“Thank you.  Well, I may be a flirt—­the French side of me, when the other side isn’t looking.  But I’m not flirting with you.”

“Why should you waste your time flirting with a wretched chauffeur?”

“Yes, why?  Especially as I’ve other things to think of.  But I don’t want your advice about those things now.  I wouldn’t have it even if you begged me to.  You’ve been too unkind.”

“I beg your pardon, with all my heart,” he said, his voice like itself again.  “I’m a brute, I know!  It’s that beastly temper of mine, that is always getting me into trouble—­with myself and others.  Do forgive me, and let me help you.  I want to very much.”

“I just said I wouldn’t if you begged.”

“I don’t beg.  I insist.  I’ll inflict my advice on you, whether you like it or not.  It’s this:  get the man out of Avignon the first thing to-morrow morning.”

“That’s easy to say!”

“And easy to do—­I hope.  What would be his first act, do you think, if he got a wire from you, dated Genoa, and worded something like this:  ’Hear you are following me.  I send this to Avignon on chance, to tell you persecution must cease or I will find means to protect myself.  Lys d’Angely.’”

“I think he’d hurry off to Genoa as fast as he could go—­by train, leaving his car, or sending it on by rail.  But how could I date a telegram from Genoa?”

“I know a man there who—­”

“Elise, I’m astonished at you!” exclaimed the shocked voice of Lady Turnour.  “Talking in corridors with strange young men! and you’ve been out, too, without my permission, and with my jewel-bag!  How dare you?”

“I haven’t been out,” I ventured to contradict.

“Then you were going out—­”

“And I had no intention of going out—­”

“Don’t answer me back like that!  I won’t stand it.  What are you doing in your hat, done up in a thick veil, too, at this time of night, as if you were afraid of being recognized?”

I had to admit to myself that appearances were dreadfully against me.  I didn’t see how I could give any satisfactory explanation, and while I was fishing wildly in my brain without any bait, hoping to catch an inspiration, the chauffeur spoke for me.

“If your ladyship will permit me to explain,” he began, more respectfully than I’d heard him speak to anyone yet, “it is my fault ma’mselle is dressed as she is.”

“What on earth is he going to say?” I wondered wildly, as he paused an instant for Lady Turnour’s consent, which perhaps an amazed silence gave.  I believed that he didn’t know himself what to say.

“I wanted your ladyship’s maid, when she had nothing else to do, to put on her out-of-door things and let me make a sketch of her for an illustrated newspaper I sometimes draw for.  Naturally she didn’t care for her face to go into the paper, so she insisted upon a veil.  My sketch is to be called, ‘The Motor Maid,’ and I shall get half a guinea for it, I hope, of which it’s my intention to hand ma’mselle five shillings for obliging me.  I hope your ladyship doesn’t object to my earning something extra now and then, so long as it doesn’t interfere with work?”