This was the first time she had opened her lips during luncheon, except to eat with an almost nun-like abstemiousness; and now she broke silence to rescue a scheme which yesterday had excited her active disapproval. The girl, always interesting because of her unusual type of beauty, gained a new value in my eyes. She excited my curiosity, although her words were a practical revelation of her place in the trio. Why did she break a lance in our defence? and had she been torn from a convent to serve her rich relatives, that she should mention the "Sisters" in that familiar and tender tone? Had her beautiful white sails veered with a new wind, and did she _want_ to go with us, after all? Did she wish to tell the Prince in a sentence, how poor she really was? These were a few of the hundred and one questions which the Fair Maid of Destrey's charming and somewhat baffling personality set going in my mind by a word or two. I thought that the Prince's face fell, but Mrs. Kidder's contribution to the defence distracted my attention. "We don't expect to take _all_ our luggage," she said. "I suppose some things could be sent by rail from place to place to meet us, couldn't they?" "Of course," I assured her, before Dalmar-Kalm could enlarge upon the uncertainties of such an arrangement. "That's what is always done. And your maid could travel by rail too." "She is a Parisienne," exclaimed Mrs. Kidder, "and she's always saying she wouldn't leave France for twice the wages I pay." "Try her with three times," suggested Beechy. But Miss Destrey was speaking again. "As I said, it doesn't matter about Agnes. Aunt Kathryn and Beechy shan't miss her; and she never does anything for me." "What a pity," complained the Prince, "that my automobile is at the moment laid up for repairs. Otherwise I should have been only too delighted to take you three ladies to the world's end, if you had the wish. _It_ is not 'something less than twenty,' as Sir Ralph Moray describes his twelve-horse-power car, but is something _more_ than twenty, with a magnificently roomy Roi de Belge tonneau and accommodation for any amount of luggage on the roof. By the way, yours has at least a cover, I make no doubt, Sir Ralph?" "No," I was obliged to admit, my mouth somewhat dry--owing perhaps to the iced water. "No cover? How, then, do you propose to protect these ladies from the rain?" This with virtuous indignation flashing from his fierce eyes, and a gesture which defended three helpless feminine things from the unscrupulous machinations of a pair of villains. My ignorance of motor lore bereft me of a weapon with which to parry the attack, but Terry whipped out his sword at last.