“Gosh!” said Lord Hovenden expressively, as they slid with locked wheels down a high street that had been planned for pack-asses and mules. From pedimented windows between the pilasters of the palaces, curious faces peered out at them. They tobogganed down, through the high renaissance, out of an arch of the Middle Ages, into the dateless and eternal fields. From Montepulciano they descended on to Lake Trasimene.
“Wasn’t there a battle here, or something?” asked Irene, when she saw the name on the map.
Lord Hovenden seemed to remember that there had indeed been something of the kind in this neighbourhood. “But it doesn’t make much difference, does it?”
Irene nodded; it certainly didn’t seem to make much difference.
“Nofing makes any difference,” said Lord Hovenden, making himself heard with difficulty in the teeth of a wind which his speedometer registered as blowing at forty-five miles an hour. “Except”—the wind made him bold—“except you.” And he added hastily, in case Irene might try to be severe. “Such a bore going down-hill on a twiddly road like vis. One can’t risk ve slightest speed.”
But when they turned into the flat highway along the western shore of the lake, his face brightened. “Vis is more like it,” he said. The wind in their faces increased from a capful to half a gale, from half a gale to a full gale, from a full gale very nearly to a hurricane. Lord Hovenden’s spirits rose with the mounting speed. His lips curved themselves into a smile of fixed and permanent rapture. Behind the glass of his goggles his eyes were very bright. “Pretty good going,” he said.
“Pretty good,” echoed Irene. Under her mask, she too was smiling. Between her ears and the flaps of her leather cap the wind made a glorious roaring. She was happy.
The road swung round to the left following the southern shore of the lake.
“We shall soon be at Perugia,” said Hovenden regretfully. “What a bore!”
And Irene, though she said nothing, inwardly agreed with him.