The Princess Passes | Page 7

the proper complement of legs, or vertebr?.
"Anyhow, the beast has a certain meretricious beauty," I admitted. "Those red cushions and all that bright metal work give an effect of luxury."
Gotteland revenged his idol with another smile. "Amateurs do notice such things, sir," said he. "Professionals don't care much about the body; it's the motor that interests them." He lifted a sort of lattice which muzzled the dragon's mouth, disclosing some bulbous cylinders and a tangle of pipes and wires. "It's the dernier cri. That engine will work as long as there's a drop of essence in the carburetter, and will carry you at forty miles an hour, without feeling a hill which would set many cars groaning and puffing. It will do the work of twenty horses, and more----"
"Yet I shouldn't be really surprised if one horse had to tow it some day," I murmured more to myself than to him, but Molly heard me, through her mushroom.
"You'll soon apologise to Merc��d��s for your doubts of her, for motors are their own missionaries," she said, her eyes laughing through a triangular talc window. "You will have learned to love her before you know what has happened, just as you would the real Merc��d��s, if you could see her."
Curious, I thought, that Molly, knowing my state of mind, should be constantly weaving into our conversation some allusion to the namesake and giver of her car. I had never in my life been less interested in the subject of extraneous girls, and with all Molly's tact, it seemed strange that she should not recognise this. However, she did not appear to expect an answer, and we were soon settled in the car, Molly, as I have said, looking like a graceful fungus growth, Jack and I like haggard goblins.
Molly was to drive, and Jack insisted that I should sit in one of the two absurdly comfortable armchair arrangements in front. The chauffeur was presently to curl like a tendril round a little crimson toadstool at our feet, and Jack took the tonneau in lonely state. This was, no doubt, an act of fine self-abnegation on his part, nevertheless I could have envied him his safe retirement, from my place of honour, with no noble horses in front to save Molly and me from swift destruction.
Physically, we were very snug, however. The luggage was fitted into spaces especially made for it; long baskets on the mudguards at the side were stowed with maps and guide-books for the tour, and (as Molly remarked in the language of her childhood) a "few nice little 'eaties' to make us independent on the way."
There was also a sort of glorified tea basket, containing, Molly said, a chafing-dish, without which no self-respecting American woman ever travelled, and by whose aid wonderful dishes could be turned out at five minutes' notice in a shipwreck, on a desert island, or while a tyre was being mended.
As I mentally finished my last will and testament, Gotteland gave a short twist to the dragon's tail, which happened to be in front. Instantly a heart began to throb, throb. The chauffeur sprang to his toadstool. Molly moved a lever which said "R-r-r-tch," pressed one of her small but determined American feet on something, and the car gave a kind of a smooth, gliding leap forward, as if sent spinning from an unseen giant's hand.
Though it was but just after nine, the early omnibus had gathered its tribute of toiling or shopping worms, and was too prevalent in Park Lane for my peace of mind. There were also enormous drays, which looked, as our frail bark passed under their bows, like huge Atlantic liners. The hansoms were fierce black sharks skimming viciously round us, and there were other monsters whose forms I had no time to analyse: but into the midst of this seething ocean Molly pitilessly hurled us. How we slipped into spaces half our own width and came out scatheless, Providence alone knew, but it seemed that kindly Fate must soon tire of sparing us, we tempted it so often.
"Here's a smash!" I said to myself grimly, at the corner of Hamilton Place, and it flashed through my brain, with a mixture of self-contempt and pity, that my last thought before the end would be one of sordid satisfaction because a fortnight ago I had reluctantly paid an accident assurance premium.
My fingers yearned with magnetic attraction toward the arms of the seat, but with all that was manly in me I resisted. I wreathed my face with a smile which, though stiff as a plaster mask, was a useful screen; and as South African tan is warranted not to wear off during a lifetime, I could feel as pale as I pleased without visible disgrace.
"How do you like it?" asked Molly.
"Glorious," I