I hesitated.

“Is it conventionality or economy that gives you pause?” he asked.  “If it’s the latter, or rather a regard for my pocket, your conscience can be easy.  My pocket feels heavy and my heart light to-day.  I remember a little restaurant not far off where they do you in great style for a franc or two.  Will you come with me?”

He looked quite eager, and I felt myself unable to resist temptation.  “Yes,” said I, “and thank you.”

A biting wind, more like March than flowery April, nearly blew us down into the town, and I was glad to find shelter in the warm, clean little restaurant.

“Is my nose lilac after all?” I inquired, when a dear old smiling waiter had trotted off with our order, murmuring benevolently, “Doude de zuide, M’sieur,” like a true compatriot of Tartarin.

“A faint pink from the cheeks is undeniably reflected upon it,” admitted the chauffeur.  “We’re going to be let in for a cold snap as we get up north,” he went on.  “I read in the papers this morning that there’s been a ‘phenomenal fall of snow for the season’ on the Cevennes and the mountains of Auvergne.  Do you weaken on the Gorges of the Tarn now I’ve told you that?”

“Mine not to reason why.  Mine but to do or die,” I transposed, smiling with conspicuous bravery.

“Not at all.  It’s yours to choose.  I haven’t even broken the Gorges, yet, to the slaves of my hypnotic powers.  I warn you that, if all the papers say about snow is true, we may have adventures on the way.  Would you rather—­”

“I’d rather have the adventures,” I broke in, and had as nearly as possible added “with you,” but I stopped myself in time.

We lunched more gaily than double-dyed millionaires, and afterward, while my host was paying away his hard-earned francs for our food, I slipped out of the restaurant and into a little shop I had noticed close by.  The window was full of odds and ends, souvenirs of Avignon; and there were picture-postcards, photographs, and coins with heads of saints on them.  In passing, on the way to lunch, I’d noticed a silver St. Christopher, about the size of a two-franc piece; and as the Aigle carries the saint like a figure-head, a glittering, golden statuette six or seven inches high, I had guessed that St. Christopher must have been chosen to fill the honourable position of patron saint for motors and motorists.

“What’s the price of that?” I asked, pointing to the coin.

It was ten francs, a good deal more than I could afford, more than half my whole remaining fortune.  “Could not madame make it a little cheaper?” I pleaded with the fat lady whose extremely aquiline nose proclaimed that she had no personal interest in saints.  But no, madame could not make it cheaper; the coin was of real silver, the figure well chased; a recherche little pocket-piece, and a great luck-bringer for anybody connected with the automobile.  No accident would presume to happen to one who carried that on his person.  Madame had, however, other coins of St. Christopher, smaller coins in white metal which could scarcely be told from silver.  If mademoiselle wished to see them—­