"Absolutely certain," I responded, with a glance at Terry, who was not showing himself off to any advantage in this scene although he ought to have been the leading actor. He did nothing but raise his eyebrows when he thought that no one was looking, or tug at his moustache most imprudently when somebody was. Or else he handed the cakes to Miss Destrey, and forgot to offer them to her far more important relatives. "I'm so sure of it," I went on, "that I think we had better arrange—"
"Yes, indeed. Of course your ch—Mr. Barrymore (or did I hear you say Terrymore?) is a very experienced driver? We've never been in an automobile yet, any of us, and I'm afraid, though it will be perfectly lovely as soon as we're used to it, that we may be a little scary at first. So it would be nice to know for sure that the driver understood how to act in any emergency. I should hate to be killed in an automobile. It would be such—such an untidy death to die, judging from what you read in the papers sometimes."
"I should prefer it, myself," I said, "but that's a matter of taste, and you may trust Terry—Mr. Barrymore. What he doesn't know about a motor-car and its inner and outer workings isn't worth knowing. So when we go—"
"Aunt K—I mean Kittie, don't you think we ought to go home to the hotel?" asked Miss Destrey, who had scarcely spoken until now, except to answer a question or two of Terry's, whom she apparently chose to consider in the Martyr's Boat, with herself. "We've been here for hours, and it's getting dark."
"Why, so it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder, rising hurriedly. "I'm quite ashamed of myself for staying so long. What will you think of us? But we had such a lot of things to arrange, hadn't we?"
We had had; and we had them still. But that was a detail.
"We must go," she went on. "Well, we've decided nearly everything" (this was news to me). "But there are one or two things yet we'll have to talk over, I suppose."
"Quite so," said I.
"Could you and Mr. Terrymore come and dine with us to-night? Then we can fix everything up."
"Speaking for myself, I'm afraid I can't, thanks very much," Terry said, hastily.