Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/83

Rh "All their brooms seem to be new," I reflected. "I wonder what the stepson is like?"

"Luckily it does n't matter much to me," said the chauffeur indifferently.

"Nor to me. But his name 's Herbert."

"His surname?"

"I don't know. There 's a Herbert lurking somewhere. It always suggests to me oily hair parted in the middle and smeared down on each side of a low, narrow forehead. Could you know a 'Bertie'?"

"I did once, and never want to again. He was a swine and a snob. Hope you never came across the combination?"

I forgot to answer, because, having left the mountain world behind, a formidable line of nobly planned arches began striding along beside us, through the sun-bright fields, and I was sure it must be the giant Roman aqueduct of Fréjus.

Instead of discussing such little things as the Turnours and their Bertie, we began to talk of Phoenicians, Ligurians, and of Romans; of Pliny, who had a beloved friend at Fréjus; and all the while to breathe in the perfume of a land over which a vast tidal wave of balsamic pines had swept.

Fréjus we were not to see now: that was for the dim future, after lunch; but we turned to the left off the main road, and ran on until we saw, bathed in pines, deliciously deluged and drowned in pines, the white glimmer of classic-looking villas. These meant Valescure, said the chauffeur; and the Grand Hotel—not classic looking, but pretty in its terraced garden—meant luncheon.