective ruse for the re-establishment of matters on a proper
footing.
"So you don't need to worry about Mrs. Devar. In any event, since you
refused my offer to hire you for the tour, you will not see a great
deal of her," she went on, a trifle hurriedly.
"There only remains one other point," he said, trying to help her.
"Would you mind giving me Mr. Vanrenen's address in Paris?"
"He is staying at the Ritz--but why do you want to know that?" she