An Idyll of All Fools' Day

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

"In the first place," he began, "we are supposed to have purposely irritated an extremely unpleasant old snake to the point of biting, perhaps fatally, a French chauffeur. If fatally, the law wants us on that account. In the second place, we have stolen a large 61 and costly touring car and are apparently occupied in making away with it as fast as possible. And the law wants us on that account. In the third place, we have violated the speed regulations of Huntersville and refused to stop when called upon to answer for it, and the law wants us on that account. In the fourth place, we have knocked down and, for all I know, seriously injured an official of Huntersville, and the law wants us on that account. Do I make myself clear?"

"Quite clear," she replied soberly, and then, without the slightest warning, she burst into a rich gurgle of laughter, so rollicking and infectious that Antony had joined her before he realised it, and the wood rang with their united mirth. The massive mechanism, whose least lever they could not have explained, had it been to save their lives, rolled ponderously along, clanking and hissing beneath them; and they, perched like flippant butterflies on its upholstered surface, chuckled and trilled and rejoiced in their youth. As the Indian child leads the mighty elephant by a leash of meadow grass, so Antony directed his car with a flick of the wrist, and like the child thought nothing of what he did, save that it was amusing and showed forth his mightiness. Death glided along 62 beside them, revolving softly with each turn of the four broad tires; terror lurked at every vine-twisted bend in the road; not a smooth beech nor a rough chestnut but might have hidden behind it some horrid destiny--and they rode on lightly, as the froth on the breaker before it crashes on the beach.

Upon Antony, indeed, positive serenity had fallen, and a consciousness of readiness for any emergency. It was with some strong sense of this that he leaned down to his companion and said with a masterful smile--the smile of one whose thorough acquaintance with himself precludes any idea of self-gratulation:

"Perhaps, my dear Miss Nette, it is, after all, as well that you have one of us despised young fellows with you to-day? Even the most fascinating of greybeards might have found this crisis a little too much for him?"

Only the lowest curve of her flushed cheek was visible. Grapelike curls of warm brown shielded her eyes, but he remembered their astonishing blue and glanced with keen appreciation at her silken instep to strengthen the memory. When all was said, what pluck she had! How many girls would have skimmed so swiftly and surely 63 down that hill, would have faced a danger so evident with such buoyant courage, would have smiled so comradely in the face of fear? What if her tongue were a little sharp? She was not the ordinary brainless twitterer of her age. And something more than brain had flashed and deepened in her eyes. . . . She was speaking.

"Perhaps, my dear Mr. Tony," she responded affably--alas, too affably--"it is, after all, as well to remember that even the least fascinating of greybeards would be hardly likely to involve me in such a crisis!"

The car rose to a large irregular stone that punctuated the already rough road, and Antony bounced angrily from his seat, descending with a shock that jarred his spine throughout its length. It seemed to him that the machinery clanked and laboured more heavily, that they were going a little more slowly; only a little, perhaps, but still more slowly. But he was too vexed to care if their progress were slow or quick. He loathed the pert, confident creature at his side from the bottom of his heart. Viewed in the sudden sultry heat of his feelings, what was her self-possession but brazen effrontery? Was such diabolic quickness of riposte even 64 creditable to her years and sex? He considered the situation briefly: why were they in their present plight? Because, to put the matter baldly, he had been misled by the statements of a young woman who had openly admitted herself in no condition to be held responsible for her words--a pretty state of things! Really, it was hardly . . . hardly . . . but she was speaking again.

"Mr. Tony," she said softly (she had the knack of making a soft murmur rise above the clamour of the machinery), "please do not think, Mr. Tony, that I do not appreciate your courage, and--and sensibleness after it all happened! And I fully realise that it was partly my--that I--that if I had not----"

"Not at all," he answered stiffly, taking pity in spite of himself at her evident embarrassment. "As you implied, the initial responsibility was all mine."