“In your mind, then, it figures as broken-down-street,” cooed Cynthia.
After that the Mercury crossed the Monnow, and Mrs. Devar muttered something about the mistake one made when one encouraged servants to be too familiar. But Cynthia was not to be repressed. She was bubbling over with high spirits, and amused herself by telling Medenham that Henry V. was born at Monmouth and afterwards won the battle of Agincourt—“scraps of history not generally known,” she confided to him.
From the back of the car Mrs. Devar watched them with a hawklike intentness that showed how thoroughly those “forty winks” snatched while in the Wyndcliff had restored her flagging energies. Though it was absurd to suppose that Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a millionaire, a girl dowered with all that happy fortune had to give, would so far forget her social position as to flirt with the chauffeur of a hired car, this experienced marriage-broker did not fail to realize what a stumbling-block the dreadful person was in the path of Count Edouard Marigny.
For once in her life, “Wiggy” Devar forced herself to think clearly. She saw that “Fitzroy” was a man who might prove exceedingly dangerous where a girl’s susceptible heart was concerned. He had the address and semblance of a gentleman; he seemed to be able to talk some jargon of history and literature and art that appealed mightily to Cynthia; worst of all, he had undoubtedly ascertained, by some means wholly beyond her ken, that she and the Frenchman were in league. She was quite in the dark as to the cause of her son’s extraordinary behavior the previous evening, but she was beginning to suspect that this meddlesome Fitzroy had contrived, somehow or other, to banish Captain Devar as he had outwitted Marigny on the Mendips. Talented schemer that she was, she did not believe for a moment that Simmonds had told the truth at Bristol. She argued, with cold logic, that the man would not risk the loss of an excellent commission by bringing from London a car so hopelessly out of repair that it could not be made available under four or five days. But her increasing alarm centered chiefly in Cynthia’s attitude. If, by her allusion to a “cut-and-dried schedule,” the girl implied a design to depart from the tour planned in London, then the Count’s wooing became a most uncertain thing, since it was manifestly out of the question that he should continue to waylay them at stopping-places chosen haphazard during each day’s run.
So Mrs. Devar noted with a malignant eye each friendly glance exchanged by the couple in front, and listened to the snatches of their talk with a malevolence that was fanned to fury by their obvious heedlessness of her presence. She felt that the crisis called for decisive action. There was only one person alive to whose judgment Cynthia Vanrenen would bow, and Mrs. Devar began seriously to consider the advisability of writing to Peter Vanrenen.
If any lingering doubt remained in her mind as to the soundness of this view, it was dispelled soon after they reached Symon’s Yat. She was sitting in the inclosed veranda of a cozy hotel perched on the right bank of the Wye when Cynthia suddenly leaped up, teacup in hand, and looked down at the river.
“There are the duckiest little yachts I have ever seen skimming about on that stretch of water,” she cried over her shoulder. “The mere sight of them makes me taste all the dust I have swallowed between here and London. Don’t you think it would be real cute to remain here to-night and run into Hereford to-morrow after an early cup of tea?”
Cynthia need not have taken the trouble to avert her scarlet face from Mrs. Devar’s inquisitive eyes; indeed, Mrs. Devar herself was glad that her quick-witted and perhaps quick-tempered young friend had not surprised the wry smile that twisted her own lips.
“Just as you please, Cynthia,” said she amiably.