“I was talking nonsense.  Get down, Paul, and put her into the tonneau.  You’d better sit by her, perhaps.”

The chauffeur proceeded to obey, but when the child found herself being tucked into a back seat of the car, she gave a little protesting cry.  “Oh, can’t I sit in front with you?”

“Of course you can, if you like.  Paul, wrap her up well in the rug.  Now, little one, we’re going to start.  I won’t take you too fast.”

He turned the car, and passing the Casino drove up the hill, taking the direction of Mentone, when he had reached the top.  He had not been over this road before, as he had arrived by way of Nice yesterday; but he had studied road maps, and knew both how and where he wished to go.

“Now,” said he, driving carefully, “how do you like it?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful!” answered Rosemary, with a rapt smile on her rosy face.

“Have you ever motored before?”

She shook her head.  “Never.”

“Brave Baby.”

“I don’t usually care to be called a baby,” she remarked.  “But I don’t mind from you.”

“I’m especially favoured, it seems,” said the young man.  “Tell me how you happen to know me?  I can’t think, I must confess, unless it was on shipboard—­”

“There!  I knew perfectly well it was you!” broke in Rosemary with a look of rapture.  “You were on a ship, and you were lost at sea.  But you’re found again now, because it’s Christmas Eve.”

“I wasn’t lost at sea, though, or I shouldn’t be here with you,” said Hugh Egerton.  He glanced rather wistfully in a puzzled way at the lovely little face framed with blowing golden hair.  There was something in the child’s eyes which stabbed his heart; yet there was sweetness in the pain.  “I’m afraid we’re playing at cross purposes, aren’t we?” he went on.  “Was it on a ship that you saw me?”

“Oh, I didn’t see you on the ship,” said Rosemary.  “I only knew you went away on one.  I haven’t seen you for ever and ever so long, not since I was a tiny baby.”

“By Jove!  And you’ve remembered me all this time?”

“Not exactly remembered.  It was the feeling I had in my heart, just as Jane said I would, the minute I saw you, that told me it was you.  That was why I ran to keep you from going on in your motor car, because if you had, I might have lost you again, forever and ever.”

“So you might,” said puzzled Hugh Egerton, pleased as well as puzzled.  “And that would never have done for either of us.”

“It would have been dreadful,” replied Rosemary, “to have to wait for another Christmas Eve.”

“Christmas Eve seems a day for adventures,” said Hugh.  “One finds new friends;—­and dear little girls; and—­goodness knows what I shall find next.”

“We must find Angel next,” Rosemary assured him.  “She’ll be so glad to see you.”

“Do you really think so?  By the way, who is Angel?”

“Mother.  Didn’t you know that?”