you know what that look is.

Of course, it wasn't the first time I'd been out in the car, for I think
I told you, the day Apollo was christened I had a spin; but it rained,
and we went only through the Park. That was nothing. This morning we
were bidding good-bye to London, and our pulses were beating high for
the Tour. Young Nick drove on the christening day, but this time Sir
Lionel took the driver's seat, with the brown idol beside him; and I saw
instantly, by the very way he laid his hand on the steering-wheel, with
a kind of caress--as a horse-lover pats a beloved mare's neck--that he
and the golden car were in perfect sympathy.

We were starting early, because Sir Lionel had planned a good many
things for us to see before dark; but early as it was, Piccadilly and
Knightsbridge were seething with traffic. Motor-'buses like mad
hippopotamuses; taxi-cabs like fierce young lions; huge carts like
elephants; and other vehicles of all sorts to make up a confused medley
of wild animals escaped from the Zoo. It looked appalling to mingle
with, but our own private Dragon drove so skilfully, yet so carefully,
that I never bit my heart once. Always the car seemed sentient, steering
its way like a long, thin pike; then when the chance came, flashing
ahead, dauntless and sure.

We went by a great domed palace--Harrod's Stores--and then over Putney
Bridge, passing Swinburne's house, whose outside is as deceiving as an
oyster-shell that hides a pearl; through Epsom, Charles the Second's
"Brighton" (which I've been reading about in a volume of Pepys Sir
Lionel has given me), to Leatherhead, along the Dorking Road, slowing up
for a glimpse of Juniper Hall, glowing red as a smouldering bonfire
behind a dark latticed screen of splendid Lebanon cedars. I dare say
it's a good deal changed since dear little Fanny Burney's day, for the
house looks quite modern; but then neither buildings nor the people who
live in them show their age early in England.

Close under Box Hill we glided; and Sir Lionel pointed out a little path
leading up on the left to George Meredith's cottage. Just a small house
of gray stone it is (for I would get out and walk up part way to see it
from far off, not to intrude or spy); and there that great genius shines
out, a clear, white light for the world, like a beacon or a star.

Evidently Surrey air suits geniuses. Do you remember reading about
Keats, that he wrote a lot of "Endymion" at Burford Bridge? It w