That is the way we have been travelling for a week--flying. Sometimes Gascan, the silent, takes the wheel, and we roll easily along at legal speed, not at all to keep within the absurd law, but to quiet our nerves with a smoke, to rest our eyes on the blue sky and the stately clouds, and our ears with the music of the wood and meadow. Then Pearl will take command, Pearl, all goggled and armored, all enwrapped in dust cloth and ashes till she would seem an animated mummy instead of the fairest girl in town. With her eyes intent on the road, intent on the spot a mile ahead where we are to be an instant later, and mine intent on her as she sits beside me, strong, alert, resourceful, we go at top speed, a mad pace, for miles and miles and miles, running away from the law and the world. We forget them all, all the Mints and Bumpschuses, the Wherrys and Lites, the Nocastles and Nothinghams, all the smart folk and noble folk with whom God and Mrs. Radigan have seen fit to cast our lot in the past few years. Sometimes we forget even John and Sally, but that is only in the excitement of the road when we are hurling ourselves over hill and valley. When evening comes and Gascan has unloaded the car, and dinner comes, and Pearl and I sit over coffee and a cigarette, she will blow a smoke ring and say, as she watches it rise into the darkness: "I wonder what Sally is doing now." "Reading her novel to Lord Algernon Fitznit," I will venture. "Or to Green," Pearl will say with a quiet smile. "Or preparing for Newport," I will suggest. "And planning the donkey-dinner," Pearl will laugh. "She was to give a fair for the hospital, you may remember," I say, "and she told me distinctly that she proposed to spend almost all her time in church-work." "After the racing season," Pearl explains. "You know she has started a stable with Constance Wherry, and promises to give to the church all she makes in the ring." "Their colors?" I inquire. "Gold," Pearl answers; "all gold with narrow silver hoops--and the horses entered by 'Mr. Nagidar,' the new firm's name and 'Radigan' backward." Then I will raise my glass and clink it gently over the table with Pearl's. "To Mr. Nagidar, success," I say. A sip. Up go the glasses again, and I suggest: "To Mrs. Radigan--yesterday in Kansas City, to-day the smartest woman in town, to-morrow the patron saint of Society." "But Sally was never so enthusiastic over you," Pearl says, resting her chin on her clinched fists as she leans on the table and smiles at me. "Remember Plumstone Smith and the Duke of Nocastle--even Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit." "I prefer to forget them," I exclaim, "and will remember only that but for Mrs. Radigan I should never have met Pearl Veal!" "Ve-al," Pearl corrects me laughingly. "Thank Heaven, I have at last got rid of that dreadful name. People simply would not help me out with the French pronunciation." "Names are made in heaven--like marriages," I aver, lighting a cigar.