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Updated: May 9, 2025
"Good Heavens, Beechy, what do you mean?" she gasped, while our Chauffeulier flashed me a quick look of surprise. "Oh, only that the accident, whatever it was, happened soon after we came out of the tunnel, and if Mr. Barrymore'd stopped when you wanted him to, he couldn't have started again, for we were just running downhill with our own weight; and I knew it all the time," I explained airily.
The Chauffeulier, seeing we had ploughed through half the menu, wouldn't have bothered with soup or fish, but Maida insisted on having both, piping hot too, though she never cares what she eats; so the belated one got as good a dinner as anybody.
"Thanks very much, I shall be delighted," said the Chauffeulier. Even the Prince's audacity wasn't equal to the situation created by these tactics. He retired, hat in hand, looking so furious that I could hardly help laughing. Mr. Barrymore got in beside me, and we drove off leaving the Prince with nobody but his own cabman to vent his rage on. I rather hoped, for a minute, that Mr.
Whereupon Mamma poured a history of our exploits into the Prince's ears, exaggerating a little, but saying nothing detrimental to our Chauffeulier, who would perhaps not have cared or even heard if she had, for he was showing things to Maida through the window. "We're in Piedmont now," he said.
"How shall I feel if you don't wish Miss Destrey your best wishes?" "Oh, I do, I do," exclaimed the strange child. "And I congratulate the Chauffeulier. But he must do some congratulating too. I'm going to put up my hair, come out in a long dress, and be engaged to Sir Ralph." Maida's great eyes were greater than ever. "Beechy!" she protested. "You aren't fourteen!"
Perhaps the ladies might think them good enough to keep a door open with, if they didn't exceed fifteen lire each. Signore Ripollo looked shocked, but laughed politely. He knew Mr. Barrymore, and had greeted him on our entrance as an old acquaintance, though, in his exaggerated Italian way, he gave the Chauffeulier a title more exalted than Beechy had bestowed.
So of course he went to her, and Sir Ralph jumped in with Beechy; therefore the Chauffeulier was obliged to be nice to me, whether he liked or not. We all kept close together, and soon the three gondolas, following many others, grouped round a lighted music-barge like a pyramid of illuminated fruit floating on the canal.
"I paid twice more for these beautiful things than you give me, but so be it. They are yours." True to our instructions we dared not betray our feelings; but when the business had actually been arranged, and our gondola had borne us away from the much-injured antiquary, Aunt Kathryn broke out at the Chauffeulier. "How could you?" she exclaimed. "I never was so sick in my life. That poor man!
He laughed high-keyed, sardonic laughter; he scolded, he quavered, he pleaded, he was finally choked with sobs; while as for his wife, she, poor little wisplike body, early succumbed to whatever is Venetian for nervous prostration. Surely the Chauffeulier could not bear the strain of this agonizing scene?
We frightened some mules; we almost made a horse faint away; but the Chauffeulier showed no desire to stop and let them admire our "bonnet" at close quarters. The excitement of the drive, and my conviction that Mr. Barrymore was silently fighting some unseen danger for us all, filled me with a kind of intoxication. I could have screamed; but if I had, it wouldn't have been with cowardly fear.
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