His broad, though padded, form was sitting very close to the minute, dejected figure of Miss Million, who had gradually ceased to shudder and to whimper "Oh, lor'! Oh, my! Oh, whatever is going to happen to us now!" as she had done at the beginning of the journey.
She was, I realised, a little cheered and encouraged now. From a movement that I had noticed under Miss Vi Vassity's sable motor-rug I guessed that Mr. Jessop had taken his cousin's hand, and that he was holding it as we drove.
Well, after all, why shouldn't he? They are cousins.
Also it's quite on the cards that she may accept him yet (if we ever get out of this atrocious muddle about the stolen ruby) as her husband!
These two facts make all the difference....
And I should have said so to the Honourable Jim had we been alone.
It didn't really surprise me that he, in his turn, attempted to hold a girl's hand under that rug.
Men always seem to do what they notice some other man doing first. That must have been it. Except, of course, that it wasn't Miss Million's hand that Mr. Burke tried to take. It was the hand of Miss Million's maid.
I was determined that he shouldn't. Firmly I drew my hand out of his clasp—it was a warm and strong and comforting clasp enough, very magnetic; but what of that?
Then I clasped my own hands tightly together, as I am doing now, and left them on my lap, outside the rug.