“I take my orders only from the owner of the car.”

“You’re beastly impertinent,” snapped Bertie, “and I’ll report you to Sir Samuel.”

“As you choose,” returned Jack, turning the starting-handle.

“Why don’t you say ‘sir’ when you speak to me?  You don’t seem to have trained into chauffeur manners yet.”

“If I were your chauffeur, you would have the right to criticize.  As I’m not, and never will be, you haven’t.  Mademoiselle, the car’s ready.  Will you get in?”

I jumped into my usual place, beside the driver’s seat.

“Ah, you sit by the chauffeur, do you?” said Bertie.  “I don’t wonder he wants to keep his job.”

For an instant I was afraid that Jack would strike him.

My blood rushed to my head, and I half rose from the seat, with a choked, warning whisper of “Jack!”

It was the first time I’d called him that, except to myself, and I saw him give the faintest start.  He looked at the other man, and then, though Bertie stepped quickly forward as if to open the car door and jump in, he sprang to his place, and we were off.

“He means mischief,” I said, when I felt able to speak.

“So do I, if he does,” answered Jack.

“I wish you’d do me a favour,” I went on.  “Keep away from that awful ball to-night.”

“What!  With you there?  I know my business better.”

I couldn’t help laughing.  “Your present business, I believe,” said I, “is that of a chauffeur.”

“With extra duty as watch-dog.”

“I can’t bear to have you see me in the ridiculous get-up Lady Turnour is making me wear, that’s the selfish part of my reason—­and—­and it will be so horrid for you, in every way.”

“I’m callous to anything they can do now, except one thing.”

“What?”

“If you don’t know already, I mean where you’re concerned.”

“You’re very kind to me.”

“Kind?  Yes, I am very ‘kind.’  A man has to be abnormally ‘kind’ to want to look after a girl like you.”

“How bitterly you speak!” I exclaimed, hardly understanding him.

“I feel bitter sometimes.  Do you wonder?  But for heaven’s sake, don’t let’s talk of me.  Let’s talk of something pleasant.  Would you care to do a little sight-seeing in Clermont-Ferrand, if your shopping doesn’t take us too long?”

I assured him that it would not take ten minutes; and it didn’t take more.  I saved a franc on the transaction, too, which would console her ladyship if I got back a few minutes late; and with that thought in my mind, I abandoned myself to the joy of the expedition.  We went to the Petrifying Fountain, and inspected its strange menagerie of stone animals; we made a dash into the Cathedral where St. Louis was married, and looked at the beautiful thirteenth-century glass in the windows, and the strange frescoes; we rushed in and out of Notre Dame du Port, stopping on the