level plains bare of a tree--one mad, devilish,
brutal rush, with every man's eyes glued to the turn of the road ahead,
which every half minute swerved, straightened, swerved again; now
blocked by trees, now opening out, only to close, twist, and squirm
anew. Great fun this, gambling with death, knowing that from behind any
bush, beyond every hill crest, and around each curve there may spring
something that will make assorted junk of your machine and send you to
Ballyhack!

"Only one more hill," breathed the Sculptor, wiping the caked dust from
his lips. Woo-oo-wow-o-o (nurse with a baby-carriage this time, running
into the bushes like a frightened rabbit). "See the mill stream--that's
it flashing in the sunlight! See the roof of the mill? That's Aston
Knight's! Down brakes! All out--fifty-six miles in one hour and
twenty-two minutes! Not bad!"

I sprang out--so did the Man from the Quarter--the flash from the mill
stream glistening in the sunlight had set his blood to tingling; as for
myself, no sheltering doorway had ever looked so inviting.

"Marie! _Marie!_ Where's monsieur?" cried out the Sculptor from his seat
beside the demon.

"Up-stairs, I think," answered a stout, gray-haired, rosy-cheeked woman,
wiping her hand and arms on her apron as she spoke. She had started on a
run from the brook's edge behind the house, where she had been washing,
when she heard the shriek of the siren, but the machine had pulled up
before she could reach the door-step.

"He went out early, but I think he's back now. Come in, come in, all of
you. I'm glad to see you--so will he be."

Marie was cook, housemaid, valet, mother, doctor, and any number of
things beside to Knight; just as in the village across the stream where
she lived--or rather slept o' nights--she was billposter, bell-ringer,
and town crier, to say nothing of her being the mother of eleven
children, all her own--Knight being the adopted twelfth.

"The mill might as well be without water as without Marie," said the
Sculptor. "Wait until you taste her baked trout--the chef at the Voisin
is a fool beside her." We had all shaken the dear woman's hand how
and had preceded her into the square hall filled with easels, fresh
canvases, paintings hung on hooks to dry, pots of brushes, rain coats,
sample racks of hats, and the like.

All this time the beast outside was snorting like a race-horse catching
its breath after a run, the demon walking in front of it, examining