“Mademoiselle is very fortunate—­but very young,” said the dear old gentleman, looking like a late eighteenth-century portrait as he smiled under his high hat.  “And what thinks monsieur?”

“That it is better not to give him a chance to fly away, by keeping the door shut against him in the beginning,” replied Mr. Dane, as coldly as if he kept his heart on ice.

Sunset was fading, like Love on the mosaic, when we came to the amphitheatre; but the sky was still stained red, and each great arch of stone framed a separate ruby.  It was a strange effect, almost sinister in its splendour, and all the air was rose-coloured.

“Is it a good omen or an evil one for our future?” I asked.

“Means storms, I think,” the chauffeur answered in the laconic way he affects sometimes, but there was an odd smile in his eyes, almost like defiance—­of me, or of Fate.  I didn’t know which but I should have liked to know.

CHAPTER XX

The wind sang me to sleep that night in Nimes—­sang in my dreams, and sang me awake when morning turned a white searchlight on my eyelids.

I was glad to see sunshine, for this was the day of our flight into the north, and if the sky frowned on the enterprise Lady Turnour might frown too, in spite of Bertie and his chateau.

It was cold, and I trembled lest the word “snow” should be dropped by the bridegroom into the ear of the bride; but nothing was said of the weather or of any change in the programme, while I and paint and powder and copper tresses were doing what Nature had refused to do for her ladyship.

“Cold morning, madame!” remarked the porter, who came to bring more wood for the sitting-room fire before breakfast.  He was a polite and pleasant man, but I could have boxed his ears.  “Madame departs to-day in her automobile?  Is it to go south or north?  Because in the north—­”

With great presence of mind I dropped a pile of maps and guide-books.

“What a clumsy creature you are!” exclaimed her ladyship, playing into my hands.  “I couldn’t understand the last part of what he said.”

Luckily by this time the man was gone; and my memory of his words was extraordinarily vague.  But a dozen things contrived to keep me in suspense.  Every one who came near Lady Turnour had something to say about the weather.  Then, for the first time, it occurred to the Aigle to play a trick upon us.  Just as the luggage was piled in, after numerous little delays, she cast a shoe; in other words, burst a tyre, apparently without any reason except a mischievous desire to be aggravating.  Another half hour wasted!  And fat, silvery clouds were poking up their great white heads over the horizon in the north, where, perhaps, they were shaking out powder.

The next thing that happened was a snap and a tinkle in our inner workings, rather like the sound you might expect if a giantess dropped a hairpin.  “Chain broken!” grumbled the chauffeur, as he stopped the car on the level of a long, straight road, and jumped nimbly down.  “We oughtn’t to have boasted yesterday.”