Green Fancy | Page 4

her ear. "It will fall
to pieces before you--"
But she was running down the road towards the car, calling out sharply
to the driver. He stooped over and took up the travelling bag she had
dropped in her haste and excitement. It was heavy, amazingly heavy.
"I shouldn't like to carry that a mile and a half," he said to himself.
The voice of the belated driver came to his ears on the swift wind. It
was high pitched and unmistakably apologetic. He could not hear what
she was saying to him, but there wasn't much doubt as to the nature of
her remarks. She was roundly upbraiding him.
Urged to action by thoughts of his own plight, he hurried to her side
and said:
"Excuse me, please. You dropped something. Shall I put it up in front
or in the tonneau?"
The whimsical note in his voice brought a quick, responsive laugh from
her lips.
"Thank you so much. I am frightfully careless with my valuables.
Would you mind putting it in behind? Thanks!" Her tone altered
completely as she ordered the man to turn the car around--"And be
quick about it," she added.

The first drops of rain pelted down from the now thoroughly black
dome above them, striking in the road with the sharpness of pebbles.
"Lucky it's a limousine," said the tall traveller. "Better hop in. We'll be
getting it hard in a second or two."
"I can't very well hop in while he's backing and twisting like that, can
I?" she laughed. He was acutely aware of a strained, nervous note in
her voice, as of one who is confronted by an undertaking calling for
considerable fortitude.
"Are you quite sure of this man?" he asked.
"Absolutely," she replied, after a pause.
"You know him, eh?"
"By reputation," she said briefly, and without a trace of laughter.
"Well, that comforts me to some extent," he said, but dubiously.
She was silent for a moment and then turned to him impulsively.
"You must let me take you on to the Tavern in the car," she said. "Turn
about is fair play. I cannot allow you to--"
"Never mind about me," he broke in cheerily. He had been wondering
if she would make the offer, and he felt better now that she had done so.
"I'm accustomed to roughing it. I don't mind a soaking. I've had
hundreds of 'em."
"Just the same, you shall not have one to-night," she announced firmly.
The car stopped beside them. "Get in behind. I shall sit with the driver."
If any one had told him that this rattling, dilapidated automobile,-- ten
years old, at the very least, he would have sworn,--was capable of
covering the mile in less than two minutes, he would have laughed in
his face. Almost before he realised that they were on the way up the
straight, dark road, the lights in the windows of Hart's Tavern came into

view. Once more the bounding, swaying car came to a stop under
brakes, and he was relaxing after the strain of the most hair-raising ride
he had ever experienced.
Not a word had been spoken during the trip. The front windows were
lowered. The driver,--an old, hatchet-faced man,--had uttered a single
word just before throwing in the clutch at the cross-roads in response to
the young woman's crisp command to drive to Hart's Tavern. That word
was uttered under his breath and it is not necessary to repeat it here.
He lost no time in climbing out of the car. As he leaped to the ground
and raised his green hat, he took a second look at the automobile,--a
look of mingled wonder and respect. It was an old-fashioned, high-
powered Panhard, capable, despite its antiquity, of astonishing speed in
any sort of going.
"For heaven's sake," he began, shouting to her above the roar of the
wind and rain, "don't let him drive like that over those--"
"You're getting wet," she cried out, a thrill in her voice. "Good
night,--and thank you!"
"Look out!" rasped the unpleasant driver, and in went the clutch. The
man in the road jumped hastily to one side as the car shot backward
with a jerk, curved sharply, stopped for the fraction of a second, and
then bounded forward again, headed for the cross-roads.
"Thanks!" shouted the late passenger after the receding tail light, and
dashed up the steps to the porch that ran the full length of Hart's Tavern.
In the shelter of its low-lying roof, he stopped short and once more
peered down the dark, rain-swept road. A flash of lightning revealed
the flying automobile. He waited for a second flash. It came an instant
later, but the car was no longer visible. He shook his head. "I hope the