'She isn't sure I am going up to-day, and I'm not, as it happens. It's not raining.'
'Oh, poor old dear; that's two days without you. She'll think you've given her up. You must be specially sweet to her to-night, then.—For of course we'll go, won't we? I long to hear Mademoiselle Ludérac play the harp.'
Jill spoke in English, but Amélie, who waited at the door, volunteered at this that Mademoiselle Ludérac was très forte on the harp; one could hardly go past the Manoir without hearing her.
Jill said that they must wear their best bibs and tuckers; and though the evening brought a sudden fall of rain, she still insisted on this tribute to the old lady's hospitality. 'Nothing would please her so much. I'll manage to get the car up the road,' she said.
So, watched with great interest by the personnel of the Ecu d'Or, they crept under the raised hood at eight-fifteen, Graham with the collar of his coat turned up about his ears, Jill wrapped in her furs. The rain rattled on the hood as they sped along the highroad and in the chestnut forest the long, adventurous beam they cast before them brought happy fancies to Jill's mind. What spells of loneliness and melancholy could withstand the gaiety and enterprise of a modern car? 'I'm much more like a car,' she thought, 'than like a skylark;—and a car can do something for Marthe Ludérac;—take her away, perhaps, who knows?—while a skylark can do nothing.'
In the narrow, upper road, the stones were loosened
