"Just one question first!" exclaimed Loveland, stopping short in front of the old-fashioned but neatly kept stables, and spacious Southern barn. "I know I haven't any right to ask it, but—were you engaged to Cremer when we crossed together on the Mauretania?"
"My relations with Sidney were then exactly what they are now," replied the girl, with a pretty primness that made her mouth look as if she had just said, "prunes, prisms, propriety."
His last hope gone—since Lesley had not accepted Cremer out of pique—Loveland was silenced.
A darkey groom, who came forward grinning, opened the doors of an inverted loose-box, and showed a fine black and scarlet motor-car, glittering with varnish, brass, and newness.
Deeply interested, or feigning interest, Lesley made Loveland lift the shining bonnet and explain detail after detail of the mechanism.
"It sounds fascinating!" she said at last. "The monster only arrived three days ago, though it—or ought I to say 'she'?—was on order months and months ago. Two or three chauffeurs have come in from Louisville to be interviewed (you see, Sidney trusts my judgment just as Auntie does!) but I wasn't satisfied with them."
"Perhaps you won't be satisfied with me?" suggested Val.
"Oh, you're only a temporary chauffeur," she answered. And though it was rather cruel to remind the lonely young man in a strange land how soon he was to lose his only friend, the girl smiled as she spoke. "I must just put up with you as you are. You've quite impressed me with what you know about the machine part. I daresay you can drive. Your manner and appearance are quite nice; and besides——"
"Besides—what?" Val almost snapped at her.
"It seems as if it was meant to be, as Uncle Wally says when he breaks a dish. And I'm wondering whether I shall be brave enough to let you teach me to drive. Sidney will want me to know how, I'm sure."