he automobiles was different from any I've ever seen on our side
or this. It was high and dignified, like a chariot, and looked over the
heads of the others as the archdeaconess used to look over mine till she
heard whose daughter I was. A _chauffeur_ was sitting on the front seat,
and a gorgeous man had jumped down and was giving him directions. He
wasn't looking my way, so I seized the opportunity to snapshot him, as a
souvenir of English scenery; but that tactless Kodak of mine gave the
loudest "click" you ever heard, and he turned his head in time to
suspect what had been happening. I swept past with my most "haughty Lady
Gwendolen" air, talking to Aunt Mary, and hoped I shouldn't see him
again. But we'd hardly got seated for lunch in a beautiful old room,
panelled from floor to ceiling with ancient oak, when he came into the
room, and Aunt Mary, who has a sneaking weakness for titles (I suppose
it's the effect of the English climate), murmured that _there_ was her
ideal of a duke.

The Gorgeous Man strolled up and took a place at our table. He passed
Aunt Mary some things which she didn't want, and then began to throw out
a few conversational feelers. If you're a girl, and want fun in England,
it's no end of a pull being American; for if you do anything that people
think queer, they just sigh, and say, "Poor creature! she's one of those
mad Americans," and put you down as harmless. I don't know whether an
English girl would have talked or not, but I did; and he knew lots of
our friends, especially in Paris, and it was easy to see he was a
raving, tearing "swell," even if he wasn't exactly a duke. I can't
remember how it began, but _really_ it was Aunt Mary and not I who
chattered about our trip, and how we were abroad for the first time, and
were going to "do" Europe as soon as we had "done" England.

The Gorgeous Man had lived in France (he seems to have lived nearly
everywhere, and to know everybody and everything worth knowing), and,
said he, "What a pity we couldn't do our tour on a motor-car!" At that I
became flippant, and inquired which, in his opinion, would be more
suitable as _chauffeur_--Aunt Mary or I; whereupon he announced that he
was not joking, but serious. We ought to have a motor-car and a
_chauffeur_. Then we might say, like Monte Cristo, "The world is mine."

He went on to tell of the wonderful journeys he'd made in his car,
"which we might have noticed outside." It seemed it was better than an