"Oh, he's a count, is he?" said the waitress saucily. "My, isn't he mashed on the young one?" "Who wouldn't be?" declared Smith. "She's the sort of girl a fellow 'ud leave home for." "Fine feathers go a long way. There's as good as her in the world," came the retort, not without a favorable glance at Medenham. "Meanwhile the tea is getting cold," said he. "Dear me, you needn't hurry. Her ma is goin' to write half-a-dozen picture postcards. But what a voice! The old girl drowns the waterfall." The waitress flounced off. She was pretty, and no wandering chauffeur had ever before turned aside the arrows of her bright eyes so heedlessly. "Then you have seen Miss Vanrenen?" inquired Medenham, sipping his tea. "Ra-ther!" said Smith. "Saw her in Paris, at the Ritz, when my people sent me over there to learn the mechanism of this car. The Count was always hanging about, and I thought he wanted the old man to buy a Du Vallon, but it's all Lombard Street to a china orange that he was after the daughter the whole time. I don't blame him. She's a regular daisy. But you ought to know best. How do _you_ get on with her?" "Capitally." "Why did Dale and you swop jobs?" "Oh, a mere matter of arrangement," said Medenham, who realized that Smith would blurt out every item of information that he possessed if allowed to talk. "He's a corker, is Dale," mused the other. "I can do with a pint or two meself when the day's work is finished an' the car safely locked up for the night. But that Dale! he's a walkin' beer-barrel. Lord love a duck! what a soakin' he gev' me in Brighton. Some lah-di-dah toff swaggered into the garage that evenin', and handed Dale a fiver--five golden quidlets, if you please--which my nibs had won on a horse at Epsom. I must say, though, Dale did the thing handsome--quart bottles o' Bass opened every ten minutes. Thank you, my dear"--this to the waitress, "next to beer give me tea. Now, my boss, bein' a Frenchy, won't touch eether--wine an' corfee are his specials." "He seemed to be enjoying his tea when I caught sight of him in the garden a little while ago," said Medenham. "That's his artfulness, my boy. You wait a bit. You'll see something before you reach Bristol to-night; anyway, you'll hear something, which amounts to pretty much the same in the end." "They're just off to the caves," put in the girl. "While Mrs. Devar writes her postcards, I suppose?" said Medenham innocently. "What! Is that the old party with the hair? I thought she was the young lady's mother. She's gone with them. She looks that sort of meddler--not half. Two's company an' three's none is my motto, cave or no cave." She tried her most bewitching smile on Medenham this time. It was a novel experience to be the recipient of a serving-maid's marked favor, and it embarrassed him. Smith, his mouth full of currant bun, spluttered with laughter.