Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/207

Rh to guess. Let 's think about the fair. Would n't you have liked to come here in the days when it was one of the greatest shows in all France?"

"I could n't have come in a motor then."

"You 're getting to be an enthusiast. You 'll have to marry a millionaire with at least a forty-horse-power car."

"I happen to be running away from one now, in a sixty-horse-power car. But I don't want to think of him in this romantic country. The idea of Corn Plasters, near the garden where Nicolete's little feet tripped among the daisies by moonlight, is too appalling."

"Up on the hill are the towers of the castle where Aucassin was in prison for his love of Nicolete," said the chauffeur. "If only I can induce them to go there, and walk in the garden on the battlements! It 's beautiful, full of great perfumed Provençal roses, and quantities of fleur-de-lys growing wild under pine trees and peering out of formal yew hedges. You never saw anything quite like it. Oh, I must manage the thing somehow."

"I think you could, in their present mood," said I. "They 're quite properly honey-moony since the storm, which was a blessing in disguise. They 'll go up, and feel romantic and young; but as for me ⸺"

"You 'll go up, and be the things they can only feel. I should like to go with you there ⸺" he broke off, looking wistful.

"Oh, do get some one to guard the car, and come," I begged him. "You 've seen it all before?"

"Yes."

"You look as if the place had sentimental memories for you."