“He doesn’t seem to think he was in the wrong, my lady,” said I.  “As your ladyship will probably be at Avignon some time before finding another chauffeur, it will be easy to look for a maid at the same time.”

“Be here some time!” she cried.  “I won’t!  We want to get on to a chateau where my stepson’s visiting.”

“I should be delighted to offer your ladyship two of the lucky coins for nothing,” said I, my impertinence wrapped in honey, “if she would persuade Sir Samuel to ask the chauffeur to stay.”

“Why, that’s just what Sir Samuel wants to do, if I would hear of it!” The words popped out before she had stopped to think.

“It might be too late after this evening,” I suggested.  “The chauffeur will perhaps take steps at once to secure some other engagement; and I fear that a good man is always in great demand.  I hope that your ladyship will kindly understand that it would be nothing to me, if he hadn’t got into trouble for my sake.”

“You can leave the coins, and call Sir Samuel, who is in his room next door,” remarked Lady Turnour with dignity.  “I will talk with him.”

The greedy creature was delighted to have the coins without paying for them, and delighted with the excuse to do what she would have liked to do without an excuse, if obstinacy had not forbidden.  I kept one coin for my own luck; I called Sir Samuel, who was sulking in his den, was dismissed with an order for her ladyship’s dinner, which she would have in bed, and told to return with the menu.

A few minutes later, coming back, I met Mr. Jack Dane in the corridor.

“Have you seen Sir Samuel yet?” I inquired.

“No.  He’s sent for me, and I’m on my way to him now.”

“He’s going to ask you to stay,” I said.

“I think you’re mistaken there,” replied the chauffeur.  “The old boy himself has a strong sense of justice, and would like to make everything all right, no doubt, but his wife would give him no peace if he did.”

“If he does, though, what shall you do?” I inquired anxiously.

Mr. Dane looked into space.  “I think I’d better go in any case.”

“Why?”

If he’d been a woman, I think he would have answered “Because,” but being a man he reflected a few seconds, and said he thought it would be better for him in the end.

“Do you want to go?” I asked, drearily.

“No.  But I ought to want to.”

“Please stay,” I begged.  “Please—­brother.”

“Sir Samuel mayn’t ask me; and you wouldn’t have me crawl to him?”

“But if he does ask you.”

“I’ll stay,” he said.

Impulsively, I held out my hand.  He took it, and pressed it so hard that it hurt, then dropped it suddenly.  His manner is certainly very odd sometimes.  I suppose he doesn’t want me to flatter myself that I am of any importance in his scheme of existence.  But he needn’t worry.  He has shown me very plainly that he is one of those typical, unsusceptible Englishmen French writers put in their books, men with hearts whose every compartment is warranted love-tight.