ed on."

She straightened up, sitting very erect, her two hands tense upon the
useless wheel. He noted the poise of her head and found in it
something almost queenly. For a moment they were both very still, he
watching and feeling his sense pervaded by the glowing sensation that
all was right with the world, she holding her face averted and keeping
her thoughts to herself.

Presently she got out and lifted the hood, looking in upon the engine,
despairing. But did not glance toward him. Then she closed the hood
and returned to her seat, once more attempting to get some sort of
response from the starting system. Packard felt himself fairly beaming
all over.

"I may be a low-lived dog and a deep-dyed villain besides," he was
frank to admit to himself. "But right now I'm having the time of my
life. And I wouldn't bet two bits which way she's going to jump next,
either--never having met just her type before."

"Well?" she said abruptly.

She hadn't moved, hadn't so much as turned her head to look at him. If
she had done so just then perhaps Packard's extremely good-humored
smile, a contented, eminently satisfied smile, would not have warmed
her to him.

"Speak to me?" he asked innocently.

"I did. Simply because there's nobody else to speak to. Don't happen
to know anything about motor-cars, do you?"

It was all very icily enunciated, but had no noticeably freezing effect
upon the man's mood.

"I sure do," he told her cheerfully. "Know 'em from front bumper to
tail-lamp. Yours is a Boyd-Merril, Twin Eight, this year's model.
Fox-Whiting starting and lighting system. Great little car, too, if
you ask me."

"What I was going to ask you," came the cool little voice, more
haughtily than ever, "was not what you think of the car but if you--if
you happened to know how to make the miserable thing go."

"Sure," he replied to the back of her head, with all of his former
pleasant manner. "Pull out the ignition button; push down the starter
pedal with your right foot; throw out the clutch with your left; put
her into low; let in your clutch slowly; give her a little----"

"Smarty!" He had counted upon some such interruption, and chuckled
when it came. "I know all that."

"Then why don't you do it?" he queried innocently. "You're right
square in my way, the road's narrow, and I've got to be moving on."

"I don't do it," she informed that portion of the world which lay
immediately in front of her sligh