“Tea here, please,” she said. Then she added, as if it were an afterthought: “If you promise to let her rip in that style after we reach the open country again I shall sit on the front seat.”
The words were almost whispered into his ear. Certainly they were not meant to enlighten Mrs. Devar, and Medenham, turning, found his face very near the girl’s.
“I’m bribed,” he answered, and not until both were settled back in their seats did they realize that either had said anything unusual.
Medenham, however, took his cup of tea à la chauffeur, helping himself to bread and butter from a plate deposited on the bonnet by a waiting-maid.
When the ladies reappeared from the interior of a roadside restaurant he was in his place, ready to start. He did not offer to put them in the car, adjust their wraps, and close the door. If Miss Vanrenen liked to keep her promise, that was her affair, but no action on his part would hint of prior knowledge that she intended to ride in front.
Nevertheless, he could not repress a smile when he heard Mrs. Devar’s distinctly chilly, “Oh, not at all!” in response to Cynthia’s polite apology for deserting her until they neared Brighton.
Somehow, the car underwent a subtle change when the girl took her seat by his side. From a machine quivering with life and power it became a triumphal chariot. By sheer perfection of mechanical energy it had bridged the gulf that lay between the millionaire’s daughter and the hired man, since there could be no question that Cynthia Vanrenen placed Viscount Medenham in no other category. Indeed, his occasional lapses from the demeanor of a lower social grade might well have earned him her marked disfavor, and, as there was no shred of personal vanity in his character, he gave all the credit to the sentient creature of steel and iron that was so ready to respond to his touch.
Swayed by an unconscious telepathy, the girl almost interpreted his unspoken thought. She watched his deft manipulation of levers and brakes, and fancied that his hands dwelt on the steering-wheel with a caress.
“You have a real lovely automobile, Fitzroy,” she said, “and I have a sort of notion that you are devoted to it. May I ask—is it your own car?”
“Yes. I bought it six months ago. I learnt to drive in France, and, as soon as I heard of the new American engine, I—er—couldn’t rest until I had tried it.”