to break it--which was his way of tipping me the wink;
and "Britten, my boy," says he, "keep her out of mischief, for you are
all she has got in this wicked world."

Well, it was an eye-opener, I must say; for I hadn't seen her for more
than two minutes together, and when we did meet, I found her to be just
a jolly little American chassis, slim and shapely, and as full of "go"
as a schoolgirl on a roundabout. Her idea, she told me, was to drive a
Delahaye car she had hired, from Paris to Monte Carlo, and there to
meet her husband with the jaw-cracking name; whom, she assured me, with
the look of an angel in the blue picture, she hadn't seen for more than
two years.

"Two years, Britten--sure and certain. Now what do you think of that?"

"It would depend upon your husband, madame," said I; upon which she
laughed so loud they must have heard her in the garden below.

"Why, to be sure," says she, "you've got there first time. It does
depend upon the husband, and mine is the kindest, gentlest, most
foolish creature that ever was in this world. So, you see, I am
determined not to be kept from him any longer."

"Then, madame," said I, "we had better start at once."

I thought that she hesitated, could have sworn that she was about to
admit me further into her confidence; but I suppose she considered the
time unsuited; and after asking me a few questions about the car, and
whether I knew the road and was a careful driver, she gave me
instructions to be at the hotel at nine o'clock on the following
morning. So away I went, telling myself that the world was a funny
place, and wondering what Herr Joseph, the jaw-cracker, would have to
say to his good lady when she did turn up at Montey and laid her new
beehive hat upon his doting bosom.

This was no business of mine. I am a motor-driver, and two pound ten
on Saturday is my abiding anxiety. Give me my wages regular, and the
class of passenger who feels for the driver's palm at the journey's
end, and I'll ask nothing more of Providence. So on the following
morning, at nine sharp, I drove the big Delahaye round to the Ritz, and
by a quarter past her ladyship was aboard and we were making for Dijon
and the coast.

No motorist who knows anything of the game will ask me to describe this
journey, or to tell him just where he should stop because of the dead
'uns of five hundred years ago, or where he should hurry on because of
the livestock of to-day. I had a fine car