Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/243

 "All the same you have no power to arrest me on French soil."

"If you choose to make trouble for me, these gentlemen will ask to see your licence to drive in France. If you can't produce satisfactory evidence that you are entitled to any licence you may hold, they will arrest you for breach of French law."

Ian Barr laughed. "I see," he said. That is well thought out. You are clever. If I wanted to fight, I could knock all three of you into cocked hats, and I think you must know that; but"

"You don't want to fight, first for the lady's sake and then because it would only make things worse for her and you afterward."

"Exactly."

"Oh, Ian, this is all my fault!" Nora cried, her voice agonized.

"No," he said, "it's the fault of Fate. Remember what I said about what the three days were worth. And remember all you promised me."

"What is going to happen now?" she asked.

"I am not arrested, but I am going to do whatever they want me to do, till I'm extradited. Afterward—well, I wish them joy of me!" Again he laughed, a strange laugh that had something of desperate courage as well as bitterness in it. And to Nora Verney it was like the knell of hope.