That this tragedy was successfully avoided may be gathered from the fact that half an hour later the car pulled up in a little woodland clearing just above Beechwood village. It was a charming spot carpeted with soft mossy turf, and hemmed in on three sides with trees. From the fourth the Buckinghamshire countryside stretched out in a magnificent rolling panorama of twenty miles.
After a brief and whispered consultation with his wife, Colonel Peyton turned to Leslie.
"I hope you'll lunch with us, Mr. Leslie," he said. "We have brought plenty for four."
Leslie bowed.
"I shall be very pleased to," he answered. And going round to the back of the car, he proceeded to assist Nancy in getting out the hamper.
The lunch looked most attractive spread out on a clean white cloth, for, like many elderly soldiers, Colonel Peyton regarded food as only slightly inferior in importance to religion and good breeding. Seated beside Mrs. Peyton, Leslie found himself being patronized by that complaisant lady with all the well-meaning condescension of her kind.
"You must eat a good lunch, Mr. Leslie," she observed, helping him generously to cold game-pie. "I am sure it must be most tiring driving that great heavy car."
"To say nothing of answering all your questions—eh, Nancy?" put in the Colonel. "Have some champagne?" He held out the bottle to Leslie.
The latter filled up Mrs. Peyton's glass, and then helped himself.
"Driving a car nowadays isn't a very tiring business," he explained, "especially when one is used to it."