But my presence of mind doesn't often fail for long. "It's Mr. Barrymore
who drives my car for me," I explained. "He's cleverer at it than I, and
he comes cheaper than a professional."

The wonderful white and pink and auburn lady had been looking at Terry
with open admiration; but now the light of interest faded from the
good-natured face under the girlish hat. "O-oh," she commented in a tone
of ingenuous disappointment, "you're only the--the chawffur, then."

I didn't want Terry to sink too low in these possible clients'
estimation, for my canny Scotch mind was working round the fact that
they were probably American heiresses, and an heiress of some sort was a
necessity for the younger brother of that meanest of bachelor peers, the
Marquis of Innisfallen. "He's an amateur chauffeur," I hastened to
explain. "He only does it for me because we're friends, you know; but,"
I added, with a stern and meaning glance at Terry, "I'm unable to
undertake any tours without his assistance. So if we--er--arrange
anything, _Mr. Barrymore_ will be of our party."

"Unfortunately I have an engagement in South Af--" began Terry, when the
parasol of the third member of the party (the one who had lagged behind,
stopping to examine, or seeming to examine a rose-bush) was laid back
upon her white muslin shoulders.

Somehow Terry forgot to finish his sentence, and I forgot to wonder what
the end was to be.

She was only a tall, white girl, simply dressed; yet suddenly the little
garden of the Chalet des Pins, with its high wall draped with crimson
bougainvilla, became a setting for a picture.

The new vision was built on too grand a scale for me, because I stand
only five foot eight in my boots, while she was five foot seven if she
was an inch, but she might have been made expressly for Terry, and he
for her. There was something of the sweet, youthful dignity of Giovanni
Bellini's Madonnas of the Trees about the girl's bearing and the pose of
the white throat; but the face was almost childlike in the candour and
virginal innocence of its large brown eyes. The pure forehead had a halo
of yellow-brown hair, burnished gold where the sun touched it; the lips
were red, with an adorable droop in the corners, and the skin had that
flower-fairness of youth which makes older women's faces look either
sallow or artificial. If we--Terry and I--had not already divined that
the auburn lady got her complexion out of bottles and boxes, we would
ha