Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/156

140 No farther than the inn could any wheeled thing go; and having justified my presence by buttoning Lady Turnour up in her coat, and finding her muff under several rugs, I stood by the car, gazing after the couple as they trudged off along the path to the hidden fairy fountain of Vaucluse. When they should have got well ahead I meant to go too, for if a cat may look at a king, a lady's maid may try to drink—if she can—a few drops from the cup of a great poet's inspiration. A first I resented those two ample, richly clad, prosaic backs marching sturdily toward the magic fountain; then suddenly the back of Sir Samuel became pathetic in my eyes. Had n't he, I asked myself, loved his Emily ("Emmie, pet," as I 've heard him call her) as long and faithfully as Petrarch loved his Laura? Perhaps, after all, he had earned the right to visit this shrine.

Rocks shut out from our sight the distant fountain, and the last windings of the path that led to it, clasping the secret with great stone arms, like those of an Othello jealously guarding his young wife's beauty from eyes profane.

"Aren't you going now?" asked my brother, with a certain wistfulness.

"Ye-es. But what about you?"

"Oh, I 've been here before, you know."

"Don't you believe in second times? Or is a second time always second best?"

"Not when ⸺ Of course I want to go. But I can't leave the car alone."

My eyes wandered toward the inn door. "There 's a boy there who looks as if he were born to be a