They were not in love, of course.  They were too happy for that.  Love is the greatest thing in the world, but it is seldom quite happy.  Esther and the doctor were not lovers but lingered in that deliciously unconscious state of “going-to-be-in-love-presently” which is nothing less than heavenly.  Therefore they ate their lunch with appetite and laughed about the story of the bear.  Both were surprised when the doctor’s watch told them it was time to think of home.

They came back very slowly along the shaded trail to where the car stood waiting in the brilliant light of the declining sun.

“Just a moment,” said the doctor, and cranked vigorously.  A confusion of odd noises ensued, from which, somehow, the right noise did not emerge.

“Just a moment,” he repeated.  “There appears to be something loose—­or tight—­or something.  If you’ll just sit out on the grass a moment, Miss Esther, I’ll see what it is.”

Esther descended.  The grass was just as pleasant to sit upon as the car seat and she knew nothing whatever about the tricky ways of motors.

“Just a moment,” said Callandar for the third time, and disappeared behind the bonnet.  Fifteen minutes after, he reappeared with a very hot face decorated fantastically with black.

“She’s sulking,” he announced gloomily.

“Is she?” Esther’s tone held nothing save placid amusement.

“Just a moment.”  The doctor banged down the bonnet and effaced himself once more.  This time under the body of the car.

Motors are mysterious things.  Why a well-treated, not to say pampered, car which some hours before had been left in perfect condition and excellent temper should abruptly turn stubborn and refuse to fulfil its chief end is a problem which we shall not attempt to solve.  Every one who has ever owned a motor knows that these things be.

The doctor, a modest man, considered himself a fair mechanician.  In expansive moments he, who made nothing of his undoubted excellence in his own profession, was wont to boast that you couldn’t teach him much about motors!  He had laughed to scorn the remark of his Scotch chauffeur that “they things need a deal o’ humourin’!” Humour a thing of cogs and screws?  Absurd!  One must master a motor, not humour her.

Half an hour later he emerged from the car’s eclipse and sank, a pitiable figure, upon the grass beside Esther.

“Won’t it go?” asked Esther dreamily.  It had been very pleasant sitting there watching the sun set.

The master of motors made a tragic gesture.  “No,” he said, “she won’t.”

“Shake her,” said Esther.

Dr. Callandar pushed back his sweat-bedewed hair with fingers which left a fearsome streak above his left eyebrow.  The girl laughed.  But the doctor’s decorated face was rueful.

“Do you know, Miss Esther, I’m afraid it isn’t a bit funny.”  His tone, too, was sober; and Esther, suddenly more fully alive to the situation, noticed that the hands clasped recklessly about the knees of once spotless trousers were shaking, just a little.  He must be awfully tired!