e and smeared down on each side of a
low, narrow forehead. Could you know a 'Bertie'?"

"I did once, and never want to again. He was a swine and a snob. Hope
you never came across the combination?"

I forgot to answer, because, having left the mountain world behind, a
formidable line of nobly planned arches began striding along beside us,
through the sun-bright fields, and I was sure it must be the giant Roman
aqueduct of Frejus.

Instead of discussing such little things as the Turnours and their
Bertie, we began to talk of Phoenicians, Ligurians, and of Romans; of
Pliny, who had a beloved friend at Frejus; and all the while to breathe
in the perfume of a land over which a vast tidal wave of balsamic pines
had swept.

Frejus we were not to see now: that was for the dim future, after lunch;
but we turned to the left off the main road, and ran on until we saw,
bathed in pines, deliciously deluged and drowned in pines, the white
glimmer of classic-looking villas. These meant Valescure, said the
chauffeur; and the Grand Hotel--not classic looking, but pretty in its
terraced garden--meant luncheon.

The car drew up before the door, according to order, or rather,
according to hypnotic suggestion; for it seems that it is the chauffeur
who alone knows anything of the way, and who, while appearing to be
non-committal, is virtually planning the tour. "Valescure might be a
good stopping-place for lunch," he had murmured, an eye on the road map
over which his head bent with Sir Samuel's. "Very beautiful--rather
exclusive. You may remember Mr. Chamberlain stopped there."

The exclusiveness and the Chamberlain-ness decided Lady Turnour, behind
Sir Samuel's shoulder (so the chauffeur told me); consequently, here we
were--and not at St. Raphael, which would have seemed the more obvious
place to stop.

I say "we," but Lady Turnour would have been surprised to hear that her
maid dared count herself and a chauffeur in the programme. Creatures
like us must be fed, just as you pour petrol into the tanks of a motor,
or stoke a furnace with coals, because otherwise our mechanism wouldn't
go, and that would be awkward when we were wanted.

The chauffeur opened the door of the car as if he had been born to open
motor-car doors, and Lady Turnour allowed herself to be helped out by
her husband. Her jewel-bag clutched in her hand (she doesn't know me
well enough yet to trust me with it, and hasn't had bagsful of jewels
for long), she pas