Be that as it may, these three maids, or their chauffeur, when we first came up refused to give the road, although they did increase their speed in an effort to keep it. One of them, a gay creature in a pink hat, looked back and half smiled at our discomfiture. I took no more interest in her than did any of the others apparently, at the time, for in a situation of this kind how is one to tell which is the favored one?
As an able chauffeur, the master of a good machine, and the ex-leader of the Lincoln Highway procession for a certain distance, how was a man like Speed to take a rebuff like this? Why, as all good and true chauffeurs should, by increasing his own speed and trailing them so close and making such a row that they would have to give way. This he did and so for a distance of three or four miles we were traveling in a cloud of dirt and emitting a perfect uproar of squawks. In consequence we finally were permitted to pass, not without certain unkind and even contemptuous looks flung in our direction, as who should say: “You think yourselves very smart, don’t you?”—although in the case of the maiden in the pink hat it did not seem to me that her rage was very great. She was too amused and cheerful. I sat serene and calm, viewing the surrounding landscape, only I could not help noting that the young ladies were quite attractive and that the one in the pink hat was interested in someone in our car—Speed or Franklin, I decided—preferably Franklin, since he looked so very smart in his carefully cut clothes. I did not think it could be myself. As for Speed, mustachios up and a cigarette between his teeth, he looked far too handsome to condescend to flirt with a mere country—heiress, say. These chauffeurs—you know! But a little later, as we were careening along, having attained a good lead as we thought and taking our ease, what should come trailing up behind us but this same car, making a great clatter, and because of a peculiar wide width of road and our loitering mood, passing us before we could say “Jack Robinson.” Again the maid in the pink hat smiled—it seemed to me—but at whom? And again Speed bustled to the task of overtaking them. I began to sit up and take notice.
What a chase! There was a big, frail iron bridge over a rocky, shallow stream somewhere, which carried a sign reading: “Bridge weak, walk your horses. Speed limit four miles an hour.” I think we crossed it in one bound. There was a hollow where the road turned sharply under a picturesque cliff and a house in a green field seemed to possess especial beauty because of a grove of pines. At another time I would have liked to linger here. A sign read: “Danger ahead. Sharp Curve. Go Slow.” We went about it as if we were being pursued by the devil himself. Then came a rough place of stone somewhere, where ordinarily Speed would have slowed down and announced that he would “like to have a picture of this road.” Do you think we slowed down this time? Not much. We went over it as if it were as smooth as glass. I was nearly jounced out of the car.
Still we did not catch up, quite. The ladies or the chauffeur or all were agreed apparently to best us, but we trailed them close and they kept looking back and laughing at us. The pink-hatted one was all dimples.
“There you are, Mr. Dreiser,” called Speed. “She’s decided which one she wants. She doesn’t seem to see any of the rest of us.”
Speed could be horribly flattering at times.
“No,” I said, “without a mustache or a cigarette or a long Napoleonic lock over my brow, never. It’s Franklin here.”
Franklin smiled—as Julius Cæsar might have smiled.
“Which one is it you’re talking about?” he inquired innocently.
“Which one?—you sharp!” I scoffed. “Don’t come the innocent, guileless soul on me. You know whom she’s looking at. The rest of us haven’t a chance.”