in the
guise of motorists, it became clear that my aspiration had been set
aside. "I am to be with mother," said Peggy.

I was inwardly glad that Mrs. Pethel could, after all, assert herself
to some purpose. Had I thought she disliked me, I should have been
hurt; but I was sure her desire that I should not sit with her was due
merely to a belief that, in case of accident, a person on the front
seat was less safe than a person behind. And of course I did not
expect her to prefer my life to her daughter's. Poor lady! My heart
was with her. As the car glided along the sea-front and then under the
Norman archway, through the town, and past the environs, I wished that
her husband inspired in her as much confidence as he did in me. For me
the sight of his clear, firm profile (he did not wear motor-goggles)
was an assurance in itself. From time to time (for I, too, was
ungoggled) I looked round to nod and smile cheerfully at his wife. She
always returned the nod, but left the smile to be returned by the
daughter.

Pethel, like the good driver he was, did not talk; just drove. But as
we came out on to the Rouen road he did say that in France he always
rather missed the British police-traps. "Not," he added, "that I've
ever fallen into one. But the chance that a policeman MAY at any
moment dart out, and land you in a bit of a scrape does rather add to
the excitement, don't you think?" Though I answered in the tone of one
to whom the chance of a police-trap is the very salt of life, I did not
inwardly like the spirit of his remark. However, I dismissed it from
my mind. The sun was shining, and the wind had dropped: it was an
ideal day for motoring, and the Norman landscape had never looked
lovelier to me in its width of sober and silvery grace.

*The other names in this memoir are, for good reason, pseudonyms.

I presently felt that this landscape was not, after all, doing itself
full justice. Was it not rushing rather too quickly past? "James!"
said a shrill, faint voice from behind, and gradually--"Oh, darling
Mother, really!" protested another voice--the landscape slackened pace.
But after a while, little by little, the landscape lost patience,
forgot its good manners, and flew faster and faster than before. The
road rushed furiously beneath us, like a river in spate. Avenues of
poplars flashed past us, every tree of them on each side hissing and
swishing angrily in the draft we made. Motors going