Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/200

184 saved my life, I could n't be so ungrateful as to stay on in my situation when he is losing his for my sake."

"What nonsense!" snapped her ladyship. "As if that had anything to do with you, and if it has, it ought n't. Besides, if he will apologize, he can stop. Sir Samuel says so."

"He does n't seem to think he was in the wrong, my lady," said I. "As your ladyship will probably be at Avignon some time before finding another chauffeur, it will be easy to look for a maid at the same time."

"Be here some time!" she cried. "I won't! We want to get on to a château where my stepson 's visiting."

"I should be delighted to offer your ladyship two of the lucky coins for nothing," said I, my impertinence wrapped in honey, "if she would persuade Sir Samuel to ask the chauffeur to stay."

"Why, that's just what Sir Samuel wants to do, if I would hear of it!" The words popped out before she had stopped to think.

"It might be too late after this evening," I suggested. "The chauffeur will perhaps take steps at once to secure some other engagement; and I fear that a good man is always in great demand. I hope that your ladyship will kindly understand that it would be nothing to me, if he had n't got into trouble for my sake."

"You can leave the coins, and call Sir Samuel, who is in his room next door," remarked Lady Turnour with dignity. "I will talk with him."

The greedy creature was delighted to have the coins without paying for them, and delighted with the excuse to do what she would have liked to do without an excuse,