My Friend the Chauffeur
the woman, the girl, and the child.
"Humph," I sneered into the iced water; "lost all he'd got with him, and
the money-lenders turned crusty; that's when the homesickness came on."
"Well, now you're here, do sit down and have lunch with us," said Mrs.
Kidder, "unless"--archly--"your homesickness has destroyed your
appetite."
"If it had, the pleasure of seeing you again would restore it;" and once
more the Austrian's gaze assured each one of the three that she alone
was the "you" referred to.
A nod and a gesture whisked a couple of attentive waiters to the table,
and in the twinkling of an eye--even an American eye--a place was laid
for the Prince, with duplicates of all our abortive wine glasses.
"Aha, my fine fellow, _you_ are no friend of cold water," I said to
myself in savage glee, as I acknowledged with a bow Mrs. Kidder's
elaborate introduction. "You will suffer even more than we have
suffered." But I reckoned without a full knowledge of the princely
character.
History repeated itself with an invitation to the new guest to choose
what he liked from the wine card. I looked for a courteous refusal,
accompanied by some such gallant speech as, that he would drink to the
ladies only with his eyes; but nothing of the kind happened. He searched
the list for a moment with the absorption of a connoisseur, then
unblushingly ordered a bottle of Romanee Conti, which wine, he
carelessly announced, he preferred to champagne, as being "less
obvious." The price, however, would be pretty obvious on Mrs. Kidder's
bill, I reflected; seventy francs a bottle, if it were a penny. But did
this coming event cast a shadow on the Prince's contentment? On the
contrary, it probably spangled its fabric with sequins. He sniffed the
wine as if it had been an American Beauty rose, and quaffed it
ecstatically, while Terry and I gulped down our iced water and our
indignation.
"You are just in time, Prince," said Mrs. Kidder, "to advise us about
our journey. Oh, I forgot, you don't know anything about it yet. But we
are going a tour in Sir Ralph Moray's automobile. Won't it be fun?"
"Indeed?" the Prince ejaculated hastily; and I had the satisfaction of
knowing that one swallow of the Romanee Conti was spoiled for him. "No;
I had not heard. I did not know that Sir Ralph Moray was one of your
friends. Has not this been suddenly arranged?"
"It was only _decided_ yesterday," replied the Countess; and it was
revealed to me that the plump lady was not without feminine guile.
"What is your car?" inquired the Prince, turning abruptly to me.
"A Panhard," I answered, with a gaze as mild as milk. I knew that my
answer would disappoint him, as he could pick no flaws in the make of
the machine.
"What horse-power?" he continued his catechism.
"Something under twenty," I conservatively replied.
"Twelve," corrected Terry, with a brutal bluntness unworthy of a Celt.
He can be very irritating sometimes; but at this moment he was looking
so extremely handsome and devil-may-care, that my desire to punch his
head dissolved as I glared at him. Could any woman in her senses throw
over even a titleless Terry and twelve horses worth of motor for a hat
box or two and an Austrian Prince?
"A twelve-horse-power car, and you propose to take with you on tour
three ladies, their maid, and all their luggage?" demanded Dalmar-Kalm
in his too excellent English. "But it is not possible."
I felt suddenly as if Terry and I were little snub-nosed boys,
trafficking with a go-cart.
"They won't need their maid, Prince," said Miss Destrey. "I know how to
do Aunt Kathryn's hair; and the dear Sisters have taught me how to mend
beautifully."
This was the first time she had opened her lips during luncheon, except
to eat with an almost nun-like abstemiousness; and now she broke silence
to rescue a scheme which yesterday had excited her active disapproval.
The girl, always interesting because of her unusual type of beauty,
gained a new value in my eyes. She excited my curiosity, although her
words were a practical revelation of her place in the trio. Why did she
break a lance in our defence? and had she been torn from a convent to
serve her rich relatives, that she should mention the "Sisters" in that
familiar and tender tone? Had her beautiful white sails veered with a
new wind, and did she _want_ to go with us, after all? Did she wish to
tell the Prince in a sentence, how poor she really was? These were a few
of the hundred and one questions which the Fair Maid of Destrey's
charming and somewhat baffling personality set going in my mind by a
word or two.
I thought that the Prince's face fell, but Mrs. Kidder's contribution to
the defence distracted my attention.
"We don't expect to take _all_ our luggage," she said. "I suppose some
things could be sent by rail from place to place to meet us, couldn't
they?"
"Of course," I assured her, before Dalmar-Kalm could enlarge upon the
uncertainties of such an arrangement. "That's what is always done. And
your maid could travel by rail too."
"She is a Parisienne," exclaimed Mrs. Kidder, "and she's always saying
she wouldn't leave France for twice the wages I pay."
"Try her with three times," suggested Beechy. But Miss Destrey was
speaking again. "As I said, it doesn't matter about Agnes. Aunt Kathryn
and Beechy shan't miss her; and she never does anything for me."
"What a pity," complained the Prince, "that my automobile is at the
moment laid up for repairs. Otherwise I should have been only too
delighted to take you three ladies to the world's end, if you had the
wish. _It_ is not 'something less than twenty,' as Sir Ralph Moray
describes his twelve-horse-power car, but is something _more_ than
twenty, with a magnificently roomy Roi de Belge tonneau and
accommodation for any amount of luggage on the roof. By the way, yours
has at least a cover, I make no doubt, Sir Ralph?"
