Franklin got out of the car and came to meet Beatrix as she led the way under the rain-splashed awning.
"How are we to thank you, Mr. Franklin?" Beatrix held out a most gracious hand. "You come just at the moment when I was going to plough through all this wet."
"You'd have been soaked to the skin in about a minute," he said. "It's tropical." He held open the door of the limousine.
He showed a touch of reproof at her impatience which Beatrix was quick to catch. She remembered that invariably when she had met him there had been a suggestion of antagonism in his manner. For some reason she was not, she knew, altogether to his liking. It amused her. "I'll ride in front, if I may," she said, with the mischievous intention of seeing whether he would try to coerce her as he had done once before, "but I'll wait until you get in."
He, too, remembered the incident at a dance the year before when he had told her that she was sitting in a dangerous draught and asked her to move, and she had declined. He stood up to her. This spoiled, wilful girl needed a master. He felt an impish desire to prevent her from getting her own way. "I'd rather you rode inside," he replied. "Then there'll be no chance of your getting wet."
"Please let me ride in front," said Beatrix, and a bewitching smile and a little upward look of appeal settled the matter.
Franklin returned to his seat and, when Beatrix was in, made a long arm over her knees and shut the door with a bang. "What a girl!" he said to himself. "As pretty as paint; but, ye gods, how she needs the spurs."
As sick as a dog that Beatrix was not with him, Fraser handed Mrs. Keene in and yelled, through another crash of thunder: "Go ahead, Pel!"
"Where may I drive you?"
"Anywhere you like," said Beatrix, airily. "I've nothing to do."