The fat man's face lighted up again. "My luck's on the mend at last!" he declared. "I'm in as great a hurry as you can be, sir. I'm more than obliged to you for your courtesy. May I offer you my card?"
Slyne glanced at the slip of pasteboard conferred upon him while the car was being shifted out of the showroom into the street, where his elaborate chauffeur was in waiting. And, "Jump in, Mr. Jobling," he requested with unconcealed coldness as he himself took the wheel, relegating the chauffeur to a back seat. It ruffled his self-satisfied mood of the moment more than a little to learn that the fat man in the fur coat was in fact a London solicitor. With the law in any shape or form Jasper Slyne wanted nothing whatever to do, and especially at such a juncture. He was already repenting his ill-timed politeness.
However, he could not very well rid himself of his passenger then. All he could do was to dash through the busy streets of Genoa in the dusk at a pace calculated to make the hair of any respectable and self-respecting solicitor stand on end. But, out of the corner of one eye, he observed that Mr. Jobling was wearing a blandly contented smile.
That gentleman did not seem so well pleased, however, as they turned up-hill into the Via Roma, and Slyne, understanding, relented a little again. "I have some baggage at the Isotta," he volunteered, and the cloud at once lifted from Mr. Jobling's brow.
Several assiduous porters stowed hastily in the tonneau, beside the ornamental chauffeur, the travel-worn trunks and suit-cases which Slyne had left there that morning, and stood at the salute till he drove away, when they no doubt returned to their lairs to count the profits of such politeness. He had, as usual, been very lavish with his small change. And his passenger was also impressed by his liberality.
Meanwhile the car was negotiating more carefully the lumpy patchwork with which the old Via Carlo Alberto is paved, and Mr. Jobling's puffy features spoke his discontent over its slow progress. But, once beyond Sampierdarena, clear of close traffic, on the open road to Savona, Slyne made more speed; and it was self-evident that he knew how to get the most out of his horse-power.
He looked, indeed,—if looks go for anything nowadays,—quite at home, very much in his element, lying lazily back in the driver's seat of the richly-appointed car which had been his companion's an hour before. It was late on a winter afternoon, and what wind there was had a chill in it, caught, no doubt, in crossing the Apennines. But Slyne also was wearing a heavy fur coat and had pulled on a pair of gauntlets at the hotel.
As the car rocked and swayed on its rapid way through the last outskirts of Savona, he was humming light-heartedly to himself the antique aria of The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.
"Been gambling a bit?" he presently asked his silent companion. And Mr. Jobling admitted the soft impeachment.
"And no luck," Slyne inferred amusedly. He could view with an equable eye the misfortunes of others as well as his own; especially since the stout solicitor's losses had brought his own way such a substantial profit as could be readily realised by the re-sale of his car.