The Princess Passes

								

cosmopolitan apostate on principle, and was about to turn upon his
leather-clad form a disapproving gaze, when I dimly realised that it
would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Instead, I smiled
hypocritically as we "took a look" at the car before lending it our
lives.
"I hope the brute isn't vicious; doesn't blow up or explode, or shed
its safety valve, or anything," I remarked with a facetiousness which
in the circumstances did me credit.
Gotteland answered with the pitying air of the professional for the
amateur. "The one thing an automobile can't do, sir, is to blow up."
I was glad to hear this, in spite of the strong coffee lately
swallowed, but on the other hand there were doubtless a great many
other equally disagreeable things which it could do. Of course, if it
were satisfied with merely killing me, neatly and thoroughly, I still
felt that I should not mind; indeed, would be rather grateful than
otherwise. But there were objections, even for a jilted lover, to
being smeared along the ground, and picked up, perhaps, without a
nose, or the proper complement of legs, or vertebræ.
"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 Mercédès 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 Mercédès, 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