The Car of Destiny | Page 2

Peace with Idleness, came the motor
mania, and I thought of nothing else for a time. But when you have run
your car for months, motoring for its own sake ceases to be all in all.
You ask yourself what country you would like best to visit with the
machine you love.
Pride kept me from answering that question with the name of "Spain";
but it was because Biarritz is at the door of Spain that I had just invited
Dick Waring--the best of friends, the most delightful of Americans,
who fought side by side with me, for fun, in China--to drive there in my
Gloria car.
"Yes, they knew when I went to Barcelona," I admitted; for Dick was
familiar with the story. "But that was different. Anyhow, I'm going to
Biarritz, whatever happens. You can do as you like."
"If you will go, I'll go too," said Dick; "and if anything happens I'll be

in it with you. But you may regret your rashness."
"I've never yet regretted rashness," I said. "Things done on impulse
always turn out for the best."
So we started from Paris the next day, and had a splendid run, through
scenery to set the spirit singing in tune with the thrumming of the
motor.
Whatever was to happen in Biarritz, and I was far enough from
guessing then, nothing happened by the way; and we arrived on a
morning of blue and gold.
We put up at a private hotel out of the way from fashionable
thoroughfares; and, as my childhood and early youth were passed in
England, I could use an English name without making myself
ridiculous by a foreign accent. As for my brown face and black eyes,
many a Cornishman has a face as brown and eyes as black; therefore, I
edited the name of Triana into Cornish Trevenna, and changed
Cristóbal, my middle name, into Christopher.
We took our first meal in the restaurant, and everyone at the little tables
near by, was talking of the King and "Princess Ena"; how pretty she
was, how much in love he; how charming their romance. My heart
quite warmed to my youthful sovereign, who has had seven fewer years
on earth than I. I felt that, if I had had a fair chance, I should have been
his loyal subject.
"I'd like to have a look at him," said I to Waring after lunch. "The lady
with the nose who sat on our left said to her husband with the chin, that
the King and the two Princesses motor every afternoon. We'll motor too;
and where they go, there we'll go also."
"Take care," said Dick.
"A cat may look at a king. So may Chris Trevenna."
"No good advising you to be cautious."

"Of course not. You wouldn't care a rap for me if there was."
"Shouldn't I? Anyhow, Chris Trevenna might as well wear goggles."
"There's no dust to-day," said I. "It rained in the night."
"I give you up," said Dick. And if giving me up meant going out with
me in my big blue car directly after lunch, then he kept his word. Ropes,
my chauffeur, and right-hand man, who sits always in the tonneau, had
already heard all about the King's automobile, and was primed with
particulars. He leaned across to describe its appearance, as well as
mention the make; and when such a car as he was in the act of picturing
passed us, going round a bend of the road which leads to Spain, there
was no mistaking it.
"Let's follow," said I.
Dick sighed, but naturally I paid no attention to that.
There were five persons in the King's car. The slim young owner, three
ladies, two very slender and young, and the chauffeur, all five masked
or goggled, so that it was impossible to see their faces.
"I wish something would happen to them," I said.
Waring looked shocked.
"Just enough of a something to stop the car, and tempt the ladies to take
off their motor-veils. I may never have another chance to see the future
Queen of Spain."
When I was a small lad in England, I used to lie under a favourite
apple-tree in the orchard of the old place where we lived, and wish with
all my might for the fall of a certain apple on which eyes and heart
were fixed. It was extraordinary how often the apple would fall.
In a flash I remembered those wishes and those apples as we began to
gain upon the King's car. Its pace slackened, and then it stopped. The
chauffeur jumped out, and two of the ladies were raising their thick

veils as we came up.
As we were not supposed to know the King, who was "incog," the
ordinary civilities between