Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/89

Rh I scuttled off to the car, and stood ready to serve my mistress when it should please her to be tucked under her rugs.

Despite delays, the chauffeur had finished whatever had to be done, and soon we were spinning away from Valescure, far away, into a world of flowers.

Black cypresses soared skyward, so clean cut, so definite, that I seemed to hear them, crystal-shrill, like the sharp notes in music, as they leaped darkly out from a silver monotone of olives and a delicate ripple of pearly plum or pear blossom. Mimosas poured floods of gold over the spring landscape, blazing violently against the cloudless blue. Bloom of peach and apple tree garlanded our road on either side; the way was jewelled with roses; and acres of hyacinths stretched into the distance, their perfume softening the keenness of the breeze.

"Are they going to let you pass Fréjus without pausing for a single look?" I asked mournfully. But at that instant there came a peal of the electric bell which is one of the luxurious fittings of the car. It meant "stop!" and we stopped.

"Aren't there some ruins here—something middle-aged?" asked Sir Samuel, meaning mediaeval.

"Roman ruins, sir," replied his chauffeur, without changing countenance.

"Are they the sort of things you ought to say you 've seen?"

"I think most people do stop and see them, sir."

"What is your wish, my dear?" Sir Samuel gallantly deferred to his bride. "I know you don't like out-of-