Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/85

Rh "I shan't garage her," said my fellow Worm of the car. "I 'll just drive her out of the way, where I can look over her a bit when I 've snatched something to eat. I 'll take the fur rugs inside—you 're not to bother, they 're big enough to swamp you entirely. And then you ⸺"

"Yes, then I ⸺" I repeated desolately. "What is to become of me?"

"Why, you 're to have your lunch, of course," he replied. "I thought you said you were hungry."

"So I am, starving. But ⸺"

"Well?"

"Are n't you going to have a proper lunch?"

"A sandwich and a piece of cheese will do for me, because there are one or two little things to tinker up on the car, and an hour and a quarter is n't long. I think I shall bring my grub out of doors, and ⸺ But is anything the matter?"

"I can't go in and have lunch alone. I simply can't," I confessed to the young man whose society I had intended to avoid like a pestilence. "You see, I—I never—this is the first time."

A look of comprehension flashed over his face.

"Yes, I see," he said. "Of course, the moment I heard your voice I realized that this was n't your sort of work, but I did n't know you were quite so new to it as all that. You 've never taken a meal in the couriers' room of an hotel?"

"No," I confessed. "At the Majestic Palace Lady Kil—that is, I decided to have everything brought up to my room, there."