"Won't it go?" asked Esther dreamily. It had been very pleasant sitting there watching the sun set.
The master of motors made a tragic gesture. "No," he said, "she won't."
"Shake her," said Esther.
Dr. Callandar pushed back his sweat-bedewed hair with fingers which left a fearsome streak above his left eyebrow. The girl laughed. But the doctor's decorated face was rueful.
"Do you know, Miss Esther, I'm afraid it isn't a bit funny." His tone, too, was sober; and Esther, suddenly more fully alive to the situation, noticed that the hands clasped recklessly about the knees of once spotless trousers were shaking, just a little. He must be awfully tired!
"That's because you can't see yourself. Give the motor a rest. There is plenty of time. Let's have tea here instead of on the way home. There is cold tea and chicken-loaf, bread and butter, and half a tart."
The doctor brightened. "You may have the half-tart," he concluded generously. "And in return you will forgive me my pessimism. I believe I am hungry and thirsty and—if I could only swear I should be all right presently."
Esther put her small fingers in her ears and directed an absorbed gaze toward the sunset.
Callandar laughed.
"All over!" he called. "Richard is himself again. And now we have got to be serious. Painful as it is, I admit defeat. I can't make that car budge an inch. It won't move. We can't push it. We have no other means of conveyance. Deduction—we must walk!"