"Oh, Brown!" I gasped out, running to him, so close that the fire was hot on my face. "Oh, Brown, how can you? Anybody would think that you were glad."
"And he is!" cried a voice in French at my back. "It was he who set your automobile on fire, mademoiselle. I myself, who tell you, saw him do it." I whisked round, and there stood Monsieur Talleyrand, looking very picturesque in an almost theatrical déshabillé, with the firelight shining on him, just as if it were a scene on the stage.
Brown faced round too, and at the same instant, the fire having drunk the last drop of petrol, the flame suddenly died down, and there fell a curious silence after the roaring of the fire, which had been like a blast. The woodwork of the car, the hood and the upper part, as well as the wooden wheels, had all disappeared-the flame had swallowed and digested them. Of my varnished and dignified car there remained only a heap of twisted bits of iron, glowing a dull red. In the grey dawn we must have looked like witches at some secret and unholy rite. The going out of the light had an odd effect upon us three. When Monsieur Talleyrand launched his accusation at Brown, he had thrown up his chin, and the light, striking on his eyeballs, made them glow like red sparks. But with the dying of the light, the flash in his eyes died too; and his face changed to a disagreeable, ashy grey. At the same minute, when I turned to Brown, it was his eyes that glowed, but the light seemed to come from inside.
I forget whether I ever told you that Brown is a very good-looking fellow; too good-looking for a mere chauffeur. His face is like his name-brown; his eyes are brown too, and they can almost speak. One can't help noticing these things, even in one's chauffeur. If he weren't a chauffeur, one might certainly take him for a gentleman. Some things really are a pity! But never mind.
Brown looked at Monsieur Talleyrand, and then he said, "You are a liar." Oh, my goodness, I expected murder!
Monsieur Talleyrand gave a sort of leap.
"Scoundrel, hog, canaille!" he stammered, trembling all over. "To be insulted by an English cad, a common chauffeur, that a gentleman cannot call out, an incendiary--"
But here Brown broke in with a "Silence!" that made me jump. And the funny part was that it was he who looked the gentleman, and Monsieur Talleyrand the cad-quite a little, mean cad, though he is really handsome, with eyelashes you'd have to measure with a tape. That awful "Silence!" seemed to blow his words down his throat like a gust of wind, and while he was getting breath Brown followed up his first shot; but this time it was aimed my way.
"Do you believe what that coward says?" he flung at me, without even taking hold of the words with "Miss" for a handle. Between the two men and the excitement, I gasped instead of answering, and perhaps he took silence for consent, though that is such an old-fashioned theory, especially when it concerns girls. Anyway, he seemed to grow three or four inches taller, and his chin got squarer. "So far from burning your car," said he (and you could have made a block of ice out of each word), "I have been to Amboise to hire a car for you, and thought I had been lucky in securing my old master's.
"As this expedition has occupied the whole night. I have really had no time for plotting, even if there had been a motive, or if I were the sort of man for such work. I hoped you knew I wasn't. But there"-and he pointed to the road outside the open gate-"is my master's car, and the motor is still hot enough to prove--"