the house tended to her
comfort. James was preoccupied and speechless; the coffee was wrong,
the letters late and stupid. She felt herself at cross-purposes with
her foolish little world. If James had resought her love overnight, it
had been a passing whim. She told herself that love so desired was
almost an insult.

Nevertheless at eleven o'clock the motor was there, and Urquhart in
the hall held out his hand. "She can sprint," he said; "so much I've
learned already. I think you'll be amused."

Lucy hoped so. She owned herself very dull that morning. Well, said
Urquhart, he could promise her that she should not be that. She might
cry for mercy, he told her, or stifle screams; but she wouldn't stifle
yawns. "Macartney," he said, "would sooner see himself led out by a
firing-party than in such an engine as I have out there." She smiled
at her memory. "James is not of the adventurous," she said--but wasn't
he? "Shall I be cold?"

"Put on everything you have," he bade her, "and then everything else.
She can do sixty."

"You are trying to terrify me," she said, "but you won't succeed. I
don't know why, but I feel that you can drive. I think I have caught
Lancelot's complaint."

"Perhaps so. I know that I impose upon the young and insipient."

"And which am I, pray?"

He looked at her. "Don't try me too far."

She came forth finally to see Crewdson and her own chauffeur grouped
with Urquhart. The bonnet was open; shining coils, mighty cylinders
were in view, and a great copper feed-pipe like a burnished
boa-constrictor. The chauffeur, a beady-eyed Swiss, stared approval;
Crewdson, rubbing his chin, offered a deft blend of the deferential
butler and the wary man of the world. She was tucked in; the Swiss
started the monster; they were off with a bound.

They slashed along Knightsbridge, won Piccadilly Circus by a series
of short rushes; avoided the City, and further East found a broad road
and slow traffic. Soon they were in the semi-urban fringe, among villa
gardens, over-glazed public-houses, pollarded trees and country
glimpses in between. There was floating ice on the ponds, a violet
rime traversed with dun wheelmarks in the shady parts of the way.
After that a smooth white road, deep green fields, much frozen water,
ducks looking strangely yellow, and the low blue hills of Essex.

Urquhart was a sensitive driver; she noticed that. The farseeing eye
was instantly known in the controlling foot. He used very li