Then he jumped down, and turned round.  We gave each other a glance, and he could not help knowing that I must be her ladyship’s maid, by the way I was loaded with rugs, like a beast of burden.  Of my face he could see little, as I had on a thick motor-veil with a small triangular talc window, which Lady Kilmarny had given me as a present when I bade her good-bye.  I had the advantage of him, therefore, in the staring contest, because his goggles were pushed up on the top of his cap with an elastic, somewhat as Miss Paget’s spectacles had been caught in her false front.

His glance said:  “Female thing, I’ve got to be bothered by having you squashed into the seat beside me.  You’d better not be chatty with the man at the wheel, for if you are, I shall have to teach you motor manners.”

My glance, I sincerely hoped, said nothing, for I hurriedly shut it off lest it should say too much, the astonished thought in my mind being:  “Why, Leather Person, you look exactly like a gentleman!  You have the air of being the master, and Sir Samuel your servant.”

He really was a surprise, especially after Lady Kilmarny’s warning.  Still, I at once began to tell myself that chauffeurs must have intelligent faces.  As for this one’s clear features, good gray eyes, brown skin, and well-made figure, they were nothing miraculous, since it is admitted that even a lower grade of beings, grooms and footmen, are generally chosen as ornaments to the establishments they adorn.  Why shouldn’t a chauffeur be picked out from among his fellows to do credit to a fine, sixty-horse-power blue motor-car?  Besides, a young man who can’t look rather handsome in a chauffeur’s cap and neat leather coat and leggings might as well go and hang himself.

The Leather Person opened the door of the car for me, that I might put in the rugs.  I murmured “thank you” and he bowed.  No sooner had I arranged my affairs, and slipped the scent-bottle and bottle of salts, newly filled, into a dainty little case under the window, when Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel appeared.

I have met few, if any, queens in daily life, but I’m almost sure that the Queen of England, for instance, wouldn’t consider it beneath her dignity to take some notice of her chauffeur’s existence if she were starting on a motor tour.  Lady Turnour was miles above it, however.  So far as she was concerned, one would have thought that the car ran itself; that at sight of her and Sir Samuel, the arbiters of its destiny, its heart began to beat, its body to tremble with delight at the honour in store for it.

“Tell him to shut the windows,” said her ladyship, when she was settled in her place.  “Does he think I’m going to travel on a day like this with all the wind on the Riviera blowing my head off?”

The imperial order was passed on to “him,” who was addressed as Bane, or Dane, or something of that ilk; and I was sorry for poor Sir Samuel, whose face showed how little he enjoyed the prospect of being cooped up in a glass box.