"I was only thinking," replied Miss Welwyn shakily, "how awful it would have been if one of the other girls had been a better riveter." Then she took a deep breath as of resolution.
"Dicky," she began, "I want to talk to you about something. I think I ought to tell you--"
But as she spoke, the figure of Mr. Carmyle, heralded by unnecessary but well-intentioned symptoms of what sounded like a deep-seated affection of the lungs, appeared among the trees, and announced:--
"Off directly, you two! Connie is just having a last farewell with her mechanics. She has collected quite a bunch of them by this time."
"They have n't taken long over the job," said Dicky, in a slightly injured tone.
Carmyle, who too had once dwelt in Arcady, smiled.
"An hour and ten minutes," he said concisely.
Dicky and Tilly said no more, but meekly uprose from the fallen tree upon which they had been sitting and accompanied their host to the road.
All signs of disaster had disappeared. The punctured back tyre stood up once more, fully inflated; the tool-box had been repacked and put away; and Connie, smiling indulgently, sat waiting at the wheel. Far away in the distance could be descried two other cars, rapidly receding from view. They contained in all five knights of the road--grotesquely attired and extremely muddy, but very perfect gentle knights after their kind--who were now endeavouring, in defiance of the laws of the land, to overtake the time lost by their recent excursion into the realms of romantic adventure; all wishing in their hearts, I dare swear, that life's highway contained a few more such halts as this.
"Connie is going to write a book one day," observed Mr. Carmyle, as they climbed into the car, "called 'Hims Who Have Helped Me.' All right behind there?"