As luck would have it, the state of the road was, on the whole, rather worse than any we had used since we left Boulogne. Presumably untouched for over six years, the wear and tear to which, as one of the arteries springing from a great port, it had been subjected, had turned a sleek highway into a shadow of itself. There was no flesh; the skin was broken; the very bones were staring.
For the first half hour we told one another that we had struck a bad patch. For the second we expressed nervous hopes that the going would grow no worse. After that, Berry and I lost interest and suffered in silence. Indeed, but for Adèle, I think we should have thrown up the sponge and spent the night at Bordeaux.
My lady, however, kept us both going.
She had studied our route until she knew it by heart, and was just burning to pilot us through Bordeaux and thence across Gascony.
"They're sure to make mistakes after Bordeaux. You know what the sign-posts are like. And the road's really tricky. But I spent two hours looking it up yesterday evening. I took you through Barbezieux all right, didn't I?"
"Like a book, darling."
"Well, I can do that every time. And I daresay they'll have tire trouble. Besides, the road's no worse for us than it is for them, and after Bordeaux it'll probably be splendid. Of course we'll be there before ten—we can't help it. I want to be there before Jonah. I've got a hundred——"
"My dear," I expostulated, "I don't want to——"
"We've got a jolly good chance, any way. While you were getting her right, I got the lunch, and we can eat that without stopping. You can feed Berry. We'll gain half an hour like that."
Before such optimism I had not the face to point out that, if our opponents had any sense at all, they had lunched before leaving Angoulême.