The two men produced their watches and their notebooks, tapping them significantly.
"M'sieur will not think of denying that he has been running more rapidly than the law allows," said the second officer. "It will go harder with him if he should do so."
"I shall insist upon having an advocate to represent me before—"
"As you like, m'sieur," said the first officer curtly. "Proceed!" he uttered as a command to the chauffeur, and forthwith mounted his wheel. A score of people had gathered round them by this time, and Miss Guile was crouching back in her corner. Her veil was down. In single file, so to speak, they started off for the office of the nearest magistrate appointed under the new law governing automobiles. A policeman pedaled ahead of the car and another followed.
"Isn't it dreadful?" whispered Miss Guile. "What do you think they will do to us? Oh, I am so sorry, Mr. Schmidt, to have dragged you into this horrid—"
"I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world," said he so earnestly that she sat up a little straighter and caught her breath. "After all, they will do no more than assess a fine against us. A hundred francs, perhaps. That is nothing."
"I am not so sure of that," said she gloomily. "My friends were saying only yesterday that the new law provides for imprisonment as well. Paris has constructed special prisons for motorists, and people are compelled to remain in them for days and weeks at a time. Oh, I hope—"
"I'll inquire of the footman," said Robin. "He will know." The footman, whose face was very long and serious, replied through the tube that very few violators escaped confinement in the "little prisons." He also said "Mon dieu" a half dozen times, and there was a movement of the driver's pallid lips that seemed to indicate a fervent echo.
"I shall telephone at once—to my friends," said Miss Guile, a note of anger in her voice. "They are very powerful in Paris. We shall put those miserable wretches in their proper places. They—"
"We must not forget. Miss Guile, that we were breaking the law," said Robin, who was beginning to enjoy the discomfiture of this spoiled beauty, this girl whose word was a sort of law unto itself.