he attributed her
high spirits to mere politeness--to her wish that he should believe
she had forgotten the fiasco on the Mendips.

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

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

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

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

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

Her eyes fell on Medenham and the Mercury. Momentarily rendered
speechless, sh