“We’ll chance it together, my murderous little friend.”
The wind began to roar again as they rushed downward over a hill that seemed endless. She clung to her seat and he hung to his wheel like grim death; and, for one terrible instant, she almost lost consciousness.
Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running swiftly, was now speeding over a macadam road; and Neeland laughed and cried in her ear:
“Better light another of your hell’s own cigarettes if you want your friends to follow us!”
Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.
“Look up there!” he said, pointing high at a dark hillside. “See their lights? They’re on the worst road in the Gayfield hills. We cut off three miles this way.”
Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch, laughed contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden and almost friendly toleration born of success and a danger shared in common. 175
“That was rather a reckless bit of driving,” he admitted. “Were you frightened?”
“Ask yourself how you’d feel with a fool at the wheel.”
“We’re all fools at times,” he retorted, laughing. “You were when you shot at me. Suppose I’d been seized with panic. I might have turned loose on you, too.”