"Now you're overdoing it," said her stage-manager severely. "Don't loll your tongue out like a poodle's! That's better. Hallo, I believe I can hear a car already! Come on, you two--into this wood!"
Next moment Tilly, beginning dimly to comprehend, was propelled over a split-rail fence by two muscular gentlemen and bustled into the fastnesses of the pine wood. The Casabianca-like Connie remained in an attitude of appealing helplessness upon the tool-box.
The pine wood ran up the side of a hill. The trio climbed a short distance, and then turned to survey the scene below them. Round the bend of the road came a car--a bulky, heavy, opulent limousine, going thirty-five miles an hour, and carrying a cargo of fur coats and diamonds.
"Rolls-Royce. Something-in-the-City going down to lunch at Brighton," commented Dicky. "That's the wrong sort, anyhow."
"Connie will be run over," cried Tilly apprehensively.
"Not she," replied the callous Carmyle.
He was right. Connie, diagnosing the character of the approaching vehicle from afar, had already stepped round to the near side of her own, escaping a shower bath of mud and possibly a compound fracture.
"Do you always get your running repairs done this way, Tiny?" enquired Dicky of Carmyle.
"As a rule. Connie loves it. Gives her a chance of talking prettily to people and smiling upon them, and all that. She thinks her smile is her strong point."
"I should be afraid," said Tilly.