“Thank you,” I acknowledged. “Au revoir, madame.”
John had lost the smartness of his manner when he first saw her. “I hope you will forgive me for being too enthusiastic about your country,” he said. “We are a naturally effusive nation, and are sometimes led into overdoing things, through excess of appreciation. We even sing praises to things so unreachable as the moon.”
She smiled again, looking straight at John, “Oh, I am sure the moon is not unreachable—by songs and praises,” she said. “Au revoir, messieurs.”
“And I wonder,” John murmured as we climbed into the car again, “just why she said ‘au revoir’ instead of ‘à dieu’—”
I humored him by saying the thing he obviously wanted to hear. “Perhaps she wanted to see you again.”
“Oh,” John grinned, “you think she is a booster for Alaria—bigger and better tourists—and more of them—sort of thing? All the same I wonder who the devil she can be. She didn’t even consult that idiot officer, just waved us out, and they let us go. And that car was a Hispano-Suiza.”
“And none too good for her?” I suggested. “Did you notice the regal air of the lady? Or the gold embroidery on the green velvet? We’ll have to ask Helena who she is. It would be a good thing to know, because, for all she is ornamental, and so very charming, I should hate to oppose that lady seriously.”
“Sure you would,” John chortled enthusiastically, “she knows what she wants, but she has nice, warm eyes, and a woman with warm, pleasant eyes is always manageable.” With which bit of optimism he drove on through the Pass, too intent on dreaming to talk any more.
The sun had touched the top of the western hills when we left the customs house. The mountains ahead of us raised their black jagged mass in the ruddy light, coppery and blown bare except in the valleys, where the trees showed dark and shadowy now.
The road was surprisingly good, for a mountain road in that distant part of the world. The rocks closed in around us almost within a stone’s throw of the customs house. The engine climbed bravely for an unbelievable time before it succumbed to the grade and made a shift necessary. Up and up and up, and then down a little, and then up again and a long way around a projecting ledge, into a gorge that made John switch on the lights suddenly; past that, and up again, then through a small wooded valley, and never a side road or a human being in sight, or any signs of habitation except a half dozen tiny cabins high above the road, and, a few times, narrow winding trails that would have been fit for a mule or perhaps a horse, but bad for a car. It was the wildest country I had ever driven through, and though the day had been almost hot, it was cold at that altitude. A narrow young moon came out and added by its familiar brilliance to the wild, deep shadows on either side of us.