Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/144

128 exclaimed. "You are so stolid, so phlegmatic, you Englishmen!"

"Do you think so? Well, it would have been a little awkward for me to have taken you about on a sight-seeing expedition this morning if we were at daggers drawn—no matter how appropriate the situation might have been to Avignon manners of the Middle Ages, when everybody was either torturing everybody else or fighting to the death."

"Are you going to take me about?"

"That's for you to say."

"Is n't it for Lady Turnour to say?"

"Sir Samuel told me last night that I should n't be wanted till two o'clock, as he was going to see the town with her ladyship. He wanted to know if we could sandwich in something else this afternoon, as he considered a whole day too much for one place. I suggested Vaucluse for the afternoon, as it 's but a short spin from Avignon, and I just happened to mention that her ladyship might find use for you there, to follow her to the fountain with extra wraps in case of mistral. I thought, of all places you 'd hate to miss Vaucluse. And we 're to come back here for the night."

I feared that Monsieur Charretier's sudden disappearance might upset the Turnours' plans, but Mr. Dane did n't think so. He had impressed it upon Sir Samuel that no motorist who had not thoroughly "done" Avignon and Vaucluse would be tolerated in automobiling circles.

He was right in his surmise, and though her ladyship was vexed at losing a new acquaintance whom it would have been "nice to know in Paris," she resigned herself