Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/162

146 and the pale, opal-tinted, gold-veined hills that fold in the fountain of Vaucluse. Never, since we came into Provence, had I been able so clearly to realize the wild fascination of her haggard beauty. "Here Marius stood in his camp," I thought, "shading his eyes from the fierce sun, and looking out over this strange, arid country for the Barbarians he meant to conquer." My heart beat with an intoxicating excitement, such as one feels on seeing great mountains or the ocean for the first time; and then down I tumbled, with a bump, off my pedestal, when Lady Turnour wanted to know what I supposed she 'd brought me for, if not to put on her extra cloak without waiting to be told.

Watches are really luxuries, not necessities, with the Turnours, because their appetites always strike the hour of one, and if they 're sometimes a little in advance, they can be relied upon never to be behindhand. I knew before I glanced at the little bracelet-watch Pamela gave me (hidden under my sleeve) that it must be on the stroke of half-past twelve when her ladyship began to complain of the sharp wind, and say we had better be getting back to St. Remy. She was cross, as usual when she is hungry, and said that if I continued to go about "like a snail in a dream" whenever she fetched me to carry her things on these short expeditions, she would leave me in the hotel to mend her clothes; whereupon I became actually servile in my ministrations. I brushed a microscopic speck of dust off her gown; I pushed in a hairpin; I tucked up a flying end of veil; I straightened her toque, and made myself altogether indispensable; for the bare idea of being left behind was a box on the ear. I could not