not noticed me in the
restaurant at luncheon, otherwise things might have been awkward.

"Very well, you can keep the same one, then," went on her ladyship, "and
let the hotel people know it's Sir Samuel who pays for it. To-morrow
morning we leave, in our sixty-horse-power motor car. We are making a
tour before going back to England. Sir Samuel's stepson joins us in
Paris or perhaps before and travels on with us. He is staying now with
some French people of very high title, who live in a chateau. You will
sit on the front seat with the chauffeur."

This was a blow! I hadn't thought of the chauffeur. "But," thought I,
"chauffeur or no chauffeur, it's too late now for retreat."

Talk of Prometheus with his vulture, the Spartan boy with his decently
concealed wolf! What of Lys d'Angely with an English chauffeur in her
pocket?

CHAPTER V

When I was dismissed from the Presence, I ran to Lady Kilmarny with my
story, and she agreed with me that the thing to dread most in the whole
situation was the chauffeur.

"Of course he'll naturally consider himself on an equality with you,"
she said, "and you'll have to eat with him at hotels, and all that.
Once, when my husband and I were touring in France, and used to break
down near little inns, we were obliged to have a chauffeur at the same
table with us, because there was only one long one (table, I mean, not
chauffeur) and we couldn't spare time to let him wait till we'd
finished. My dear, it was ghastly! You would never believe if you hadn't
seen it, how the creature swallowed his knife when he ate, and did
conjuring tricks with his fork and spoon. I simply _dared_ not look at
him gnawing his bread, but used to shut my eyes. I hate to distress you,
poor child, but I tell you these things as a warning. _Are_ you able to
bear it?"

I said that I, too, could shut my eyes.

"You can't make a habit of doing so. And he may want to put his arm
round your waist, or chuck you under the chin. I used to have complaints
from my maid, who was comparatively plain, while you--but I don't want
to frighten you. He _may_ be different from our man. Some, they say,
are most respectable. I love common people when they're nice, and give
up quite pleasantly to being common; and of course Irish ones are too
delightful. But you can't hope for an Irish chauffeur. I hear they don't
exist. They're all French or German or English. Let us hope this one may
be the father of a family."

It w