e such a shock to
the ladies now, even after some of the fine ones they must have seen, do
you?"

He was so ingenuously proud of his achievements, had toiled so
hard, and sacrificed so much of his personal vanity in providing his
employers with a suitable chauffeur, that I did not stint my
commendation of him and his car. Felicite, too, was prolific in
compliments. The duck, who had waddled out to the gate to see what was
doing, quacked flattery; the yellow cat mewed praise; and Terry, pleased
as Punch with everything and everybody, whistled as he stowed away our
suit-cases.

The moment of departure had come. With some emotion I bade farewell to
my family, which I should not see again until I returned to the Riviera
to open the autumn season with the first number of the _Sun_. Then one
last look at the little place which had become dear to me, and we were
off with a bound for the Cap Martin Hotel.

Terry, when in a frank and modest mood, had sometimes said to me that,
with all the virtues of strength, faithfulness, and getting-thereness,
his car was not to be called a fast car. Thirty miles an hour was its
speed at best, and this pace it seemed had been far surpassed by newer
cars of the same make, though of no higher power, since Terry's had been
built. This fact I took for granted, as I had heard it from Terry's own
lips more than once; but as we flew over the wooded road which divided
the Chalet des Pins from the Cap Martin Hotel, I would have sworn that
we were going at the rate of sixty miles per hour.

"Good Heavens!" I gasped. "Have you been doing anything to this car, to
make her faster than she was? Help! I can't breathe."

"Nonsense," said Terry, with soothing calm. "It's only because you
haven't motored for a long time that you imagine we're going fast. The
motor's working well, that's all. We're crawling along at a miserable
twenty miles an hour."

"Well, I'm glad that worms and other reptiles can't crawl at this pace,
anyhow, or life wouldn't be worth living for the rest of creation," I
retorted, cramming on my cap and wishing I had covered my tearful eyes
with the motor-goggles which lay in my pocket. "If our millionairesses
don't respect this pace, I'll eat my hat when I have time, or--"

But Terry was not destined to hear the end of that boast--which perhaps
was just as well for me in the end, as things were to turn out. We spun
down the avenue of pines, and in less than a lazy man's breathing sp