The Princess Passes

								

together, a lever or two. My man twists a handle. On the instant the
machine leaps into frenzied life. The carburetter sprays its vapour
into the explosion chamber, the magnet flashes its sparks to ignite
it, the cooling water bathes the hot walls of the cylinders--a thing
of nerves, and ganglions, and tireless muscles is panting eagerly at
your service. You move this lever, you press your foot lightly on this
pedal; the engine transfers its power to the wheels; you move. The
carriage with you and your friends is borne at railway speed across
continents. You can hurl yourself at sixty miles an hour along the
great highroads, you can crawl like a worm through the traffic of
cities."
By the time Jack had finished this harangue we had climbed the hill
out of Rouen and were on the fine but accidenté highroad that leads
past Boos and Pont St. Pierre. Soon we would reach Les Andelys and
Château Gaillard. Still Jack was not quite ready to let me put my
newly acquired knowledge into practice. There was a hill of some
consequence before Mantes, which we had to reach by way of La Roche
Guyon and Limay. After that there would be only what the route book
calls "fortes ondulations"; and under the stronghold of Lion Heart
himself (an appropriate spot, forsooth!), I was to try my hand at
dragon-driving.
Winston brought the car to a standstill at the foot of the mouldering
ruins of Richard's "Saucy Castle," and as we looked up at the towering
battlements, the huge flanking towers, and the ponderous citadel, the
dark mass on its lofty rock set in the sunny landscape like a
bloodstone in a gold ring, seemed to be an epitome in stone of life in
the Middle Ages.
I uttered every idea that came into my mind concerning the ruin, and
squeezed my brain for more, till my head felt like a drained orange;
not that I enjoyed hearing myself talk, or thought that Jack and Molly
would do so, but because they could not well interrupt the flow of my
eloquence to remind me of the reason for our stop.
At last, however, silence fell upon us. It was a shock to me when
Molly broke it. "Oh, Lord Lane, have you forgotten that this is where
you're to begin driving? The road is nice and broad here."
I put on a brave air, as does one at the dentist's. "I hope that
you're not afraid I shall run you into a ditch?" I asked, laughing. "I
don't believe, after all, it can be any worse than steering a toboggan
down a good run, or driving a four-in-hand with one's eyes shut, as I
did once for a wager on a road I knew as I knew my own hat."
"Perhaps it isn't exactly worse," said Molly, "still--I think you'll
find it different."
I did.
Meanwhile, however, Winston was cheering me on. "You'll find steering
the simplest thing in the world, really," he assured me. "There's no
car so sensitive as this. The faster you go, the easier it is----"
"But, perhaps he'd better not try to prove that, just at first!"