Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/22

8 long and well-earned breaths. She reposed on an elbow, gazing up at me as at a surgeon who has performed a painful but successful operation; and she was an object pour faire rire, the poor lady!

She wore an old-fashioned false front of hair, "sunning over with curls" (brown ones, of a brown never seen on land or sea), and a pair of spectacles, pushed up in an absent-minded moment, were entangled in its waves. Her face, which was large, with a knot of tiny features in the middle, shone red with heat and excitement. She would have had the look of an elderly child, if it had n't been for her bright, shrewd little eyes, which twinkled observantly—and might sparkle with temper. Nobody who was not rich and important would dare to dress as badly as she did. Altogether she was a figure of fun. Indeed, I could n't help feeling what quaint mantelpiece ornaments she and her dog would make. Yet, for some reason, I did n't feel inclined to laugh, and I eyed her as solemnly as she eyed me. As for His Majesty, I began to see that I had misunderstood him. After all, he had never, from the first, regarded me as an eatable.

"Yes, I am better," replied His Majesty's mistress. "People have always told me it came on treacherously cold at night in France, so I prepared accordingly. I suppose I ought to thank you. In fact, I do thank you."

"I acted for myself as much as for you," I confessed. "It was so hot, and you were suffering out loud."

"I have never travelled at night before," the lady defended herself. "Indeed, I 've made a point of travelling as little as possible, except by carriage. I don't