"Fancy you two being in the next carriage all the time," said Daphne. "I expect Boy's introduced himself, Julia dear. Yes, I thought so. Still for what it's worth, my brother—Lady Julia Lory."
Which is why she's 'my lady'. Though she always says it isn't.
CHAPTER X
PRIDE GOETH BEFORE
"Who is Silvia? What is she?
That all her swains commend he.
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be."
The song and its melody floated out into the night, away and over the sleeping countryside. In no way breaking the silence; rising up out of it, rather. It was as if Nature dreamed as she lay sleeping, a dream clear-cut, melodious. Over all the moon hung full, turning the world to silver. Never had music so fairy a setting.
"Then to Sylvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling,
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling
To her let us garlands bring."
Half-past eleven o'clock of a fine moonlit night, and I was alone with the car all among the Carinthian Alps. It was for Fladstadt that I was making. That was the Bairlings' nearest town. Their place, St. Martin, lay twenty odd miles from Fladstadt. But in the town people would show me the way. At St. Martin I should find Daphne and the others, newly come from Vienna this afternoon. Friends of Jonah's, the Bairlings. None of us others knew them.
At ten o'clock in the morning I had slid out of Trieste, reckoning to reach Fladstadt in twelve hours. And, till I lost my way, I had come well. I had lost it at half-past nine and only discovered that I had lost it an hour later. It was too late to turn back then. I tried to get on and across by by-roads—always a dangerous game. Just when I was getting desperate I had chanced on a signpost pointing to the town I sought. The next moment one of the tires had gone.