Hal’s smile suddenly flashed out in the lamp-light irresistibly.
“It’s a new theory about vegetables being wiser than mankind, but of course we took root too soon.”
A pair of grey eyes looked quizzically at her in the darkness, discerning only the gleam of a white face in a close-fitting bonnet, and the flash of white, even teeth.
“The blasted steering wheel wouldn’t act,” said Dick. “We had just that second slowed down to examine it. You might have come along here to all eternity and not have been as inopportune.”
“You take it very well.” The big-coated apparition, in motor-cap with the ear-flaps down, and motor-goggles, and the suggestion of a rotundity about the centre, was not at all engaging to look at, but he had a charming voice.
“I’m taking it so ill that I daren’t express myself out loud,” said Hal. “What in the world are we to do? Is there a train anywhere near?”
“I’m afraid not, but there is a decent enough inn close by.”
“An inn isn’t much use to me.” She paused, then added solemnly: “I’ve got a strait-laced brother.”
Hal’s voice was rather deep and rich for a woman, and it had a dangerous allurement in the darkness. The stranger took off his goggles and tried again to see her face, while Dick took a minute stock of his damage.
“Well,” he suggested, a little daringly, “if he is able to chaperone you at the inn himself?—”