irection popularly
assigned to heaven as the porch of the Metropole would permit. He was
framing a suitable speech, but the Mercury shot out into the open road
with a noiseless celerity that disconcerted him.

Medenham at once slackened speed and leaned back.

"I'm very sorry," he said, "but I clean forgot to ask if you were
quite ready to start."

Cynthia laughed.

"Go right ahead, Fitzroy," she cried. "Guess the Count is pretty mad,
anyhow. He was telling us last night that his Du Vallon is the only
car that can hit up twenty at the first buzz."

"Unpardonable rudeness," murmured Mrs. Devar.

"On the Count's part?" asked the girl demurely.

"No, of course not--on the part of this chauffeur person."

"Oh, I like him," was the candid answer. "He is a chauffeur of moods,
but he can make this car hum. He and I had quite a long chat last
night after dinner."

Mrs. Devar sat up quickly.

"After dinner--last night!" she gasped.

"Yes--I ran into him outside the hotel."

"At what time?"

"About ten o'clock. I came to the lounge, but you had vanished, and
the wonderful light on the sea drew me out of doors."

"My dear Cynthia!"

"Well, go on; that sounds like the beginning of a letter."

Mrs. Devar suddenly determined not to feel scandalized.

"Ah, well!" she sighed, "one must relax a little when touring, but you
Americans have such free and easy manners that we staid Britons are
apt to lose our breath occasionally when we hear of something out of
the common."

"From what Fitzroy said when I told him I was going as far as the pier
unaccompanied it seems to me that you staid Britons can be freer if
not easier," retorted Miss Vanrenen.

Her friend smiled sourly.

"If he disapproved he was right, I admit," she purred.

Cynthia withheld any further confidences.

"What a splendid morning!" she said. "England is marvelously
attractive on a day like this. And now, where is the map? I didn't
look up our route yesterday evening. But Fitzroy has it. We lunch at
Winchester, I know, and there I see my first English Cathedral. Father
advised me to leave St. Paul's until I visit it with him. He says it
is the most perfect building in the world architecturally, but that no
one would realize it unless the facts were pointed out. When we were
in Rome he said that St. Peter's, grand as it is, is all wrong in
construction. The thrust downwards from the dome is false, it seems."

"Really," said Mrs. Devar, who had j