Now Madame had been nearly asleep upon my shoulder when this happened, but she woke up at the report and looked up all about her as though she had been dreaming.
"Where are we, Britten?" she asked. "What has happened to us?"
"Tyre gone, madame. I must trouble you to get down."
She woke up at this, and got out immediately. I could see that she was more clear-headed than she had been last night, if not less frightened.
"This was a very foolish thing to do, Britten. We are sure to be followed."
"That's as it may be, madame. I fear it's too late to think of it now. My business is to get this tyre fixed up."
"Will it take you very long, Britten?"
"Thirty minutes ordinary. But it's a new cover and stiff—I'll say forty."
"Then I'll see to the breakfast. Wasn't it clever of me to think of it? I've brought a Thermos and a basket. We'll have breakfast in the little wood on the hillside. If no one follows us, I can be myself again at Aix, and we shall get to Paris, after all. But oh, Britten, I must look an object in your clothes. Why ever did you ask me to wear them?"
I made a dry answer. A man wrestling with a 935 by 135 cover isn't exactly in the mood to compliment a woman on her frippery or talk about the mountains. And I'm no more than human, all said and done, and the sight of the food she took out of the basket made me feel well-nigh desperate. So I turned my back upon her, and she went off to the copse to prepare breakfast as she had promised. Not five minutes afterwards I heard the hum of another car in the distance, and, looking up from my wheel, I saw a great red Mercedes coming down the hillside like a racer at Brooklands.