“Let us move about a lot,” said Olivia. “Let us hire a car and race about Great Britain.”
He waxed instantly enthusiastic. She was splendid. Always the audacious one. A car—a little high-powered two-seater. Just they two together. Free of the high road! If they could find no lodgings at inns they could sleep beneath the hedges. They would drive anywhere, losing their way, hitting on towns with delicious unexpectancy. The maddest motor tour that was ever unplanned.
In the excitement of the new idea, the disappointment over the prohibited foreign travel vanished from their hearts. Once more they contemplated their vagabondage, with the single-mindedness of children.
“We’ll start to-morrow,” he declared.
“To-morrow evening is the Rowingtons’ dinner-party,” Olivia reminded him.
He confounded Rowington and his dinner-party. Why not send a telegram saying he was down with smallpox? He hated literary dinner-parties. Why should he make an ass of himself in a lion’s skin—just to gratify the vanity of a publisher? Olivia administered the required corrective.
“Isn’t it rather a case of the lion putting on an ass’s skin, my dear? Of course we must go.”
He laughed. “I suppose we must. Anyway, we’ll start the day after. I’ll see about the car in the morning.”
He went out immediately after breakfast, and in a couple of hours returned radiant. He was in luck, having found the high-powered two-seater of his dreams. He overwhelmed her with enthusiastic technicalities.
“You beloved infant,” said Olivia.