Then I flew back to Bertie and made him up
for a new part.

This was done--to his mingled amusement and disgust--by means of a
tight-fitting, veiled motor-hood of my own and a scarlet cape, short for
a grown-up girl, but long for a small boy. This produced a fair
imitation of what the police would call "a female child," should they
catch sight of my companion. But as it happened, they did not; nor did
any one else at Dawley St. Ann, so far as I was aware. By my
instructions the taxi drew up at the side door, and while Timmins, the
chauffeur, was starting the engine (he'd stopped it, as I kept him
waiting), I rushed Bertie into the car. Once in, I squashed him down on
the floor, seated tailor fashion, with a perfectly good, perfectly new
box of burnt almonds on his lap.

"Drive as fast as you dare without being held up," I ordered; and
Timmins, lately demobbed from the Tank Corps, obeyed with violence. The
distance was forty miles; the hour of starting, six; and at seven-thirty
we were spinning up the long avenue at Courtenaye Abbey; good going for
Devonshire hills!

I took the chance that Jim might be at the Abbey rather than at
Courtenaye Coombe, where he lodged. The way was shorter and--there were
as many hiding-places in the Abbey as at Dun Moat. Luck was with me! It
had been one of the days when Jim opened the Abbey to tourists, and he
was late because he'd gone the rounds with the guardian. His small car,
which he drove himself, stood before the door, and from that door he
flew like a Jack-in-the-box as we dashed up.

"Elizabeth! I mean Princess!" he exclaimed.

"Call me _anything_!" I whispered, recklessly, bending out of the car as
we shook hands. "Mum's the word! But look what I've brought; something I
want you to _store_ for me."

A jerk of my head introduced him to a red-cloaked, gray-veiled child
asleep on the taxi floor.

Most men would have shown some sign of surprise or other emotion. But
Jim Courtenaye's _sang-froid_ is a tribute to the cinema life he must
have led even before he burst into the war. Whether he thought that the
object in red was my own offspring, concealed from the world till now, I
don't know and probably never shall. All I do know is that, judging from
his expression, it might have been a borrowed shoulder of veal.

Deftly he scooped Bertie up without rousing him, and had borne the
bundle gently through the open door before it occurred to Timmins to
turn his head. "Hurray!" tho