Mrs. Devar rose and clutched the back of the seat behind him.
“I apologize, Fitzroy,” she piped tremulously. “You were right. They have lost their way and met with some accident. How glad I am that I did not insist on your making straight for Bristol!”
Her unparalleled impudence won his admiration. Such a woman, he thought, was worthy of a better fate than that which put her in the position of a bought intriguer. But Cynthia was near, waving her hands gleefully, and executing a nymph-like thanksgiving dance on a strip of turf by the roadside, so Medenham’s views of Mrs. Devar’s previous actions were tempered by conditions extraordinarily favorable to her at the moment.
She seemed to be aware instinctively of the change in his sentiments wrought by sight of Cynthia. It was in quite a friendly tone that she cried:
“Count Edouard is there; but where is his man?... Something serious must have happened, and the chauffeur has been sent to obtain help.... Oh, how lucky we hurried, and how clever of you to find out which way the car went!”
CHAPTER VI
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S VAGARIES
Cynthia, notwithstanding that spirited pas seul, was rather pale when Medenham stopped the car close beside her. She had been on tenterhooks during the past quarter of an hour—there were silent moments when she measured her own slim figure against the natty Count’s in half-formed resolution to take to her heels along the Cheddar Road.