into the
_tonneau_ to avoid being left behind. In doing this I unfortunately trod
on Aunt Mary's toes. She groaned, glared, and muttered only half below
her breath, "Clumsy creature!" Thoroughly humiliated, and no longer in a
mood to care whether their Jimmy wrecked the car and killed us (all but
one) I took my seat. I do believe that Aunt Mary secretly thinks me
capable of having misjudged and ill-treated Eyelashes, who laid himself
out to "be nice" to her.

Hardly had we started when I heard Miss Randolph telling Payne that this
car belonged to the Honourable John Winston, Lord Brighthelmston's son,
and asking him if he had ever met Mr. Winston. I suppose that, in the
excitement of managing a big machine which he knew little or nothing
about, Payne forgot that, since I "went with the car," the owner must
have been one of those (to him) fatal old masters of mine. He can't bear
to deny the soft impeachment of knowing anyone whom he thinks may be a
swell, and in the hurry of the moment habit got the better of prudence.

"Oh yes, I know Jack very well!" he exclaimed; then drew in his breath
with a little gasp which he turned into a cough. In that moment he had
probably remembered me.

"I suppose you know his mother, then?" said Miss Randolph. "I met her in
Paris. She's at Cannes now, and so you will see her there."

"Ye--es," returned Jimmy. "Oh yes, I shall certainly see her. I know
Lord Brighthelmston better than I do her; but I shall call, of course."

What with his fear of having committed himself anew, and the chill in
his marrow produced by my critical eye on his vertebrae, he grew more and
more nervous, wobbling whenever there was a delicate piece of steering
to be done or a restive horse to be passed. He changed speeds so
clumsily that the pinions went together with a crash each time, and
shivers ran up and down my spine when I heard the noise and thought of
the damage this conceited idiot might do to my poor gears. Could _you_
stand by like Patience on the lee cathead, smiling at a wet swab, while
some duffer with a whip and spurs bestrode your favourite stallion,
Roland? Perhaps that simile will help you to understand how I've been
feeling all day.

Payne is a rank amateur. I doubt if he ever drove a Napier before, and
would bet something he depended for his success to-day (such as it was)
on keen observation of everything Miss Randolph did before he took the
helm. He knows how to steer a moderately strai