r back to Paris in spite of the attempt
to stop us; perhaps I wanted to be even with the red-faced man, who had
ordered me about last night; but whichever way it was, I could have
laughed fit to split every time I looked at that odd little bundle by
my side and thought of it as it was last night, all dressed in flummery
and rustling like the leaves. Nevertheless, I made no mention of it;
and, as much to her surprise as mine, we passed through Frejus without
any one stopping us, and drove right through the night without let or
hindrance. Not until dawn did I begin to ask myself some
questions--and they were awkward ones. What the devil was I going to
do with her in the towns? Why had I never thought of it? She was
wearing my long mackintosh, to be sure; but who would fail to recognise
her, and what would the talk be like?

A hundred difficulties, not one of which I had had the brains to think
of last night, kept popping up like midgets in a puppet-show; and, as
though to crown them all, bang went the near-side back tyre at that
very moment, and there we were by the roadside, at five in the morning,
in as desolate a place as you want to find, and not the sign of house
or village wherever the eye might turn.

Now Madame had been nearly asleep upon my shoulder when this happened,
but she woke up at the report and looked up all about her as though she
had been dreaming.

"Where are we, Britten?" she asked. "What has happened to us?"

"Tyre gone, madame. I must trouble you to get down."

She woke up at this, and got out immediately. I could see that she was
more clear-headed than she had been last night, if not less frightened.

"This was a very foolish thing to do, Britten. We are sure to be
followed."

"That's as it may be, madame. I fear it's too late to think of it now.
My business is to get this tyre fixed up."

"Will it take you very long, Britten?"

"Thirty minutes ordinary. But it's a new cover and stiff--I'll say
forty."

"Then I'll see to the breakfast. Wasn't it clever of me to think of
it? I've brought a Thermos and a basket. We'll have breakfast in the
little wood on the hillside. If no one follows us, I can be myself
again at Aix, and we shall get to Paris, after all. But oh, Britten, I
must look an object in your clothes. Why ever did you ask me to wear
them?"

I made a dry answer. A man wrestling with a 935 by 135 cover isn't
exactly in the mood to compliment a woman on her frip