Instantly, as the wheels ceased to turn, a young man in the smartest
livery imaginable, green garnished with gold, leaped smartly from the
driver's seat, with military precision opened the door of the tonneau
and, holding it, immobilised himself into the semblance of a waxwork
image with the dispassionate eye, the firm mouth, and the closely
razored, square jowls of the model chauffeur. Rustics and townsfolk
were already gathering, a gaping audience, when from the tonneau
descended first a long and painfully emaciated gentleman, whose face
was a cadaverous mask of settled melancholy and his chosen toilette for
motoring (as might be seen through the open and flapping front of his
ulster) a tightly tailored light grey cutaway coat and trousers, with a
double-breasted white waistcoat, a black satin Ascot scarf transfixed
by a single splendid pearl, and spotless white spats.

His hand, as gaunt as a skeleton's, assisted to alight a young woman
whose brilliant blonde beauty, viewed for the first time in evening
shadows, was like a shaft of sunlight in a darkened room. A well-made
creature, becomingly and modishly gowned for motoring, spirited yet
dignified in carriage, she was like a vision of, as she was palpably a
visitation from, the rue de la Paix.

Following her, a third passenger presented the well-nourished, indeed
rotund, person of a Frenchman of thirty devoted to "le Sport"; as
witness his aggressively English tweeds and the single glass screwed
into his right eye-socket. His face was chubby, pink and white, his
look was merry, he was magnificently self-conscious and debonnaire.

Like shapes from some superbly costumed pageant of High Life in the
Twentieth Century this trio drifted, rather than merely walked like
mortals, across the terrasse and into the Cafe de l'Univers (which
seemed suddenly to shrink in proportion as if reminded of its
comparative insignificance in the Scheme of Things) where an awed staff
of waiters, led by the overpowered proprietaires, monsieur et madame
themselves, welcomed these apparitions from Another and A Better World
with bowings and scrapings and a vast bustle and movement of chairs and
tables; while all Nant, all of it, that is, that was accustomed to
foregather in the cafe at this the hour of the aperitif, looked on with
awed and envious eyes.

It was all very theatrical and inspiring--to Monsieur Duchemin, too;
who, lost in the shuffle of Nant and content to be so, murmured t