“I believe, madam, the inside of five minutes—if you will allow——”
I stretched out a protesting hand. In the darkness it encountered Flora’s. Our fingers closed upon the thrill. For five, ten beatific seconds our pulses sang together, “I love you! I love you!” in the stuffy silence.
“Mosha Saint-Yvey!” spoke up a deliberate voice (Flora caught her hand away), “as far as I can make head and tail of your business—supposing it to have a modicum of head, which I doubt—it appears to me that I have just done you a service; and that makes twice.”
“A service, madam, I shall ever remember.”
“I’ll chance that, sir; if ye’ll kindly not forget yoursel’.”
In resumed silence we must have travelled a mile and a half, or two miles, when Miss Gilchrist let down the sash with a clatter, and thrust her head and mamelone cap forth into the night.
“Robie!”
Robie pulled up.
“The gentleman will alight.”
It was only wisdom, for we were nearing Swanston. I rose. “Miss Gilchrist, you are a good woman; and I think the cleverest I have met.”