Only the lowest curve of her flushed cheek was visible. Grapelike curls of warm brown shielded her eyes, but he remembered their astonishing blue and glanced with keen appreciation at her silken instep to strengthen the memory. When all was said, what pluck she had! How many girls would have skimmed so swiftly and surely down that hill, would have faced a danger so evident with such buoyant courage, would have smiled so comradely in the face of fear? What if her tongue were a little sharp? She was not the ordinary brainless twitterer of her age. And something more than brain had flashed and deepened in her eyes. . . . She was speaking. "Perhaps, my dear Mr. Tony," she responded affably--alas, too affably--"it is, after all, as well to remember that even the least fascinating of greybeards would be hardly likely to involve me in such a crisis!" The car rose to a large irregular stone that punctuated the already rough road, and Antony bounced angrily from his seat, descending with a shock that jarred his spine throughout its length. It seemed to him that the machinery clanked and laboured more heavily, that they were going a little more slowly; only a little, perhaps, but still more slowly. But he was too vexed to care if their progress were slow or quick. He loathed the pert, confident creature at his side from the bottom of his heart. Viewed in the sudden sultry heat of his feelings, what was her self-possession but brazen effrontery? Was such diabolic quickness of _riposte_ even creditable to her years and sex? He considered the situation briefly: why were they in their present plight? Because, to put the matter baldly, he had been misled by the statements of a young woman who had openly admitted herself in no condition to be held responsible for her words--a pretty state of things! Really, it was hardly . . . hardly . . . but she was speaking again. "Mr. Tony," she said softly (she had the knack of making a soft murmur rise above the clamour of the machinery), "please do not think, Mr. Tony, that I do not appreciate your courage, and--and sensibleness after it all happened! And I fully realise that it was partly my--that I--that if I had not----" "Not at all," he answered stiffly, taking pity in spite of himself at her evident embarrassment. "As you implied, the initial responsibility was all mine." But though his words were stiff, his heart had grown insensibly supple under the pressure of her voice. After all, what did her condition prove--that condition that had prompted their mad flight-- but her very innocence and ignorance of alcoholicstimulant? A very good showing, in these relaxed and indecorous days. We should always try to be just.