uffeur_ may arrive to say that we can
start. I shall write again soon to tell you how he turns out, and all
about things in general; and when I don't write I'll cable.

Your battered but hopeful
Molly.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

Orleans, _November 29_.

My dear Montie,

I have so many things to tell you I scarcely know where to begin. First
let me announce that I am in for an adventure--a real flesh and blood
adventure into which I plump without premeditation, but an adventure of
so delightful a kind that I hope it may continue for many a day. I know
you'll say at once, "That means Woman"; and you're right. But I won't go
to the heart of the story at once; I'll begin at the beginning. First,
though, a word as to yourself. I miss you enormously. It is a cruel
stroke of fate that you should have been ordered to Davos after you had
made all your plans to go with me on my new car to the Riviera. I still
think that a trip on which you would have been in the open air all day
was just as likely to check incipient chest trouble as the cold dryness
of Davos; but no doubt you were right to do as the doctors told you. I
shall look eagerly for letters from you with bulletins of your progress.
As I can't have you with me, the next best thing will be to write to you
often; besides, you said that you would like to have frequent reports of
my doings in France, with "plenty of detail."

Well, the new car is a stunner. I haven't so far a fault to find with
her. She takes most hills on the third, which is very good; for though
we are only two up--Almond and I--I have luggage in the _tonneau_ almost
equal to the weight of another passenger. Between Dieppe and Paris she
licked up the kilometres as a running flame licks up dry wood. She runs
sweetly and with hardly any noise. The ignition seems to work perfectly;
she carries water and petrol enough for 150 miles. I think at last in
the Napier I have found the ideal car, and you know I have searched long
enough. Almond timed her on the level bit at Acheres, and it was at the
rate of over forty-five miles an hour--not bad for a touring car.

It was between Dieppe and Paris (somewhere between Gisors and Meru) that
the adventure began. I was flying up a slope of perhaps one in fifteen,
when I became aware of Beauty in Distr