The Motormaniacs Part 19

Jones deliberately descended and headed for New York.

I ran after him, while the chauffeur turned the car round and slowly followed us both. It was a queer procession. First Jones, then I, then the car.

Finally I overtook him.

"Jones," I panted. "Jones."

He muttered something about Ananias, and speeded up.

"But it was an awfully tight place," I pleaded. "Something had to be done; you must make allowances; it was the first thing that came into my head--and you must admit that it worked, Jones.

Didn't she send you the locket? Didn't she--?"

"What a prancing, show-of, matinee fool you've made me look!" he burst out. "I have an old mother to support. I have an increasing practice. I have already attracted some little attention in my chosen field--eye, ear and throat. A nice figure I'd cut, traipsing around battle-fields in a kimono, and looking for a kindly bullet to lay me low. If I were ever tempted by such a thing--which G.o.d forbid--wouldn't I prefer to spread bacilli on b.u.t.tered toast?"

"I never thought of that," I said humbly.

"I have known retail liars," he went on. "But I guess you are the only wholesaler in the business. When other people are content with ones and twos you get them out in grosses, packed for export!"

He went on slamming me like this for miles. Anybody else would have given him up as hopeless. I don't want to praise myself, but if I have one good quality it's staying power. I pleaded and argued, and expostulated and explained, with the determination of a man whose back is to the wall. I wasn't going to lose Freddy so long as there was breath in my body. However, it wasn't the least good in the world. Jones was as impervious as sole-leather, and as unshaken as a marble pillar.

Then I played my last card.

I told him the truth! Not the whole truth, of course, but within ten per cent of it. About Freddy, you know, and how she was determined not to marry before her elder sister, and how Eleanor's only preference seemed to be for him, and how with such a slender clue to work on I had engineered everything up to this point.

"If I have seemed to you intolerably prying and officious," I said, "well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests with you to give me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and you'll make me the happiest man alive; go forward, and--and--"

I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

His tread lost some of its elasticity. He was short-circuiting inside. Positively he began to look sort of sympathetic and human.

"Westoby," he said at last, in a voice almost of awe, "when they get up another world's fair you must have a building to yourself.

You're colossal, that's what you are!"

"I'm only in love," I said.

"Well, that's the love that moves mountains," he said. "If anybody had told me that I should . . . " He stopped irresolutely on the word.

"Oh, to think I have to stand for all that rot!" he bleated.

I was too wise to say a word. I simply motioned James to switch the car around and back up. I shooed Jones into the tonneau and turned the k.n.o.b on him. He snuggled back in the cushions, and smiled--yes, smiled--with a beautiful, blue-eyed, faraway, indulgent expression that warmed me like spring sunshine. Not that I felt absolutely safe even yet--of course I couldn't--but still--

We ran into Freddy and Eleanor at the lodge gates. I had already telephoned the former to expect us, so as to have everything fall out naturally when the time came. We stopped the car, and descended--Jones and I--and he walked straight off with Eleanor, while I side-stepped with Freddy.

She and I were almost too excited to talk.

It was now or never, you know, and there was an awfully solemn look about both their backs that was either rea.s.suring or alarming--we couldn't decide quite which. Freddy and I simply held our breath and waited.

Finally, after an age, Jones and Eleanor turned, still close in talk, still solemn and enigmatical, and drew toward us very slowly and deliberately. When they bad got quite close, and the tension was at the breaking point, Eleanor suddenly made a little rush, and, with a loud sob, threw her arms round Freddy's neck.

Jones fidgeted nervously about, and seemed to quail under my questioning eyes. It was impossible to tell whether things had gone right or not. I waited for him to speak . . . I saw words forming themselves hesitatingly on his lips . . . he bent toward me quite confidentially.

"Say, old man," he whispered, "is there any place around here where a fellow can buy an engagement ring?"