Luckily by this time the man was gone; and my memory of his words was extraordinarily vague. But a dozen things contrived to keep me in suspense. Every one who came near Lady Turnour had something to say about the weather. Then, for the first time, it occurred to the Aigle to play a trick upon us. Just as the luggage was piled in, after numerous little delays, she cast a shoe; in other words, burst a tyre, apparently without any reason except a mischievous desire to be aggravating. Another half hour wasted! And fat, silvery clouds were poking up their great white heads over the horizon in the north, where, perhaps, they were shaking out powder.
The next thing that happened was a snap and a tinkle in our inner workings, rather like the sound you might expect if a giantess dropped a hairpin. "Chain broken!" grumbled the chauffeur, as he stopped the car on the level of a long, straight road, and jumped nimbly down. "We ought n't to have boasted yesterday."
"Who 's superstitious now?" I taunted him, as he searched the tool-box in the same way a child ransacks a Christmas stocking.
"Oh, about motor-cars! That 's a different thing," said he calmly. "Cold, is n't it? My fingers are so stiff they feel as if they were all thumbs."
"Et tu, Brute," I wailed. "For goodness' sake, don't let her hear you. She 's capable even now of turning back. The invitation to the château has n't come—and we 're not safely in the gorges yet."
"Nor shan't be soon, if this sort of thing keeps on," remarked the chauffeur. "We shall have to lunch at Alais."
