m his own hammercloth. The Countess was not smiling.
It was the first time that Denry had ever seen her without an efficient
smile on her face.

"Have you got to be anywhere particular?" he asked. Many ladies would
not have understood what he meant. But the Countess was used to the Five
Towns.

"Yes," said she. "I have got to be somewhere particular. I've got to be
at the Police Institute at three o'clock particular, Mr Machin. And I
shan't be. I'm late now. We've been here ten minutes."

The Countess was rather too often late for public ceremonies. Nobody
informed her of the fact. Everybody, on the contrary, assiduously
pretended that she had arrived to the very second. But she was well
aware that she had a reputation for unpunctuality. Ordinarily, being too
hurried to invent a really clever excuse, she would assert lightly that
something had happened to her carriage. And now something in truth had
happened to her carriage--but who would believe it at the Police
Institute?

"If you'll come with me I'll guarantee to get you there by three
o'clock," said Denry.

The road thereabouts was lonely. A canal ran parallel with it at a
distance of fifty yards, and on the canal a boat was moving in the
direction of Hanbridge at the rate of a mile an hour. Such was the only
other vehicle in sight. The outskirts of Knype, the nearest town, did
not begin until at least a mile further on; and the Countess, dressed
for the undoing of mayors and other unimpressionable functionaries,
could not possibly have walked even half a mile in that rich dark mud.
She thanked him, and without a word to her servants took the seat beside
him.

III

Immediately the mule began to trot the Countess began to smile again.
Relief and content were painted upon her handsome features. Denry soon
learnt that she knew all about mules--or almost all. She told him how
she had ridden hundreds of miles on mules in the Apennines, where there
were no roads, and only mules, goats and flies could keep their feet on
the steep, stony paths. She said that a good mule was worth forty pounds
in the Apennines, more than a horse of similar quality. In fact, she was
very sympathetic about mules. Denry saw that he must drive with as much
style as possible, and he tried to remember all that he had picked up
from a book concerning the proper manner of holding the reins. For in
everything that appertained to riding and driving the Countess was an
expert. In the season