"I’ll go on with the other car," said Penelope. She took her place by the most unrecognizable portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden and terrific cloud of dust. "Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith. *CHAPTER XI.* It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from London in a motor-car, and was carried off by a motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore a peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and gigantic goggles, making him resemble a diver or a cuttlefish. It was Monday when she returned to town in a motor-car with Geordie Smith. And all the way into town Geordie said: "Blessed if I’d ha’ thought it. I always reckoned it would have been one of the others. I lose money on this, but if I do, it warms the cockles of my heart to see my lady happy. Bless her sweet face, I wish she’d leave the blooming world alone and have a good time. I never set eyes on such an aggravatin’ beautiful sweet lady for interferin’ with men. Just as if the queen herself could alter our ways! Women always gas that they can or mean to, and they’re just like hens with men for ducks." If he had been a classical scholar he might have remembered Ariadne up to her knees in the sea, with her lover on the deep in a boat. "When I saw who it was at Moat House," said Geordie, "you could have knocked me endwise with something less than a steel spanner. And that horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took aback. For somehow we never spotted him as likely to make the non-stop run. Humph, humph!" And he left Penelope at her house just in time for afternoon tea. As she lay on the sofa she handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying: "I wish you would send out cards to all these people for Thursday night." "That’s very short notice, darling," said Chloe. "They’ll come," said Pen. And when Chloe looked at the list she found it included only Pen’s particular friends, her most bitter relations, and the whole of the "horde." "I wonder—" said Chloe, and she wondered somewhat later with Ethel. "Is it?" said Ethel. "Can it be?" cried Chloe. "It can’t be," said Ethel. "Who knows?" asked Chloe. "She is so plain and so simple and straightforward that there is no certainty about anything she does. I understand the wicked and the weak, but Penelope—" She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out the cards. And Penelope was trying "to a degree," as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came helter-skelter in a hansom. "You’ll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him. Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood straddle-legs. He stared at her. What was hidden from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the simplicity of this boy. "Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I’ll stick by you till death. But ain’t you going to tell me who it is?" "Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly. "Him," said Bob. "Pen, you’ve been and gone and done it."