st like two drivers on the box-seat, and nobody a
penny the wiser. When you get to Paris I can take you to a little
hotel----"

She was like a child about it.

"Why, of all the clever men! You shall look after me in Paris. I
won't forget you, Britten, and I'm rich enough for anything--at
present. You shall stop with me until Count Joseph comes----"

I thought to myself that it would be an over-long engagement in that
case; but there was no call to say anything of the kind to her, and
stopping only to repeat my directions, I went round to the garage and
made ready. If Madame herself was excited at the prospect of giving
the fat man the go-by, I was no less; and I assure you that no boy's
game I had ever played excited me half as much. Best of all was the
thought that our quickness would forestall them; and if the authorities
did decide to expel her, we should be on the road to Paris long before
the edict arrived.

As to what might happen afterwards, I was indifferent; for Paris is the
same as London to a proper motor-man, and I am just as much at home in
the Champs Elysees as in Regent Street. So I left that to fortune,
and, setting about the plan, I had my things packed and the car made
ready under an hour, and at four o'clock sharp that afternoon I picked
up Madame and her trunks at the door of the hotel and set off boldly as
though to drive her to the Italian frontier. But I turned back before
we had gone a mile, and making straight for the little Italian hotel
next door to the garage, I smuggled her in without a soul being the
wiser, and out again as cleverly just after dusk. She was dressed then
just as I have told you--mackintosh up to her ears and a flat leather
cap, suiting her pretty face to perfection. But any fool could have
seen she was a woman twenty yards away; and I began to ask which was
the bigger idiot--me for making the suggestion, or she for taking it?
It was too late, however, to think of that, and trusting that good luck
might pull us through, perhaps looking on the whole affair as one which
was pretty near its end--and that no good end--I let the car go and
made straight for Brignoles.

Quite what apprehension of danger was in her head or mine I really
don't know. Sometimes I think that she had a silly notion of what the
French prefect might have done to her, exaggerating, as women will, the
real situation, and dreadfully frightened of "foreigners."

For myself, I wanted to get he