"I have liked very few of my stepmother's friends," she answered, "any more than I like the life which I have been compelled to lead since I left school." "You would prefer to be back there, perhaps?" he remarked, a little sarcastically. "I should," she answered. "It was prison of a sort, but one was at least free to choose one's friends." "If," he suggested, "you could make up your mind that I was a person at any rate to be tolerated, I think that I could make things easier for you. Your stepmother is always inclined to follow my advice, and I could perhaps get her to take you to quieter places, where you could lead any sort of life you liked." "Thank you," she answered. "Before very long I shall be my own mistress. Until then I must make the best of things. If you wish to do something for me you can answer a question." "Ask it, then," he begged at once. "If I can, I shall be only too glad." "You can tell me something which since the other night," she said, "has been worrying me a good deal. You can tell me who it was that drove Lord Ronald to the station the morning he went away. I thought that he sent his chauffeur away two days ago, and that there was no one here who could drive the car." Forrest was momentarily taken aback. He answered, however, with scarcely any noticeable hesitation. "I did," he answered. "I didn't make much of a job of it, and the car has been scarcely fit to use since, but I managed it somehow, or rather we did between us. He came and knocked me up about five o'clock, and begged me to come and try." She looked at him with peculiar steadfastness. There was nothing in her eyes or her expression to suggest belief or disbelief in his words. "But I have heard you say so often," she remarked, "that you knew absolutely nothing about the mechanism of a car, and that you would not drive one for anything in the world." He nodded. "I am not proud of my skill," he answered, "but I did try at Homburg once. There was nothing else to do, and I had some idea of buying a small car for touring in the Black Forest. If you doubt my words, you can ask any of the servants. They saw me bring the car up the avenue later in the morning." "It was being dragged up," she reminded him. "The engine was not going." He looked a little startled. "It had only just gone wrong," he said. "I had brought it all the way from Lynn." She rose to her feet. "Thank you for answering my question," she said. "I am going for a walk now." He leaned quite close to her. "Alone?" he asked suggestively. She swept away without even looking at him. He shrugged his shoulders as he resumed his seat. "I am not sure," he said reflectively, as he lit a cigarette, "that Ena will find that young woman so easy to deal with as she imagines!" CHAPTER XVII