For a time the road held them near railroad tracks. A train hurtled past them, running eastwards: a roaring streak of orange light crashing through the world of cool night blues and purple-blacks.
The chauffeur swore audibly and let out another notch of speed.
Staff sat spellbound by the amazing romance of it all.... A bare eight days since that afternoon when a whim, born of a love now lifeless, had stirred him out of his solitary, work-a-day life in London, had lifted him out of the ordered security of the centre of the world’s civilisation and sent him whirling dizzily across three thousand miles and more to become a partner in this wild, weird ride to the rescue of a damsel in distress and durance vile! Incredible!...
Eight days: and the sun of Alison, that once he had thought to be the light of all the world, had set; while in the evening sky the star of Eleanor was rising and blazing ever more brightly....
Now when a man begins to think about himself and his heart in such poetic imagery, the need for human intercourse grows imperative on his understanding; he must talk or—suffer severely.
Staff turned upon his defenseless companion.
“Iff,” said he, “when a man’s the sort of a man who can fall out of love and in again—with another woman, of course—inside a week—what do you call him?”
“Human,” announced Iff after mature consideration of the problem.
This was unsatisfactory; Staff yearned to be called fickle.
“Human? How’s that?” he insisted.