“All those faults might be serviceable in a brother,” I said.  “Though in any one else—­”

“In a friend or a lover, they’d be unbearable, of course; I know that,” he broke in.  “But who’d want me for a friend?  And as for a lover, why, I’m struck off the list of eligibles, forever—­if I was ever on it.”

After that, we ate our luncheon as fast as we could (a very bad habit, which I don’t mean to keep up for man or brother), and even though the others had begun long before we did, we finished while they were still cracking nuts and peeling apples, their spirits somewhat subdued by the Englishman’s presence.

“The great folk won’t have got their money’s worth for nearly an hour yet,” said Mr. Dane.  “Don’t you want to go and have a look at the Cathedral?  There are some grand things to see there—­the triptych called ‘Le Buisson Argent,’ and some splendid old tapestry in the choir; a whole wall and some marble columns from a Roman temple of Apollo—­oh, and you mustn’t forget to look for the painting of St. Mitre the Martyr trotting about with his head in his hands.  On the way to the Cathedral notice the doorways you’ll pass.  Aix is celebrated for its doorways.”

(Evidently my brother passed through Aix, as well as along the Corniche, under “different circumstances!”)

“You mean—­I’m to go alone?”

“Yes, I can’t leave the car to take you.  I’m sorry.”

The French half of me was vexed again, but didn’t dare let the sensible American half, which knew he was right, see it, for fear of another scolding.

I thanked him in a way as businesslike as his own, and said that I would take his advice; which I did.  Although I hate sightseeing by myself, I wouldn’t let him think I meant to be always trespassing on his good nature; and afterward I was glad I hadn’t yielded to my inclination to be helpless, for the Cathedral and the doorways were all he had promised, and more.  It was a scramble to see anything in the few minutes I had, though, and awful to feel that Lady Turnour was hanging over my head like a sword.  The thought of how she would look and what she would say if I kept the car waiting was a string tied to my nerves, pulling them all at once, like a jumping-jack’s arms and legs, so that I positively ran back to the hotel, more breathless than Cinderella when the hour of midnight began to strike.  But there was the magic glass coach, not yet become a pumpkin; there was the chauffeur, not turned into whatever animal a chauffeur does turn into in fairy stories; and there were not Sir Samuel and her ladyship, nor any sign of them.

“Thank goodness, I’m not late!” I panted.  “I was afraid I was.  That dear verger wouldn’t realize that there could be anything of more importance in the world than the statue of Ste. Martha and the Tarasque.”

“Nothing is, really,” said Mr. Dane, glancing up from some dentist-looking work he was doing in the Aigle’s mouth under her lifted bonnet.  “But you are a little late—­”