"No," I was obliged to admit, my mouth somewhat dry--owing perhaps to
the iced water.
"No cover? How, then, do you propose to protect these ladies from the
rain?" This with virtuous indignation flashing from his fierce eyes, and
a gesture which defended three helpless feminine things from the
unscrupulous machinations of a pair of villains.
My ignorance of motor lore bereft me of a weapon with which to parry the
attack, but Terry whipped out his sword at last.
"The ladies will be protected by their motor coats and our rugs. I'm
sure they're too plucky to sacrifice the best pleasures of motoring to a
little personal comfort when it may happen to rain," said he. "A roof
gives no protection against rain except with curtains, and even when
without them it curtails the view."
"Ah, it is cruel that I cannot get my car for you from Paris," sighed
the Prince. "Perhaps, Countess, if you would wait a little time--a week
or ten days, I might--"
"But we're going day after to-morrow, aren't we, Kittie?" quickly broke
in Miss Destrey.
"I suppose so," replied Mrs. Kidder, who invariably frowned when
addressed as "Cousin Kathryn," and brightened faintly if spontaneously
Kittied. "We've been here more than a week, and seen all the Nice and
Monte Carlo sights, thanks to the Prince. There's nothing to keep us,
although it will be about all we can do to get off so soon."
"Why be hurried, Countess?" with a shrug of the shoulder half-turned
from me.
"Well, I don't know." Her eyes wandered to mine. "But it suits Sir Ralph
to leave then. I guess we can manage it."
"Where will you go?" inquired Dalmar-Kalm. "I might be able to join you
somewhere _en route_."
"Well, that's one of the things we haven't quite settled yet," replied
Mrs. Kidder. "Almost anywhere will suit me. We can just potter around.
It's the automobiling we want. You know, this is our first time in
Europe, and so long as we're in pretty places, it's much the same to
us."
"Speak for yourself, Mamma," said Beechy. "Maida and I want to see the
Lake of Como, where Claude Melnotte had his palace."
"Oh, my, yes! In 'the Lady of Lyons.' I do think that's a perfectly
sweet play. Could we go there, Sir Ralph?"
"I must consult my chauffeur," said I, cautiously. "He knows more about
geography than I do. He ought to; he spends enough money on road-maps to
keep a wife. Eh, Terry?"
"There are two ways of driving to the lakes from here," he said, with a
confidence which pleased me. "One can go coasting along the Italian
Riviera to Genoa, and so direct to Milan; or one can go through the
Roya Valley, either by Turin, or a short cut which brings one eventually
to Milan."
"Milan!" exclaimed Miss Destrey, with a rapt look. "Why, that's not very
far from Verona, is it? And if it's not far from Verona, it can't be so
far from Venice. Oh, Beechy, think of seeing Venice!"
"It would be easy to go there," Terry said, showing too much eagerness
to fall in with a whim of the poor relation's; at least such was my
opinion until, with a glint of mischief in his eyes, he added, "If we
went to Venice, Countess, it would be very easy to run on if you liked,
into Dalmatia and see the new estate which you told us you thought of
buying, before you actually made up your mind to have it."
It was all I could do to strangle a chuckle at birth. Good old Terry!
Even he was not above taking a neat revenge; and the Prince's face
showed _how_ neat it was. Could it be possible that the estate in
Dalmatia which carried with it a title, had any resemblance to Claude
Melnotte's in that "sweet" play, "The Lady of Lyons?" I could scarcely
believe that, much as I would have liked to; but it was clear he would
have preferred to have the American millionairess take the beauties of
her new possessions for granted.
"Oh, I have made up my mind already. I made it up before we arrived
here," said the Countess.
"She made it up in the train coming from Paris," corrected Beechy,
"because she had to decide what name to register, and whether she'd have
the crown put on her handkerchiefs and her baggage. But she had to cable
to our lawyer in Denver before she could get money enough to pay what
the Prince wanted in advance, and the answer only came back this
morning."
"And what does the lawyer say?" asked the Prince, flushing, and with a
strained playfulness contradicted by the eager light in his eyes.
"Just guess," said Beechy, all her imps in high glee.
"Lawyers are such dry-as-dust persons," remarked His Highness, hastily
lifting his glass to toss off the last of the Romanee Conti. "If he is a
wise man who studies his client's interests, he could not advise Madame
against taking a step by which she ascends to a height so advantageous,
but--"
"Oh, he said yes," cried Mrs. Kidder, clinging to her Countesshood.
"And he put after it, 'If you will be a fool,'" added Beechy. "But he'll
have to pay for that part of the cable himself."
"He is my late husband's cousin," explained Mrs. Kidder, "and he takes
liberties sometimes, as he thinks Simon would not have approved of
everything I do. But you needn't tell _everything_, Beechy."
"Let's talk about Venice," said Miss Destrey with a lovely smile, which
seemed all the more admirable as she had given us so few. "I have always
longed to see Venice."
"But you didn't want to come abroad, you can't say you did," remarked
Beechy the irrepressible, resenting her cousin's interference, as a
naughty boy resents being torn from the cat to whose tail he has been
tying a tin can. "And I know _why_ you didn't!" She too had a taste for
revenge!
Miss Destrey blushed--I wondered why; and so, no doubt, did Terry
wonder. (Had she by chance been sent abroad to forget an unfortunate
attachment?)
"You wanted to stay with the Sisters," Beechy took advantage of the
other's embarrassed silence to go on. "And you hardly enjoyed Paris at