“We have been watching you a long way off,” said a tall gendarme to the chauffeur, “and to tell the truth we were not happy.  That road has been declassee for some time now, and is one of the worst in the country, even in fine weather.  It was not a very safe experiment, monsieur; but we have been saying to each other it was a fine way to show off your magnificent driving.”

Laughing, Jack Dane assured the gendarme that it was not done with any such object, and Sir Samuel, out of the car by this time, with the indignant Lady Turnour, wanted the conversation translated.  I obeyed immediately, and he too praised his chauffeur, in a nice manly way which made me the more sorry for him because he had succeeded in marrying his first love.

“I should like to pay you compliments too,” said I hurriedly, in a low voice, when Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour had gone to the inn door to revive themselves with blood-warming cordials after their thrilling experience.  “I should like to, only—­it seems to go beyond compliments.”

“I hate compliments, even when I deserve them, which I don’t now,” replied the young man whom I’d been comparing sentimentally in my mind with the sun-god, steering his chariot of fire up and down the steeps of heaven from dawn to sunset.  “And I’d hate them above all from my—­from my little pal.”

Nothing he could have named me would have pleased me as well.  During the wild climb, and wilder drop, we had hardly spoken to each other, yet I felt that I could never misunderstand him, or try frivolously to aggravate him again.  He was too good for all that, too good to be played with.

“You are a man—­a real man,” I said to myself.  I felt humble compared with him, an insignificant wisp of a thing, who could never do anything brave or great in life; and so I was proud to be called his “pal.”  When he asked if I, too, didn’t need some cordial, I only laughed, and said I had just had one, the strongest possible.

“So have I,” he answered.  “And now we ought to be going on.  Look at those shadows, and it’s a good way yet to Florac, at the entrance of the gorge.”

Already night was stretching long gray, skeleton fingers into the late sunshine, as if to warm them at its glow before snuffing it out.

It was easier to say we ought to go, however, than to induce Lady Turnour to get into the car again, after all she had endured, and after that “bearding” which evidently rankled still.  She had not forgiven the chauffeur for the courage which for her was merely obstinacy and impudence, nor her husband for encouraging him; but the glow of the cordial in her veins warmed the cockles of her heart in spite of herself (I should think her heart was all cockles, if they are as bristly as they sound); and as it would be dull to stop on this col for the rest of her life, she at last agreed to encounter further dangers.

“Come, come, that’s my brave little darling!” we heard Sir Samuel coo to her, and dared not meet each other’s eyes.