Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/228

 shall learn that even a chauffeur will turn. And I look upon Cannes, somehow, as the turning-point in more senses of the word than one.

But to our muttons. No pleasant dallying for me in beautiful old Nîmes or Aries, either one of which would repay weeks of lingering. What dallying there was, Jimmy got—confound him!—and my only joy was in his hatred of early rising. They had him up at an unearthly hour for a glimpse of the amphitheatre and the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, and by nine we were on the road to Arles, Payne driving with creditable caution. We crossed the Rhone and completed the eighteen flat miles in little more than thirty minutes. When we arrived at the end of this time in the astonishing little town of Arles, halting in a diminutive square with two great pillars of granite and a superb Corinthian pediment (dating from Roman occupation) built into the walls of modern houses, Miss Randolph announced that they would walk about for half an hour and look at the antiquities. "Half an hour!" I couldn't help echoing; "why, Arles is one of the most interesting places in France. It is an open-air museum."

"I know," said she, looking up at me with an odd expression which I would have given many a bright sovereign for the skill to read. "But maybe I shall have a chance to see it some other time, and the others don't care much for antiquities or architecture. We really must hurry as fast as possible to Cannes."

Now, why—why? What is to happen at Cannes? Is Jimmy's loathly hand in this? Or—blessed thought!—is all sight-seeing for her, as well as for