Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/298

280 sarcastic his voice, that he became hideous in my eyes. A bleached skull grinning over a tall collar could not have seemed more repulsive than the pink, healthy features of that young man with his single eye-glass and his sneer.

Jack paid no more attention than if he had not heard, but the slight stiffening of his face and raising of his eyebrows as he turned to Sir Samuel, made him look supremely proud and distinguished, incomparably more a gentleman in his dusty leather livery, than Bertie in his well-cut evening clothes.

"I called at the railway station, and the luggage will be here before eight to-morrow morning," he said, quietly.

"All right, all right," replied Sir Samuel, slow to understand what was going on, but uncomfortable between the two young men. "I did n't know that you were acquainted with my stepson, Dane."

"It was scarcely an acquaintance, sir," said the chauffeur. "And I wasn't aware that Mr. Stokes was your stepson."

"If you had been, you jolly well would n't have taken the engagement—what?" remarked Bertie, with a hateful laugh.

This time Jack condescended to look at him; from the head down, from the feet up. "Really," he said, after an instant's reflection, "it would n't have been fair to Sir Samuel to feel a prejudice on account of the relationship. If one of the servants would kindly show me the garage ⸺"