a fat worm.

It was eight o'clock; we had lunched at one; the night was dark; we were
still miles short of Amboise; if the tyre came right off, it would be
awkward to run on the rim. I explained this, suggesting that we should
leave the car for a night at a farmhouse, which presumably existed
behind a high, glimmering white wall near which we happened to halt,
and try to get a conveyance of some sort to drive on to Amboise.

But I had calculated without Eyelashes. Instantly he saw his chance, and
seized it. Figuratively he laid his Pieper at the ladies' feet. To be
sure, it was built for only two, but the seat was very wide; there was
plenty of room; he would be only too glad to whirl them off to the most
comfortable hotel at Amboise, which could be reached in no time. As for
the _chauffeur_, he could be left to look after the car.

The _chauffeur_, however, did not see this in the same light. Not that
he minded the slight hardship, if any, but to see his liege lady whisked
off from under his eyes by the villain of the piece was too much.

Think how you would have felt in my place. But the hideous part was
that, like "A" in a "Vanity Fair" Hard Case, I could do nothing. The
proposal was vexatiously sensible, and I had to stand swallowing my
objections while Miss Randolph and her aunt decided.

I saw her move a step or two towards the Pieper silently, rather
gloomily, but Aunt Mary was grimly alert. Eyelashes had, I had learned
through snatches of conversation on board the car, been tactful enough
to present Aunt Mary with a little brooch and a couple of hat-pins of
the charming _faience_ made by a famous man in Blois. Intrinsically of
no great value, they rejoiced in ermine and porcupine crests, with
exquisitely coloured backgrounds, and the guileless lady's heart had
been completely won. She now emphatically voted for the Frenchman and
his car. But I have already noted a little peculiarity of Miss
Randolph's, which I have also observed in other delightful girls, though
none as delightful as she. If she is undecided about a thing, and
somebody else takes it for granted she is going to do it, she is
immediately certain that she never contemplated anything of the kind.

This welcome idiosyncrasy now proved my friend. "Why, Aunt Mary," she
exclaimed, "you wouldn't have me go off and desert my own car, _in the
middle of the night_ too? I couldn't think of such a thing. _You_ can go
with Monsieur Talleyrand, if you want