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Even Vanrenen's letter need not be mentioned until he had seen the millionaire in person and disabused his mind of the inept inventions with which the Frenchman had perplexed him. "I don't take your refusal as final," said Count Edouard, speaking very slowly, and choosing each sentence with evident care.
Medenham found, however, that she also had handed him a sovereign, and his conscience smote him, for he guessed already, with accuracy as it happened, that she was Miss Vanrenen's paid chaperon during the absence of the girl's father on the Continent. "Personally, I am a duffer in matters connected with the turf," he explained. "A friend of mine a chauffeur mentioned Eyot "
It was irritating, at the time, but he gave little heed to it after the first pang of disappointment had passed. Fate, which had proved so kind during six days, did not see fit to warn him that her smiles would now be replaced by frowns. She even lulled him into the belief that Vanrenen's absence might prove fortunate. "Perhaps," he fancied, "I would have rubbed him up the wrong way.
My goodness! I wonder the lava didn't melt again before he got through with his highness, who, after all, was a bit of a virtuoso, and may have really admired nasty subjects so long as they conformed to certain standards of art." "Some ideals call for correction by the toe of a strong boot I share Mr. Vanrenen's views on that point most emphatically."
Dale fell into the trap instantly, though, indeed, he was not to be blamed, since he had asked most earnestly that "Mr. Fitzroy, Miss Vanrenen's chauffeur" should be brought to the telephone. "Well, mam," he said, "if I can't get hold of of Fitzroy I must leave a message, as I don't suppose I'll have another chanst. I'm his man, I'm Dale; have you got it?" "Yes Dale."
Peter Vanrenen's attention was held by that guarded answer, and, being an American, he was ever ready to absorb information, especially in matters appertaining to figures. "What was the sum?" he said. To his very keen annoyance he found that he could not determine straight off how long two men take to mow a field of grass, which one of them could cut in four days and the other in three.
She had actually written to Peter Vanrenen that she deemed it her duty as Cynthia's chaperon to acquaint him with Simmonds's defection and the filling of his place by Fitzroy, "a most unsuitable person to act as Miss Vanrenen's chauffeur" indeed, a young man who, she was sure, "would never have been chosen for such a responsible position" by Mr. Vanrenen himself.
"Another lady kem out an' looked me up an' down. 'Yes, that is the car, she said, an' with that I remembered seein' her at San Remo. Mrs. Devar seemed as if she wanted to say somethink, but she daren't, because Mr. Vanrenen's eye was on her. He made no bones about it, but told me to hike back to London the minnit Simmonds got the carrier off." "I am quite clear on that point.
"If you dare to open your mouth in Miss Vanrenen's presence, other than by way of some commonplace remark, I shall forthwith smash your face to a jelly," he said. A queer shiver ran through the Frenchman's body, but Medenham did not commit the error of imagining that his adversary was afraid. His grip on Marigny's shoulder tightened.
Viscount Medenham is a gentleman to his finger tips, and if you were one you'd know that he wouldn't hurt a hair of Miss Vanrenen's head, or any lady's, for that matter." "Where my daughter is concerned I am not a gentleman, or a viscount, or a person who makes d d rows. I am just a father a plain, simple father who thinks more of his girl than of any other object in this wide world.
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