"_'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone...._"

Delivered with obvious emotion in a muffled baritone voice, Moore's
famous words seemed to come from beneath us.

Adele and I stared at one another with starting eyes....

Then I fell out of the car and clawed at the flap of the dickey....

My hands were trembling, but I had it open at last.

Her head pillowed upon a spare tube, the ruin of 'An English Rose'
regarded me coyly.

"I think you might have knocked," she said, simpering. "Supposing I'd
been _en deshabille_!"

CHAPTER XII

HOW A TELEGRAM CAME FOR JILL, PIERS DEMANDED HIS SWEETHEART, AND I
DROVE AFTER MY WIFE

_Rome._

_My darling Jill,_

_It's all finished now, and I can start for Paris to-morrow. I must
stay there one night, to sign some papers, and then I can leave for
Pau. And on next Sunday morning as ever is, we'll have breakfast
together. Perhaps---- No, I won't say it. Any way, Sunday morning at
latest. Everyone's been awfully kind, and--you'll never guess what's
coming--Cousin Leslie's turned out a white man. He's the one, you
know, who brought the suit. The day I got back from Irikli I got a
note from him, saying that, while he couldn't pretend he wasn't sorry
he'd lost his case, he knew how to take a beating, and, now that it was
all over, couldn't we be friends, and asking me to come and dine with
him and his wife at the Grand Hotel. Old Vissochi didn't want me to
go, and kept quoting something out of Virgil about 'fearing the
Greeks,' but, of course, I insisted. And I am so glad I did. Leslie
and his wife were simply splendid. Nobody could have been nicer, and
considering that, if he'd won, he'd 've had the title, estates, money
and everything, I think it speaks jolly well for them both. They've
got two ripping little boys, and they were frightfully interested to
hear about you. They'd no idea, of course, but I just had to tell
them. They were so astonished at first they could hardly speak. And
then Mrs. Trunk picked up her glass and cried out, "Hurray, Hurray,"
and they both drank to us both, and everybody was staring, and Leslie
got quite red with embarrassment at their having made such a scene.
Then they made me tell them what you looked like, and I did my best,
and they laughed and said I was caking it on, so I showed them your
photograph. And then Mrs. Trunk made me show her a letter of yours,
and told your character from your handwriting,