"Cut through here and drive toward the Training Station," she commanded, "and we 'll think about seven o'clock, McCall." Sara, who had been vigorously nodding and screwing up her eyes at Armitage's back, laughed musically. "Anne," she said, "your chauffeur is badly trained as to manners. Really, he suggests a man graduated from the Fifth Avenue buses, don't you know." "You must make allowances, Sara; he's only an improvised chauffeur." "I know; but he 's hardly of the chauffeur type. Now as a detective--can't you imagine him in a pair of false whiskers?" "I 've always suspected him of a wig," Anne giggled, "or reinforced putees." With a quick jerking of levers, Armitage stopped the car. He turned around, looked at Sara quietly for a moment and then at Anne. Something in her face told him what he wanted to know. "Sara," he said, "for a first-class, large gauge sieve, I commend you to any one." CHAPTER XVI THE ADVENTURE MATERIALIZES Sara bowed with mock humility and then raising her head, looked Anne straight in the eyes. "Miss Wellington, I present Mr. Armitage, an officer--a lieutenant, I think--of the United States Navy." Anne sat silent for a second and then stretched her hand out over the seat, laughing. "What a situation!" she exclaimed. "I am pleased to know that my 'Dying Gladiator'--" she paused, and looked inquiringly at Armitage, who had taken and released her hand in silence. "I don't wish to be impertinent," she continued at length, flushing vividly, "but I feel it is my right to know why you posed as a physical instructor and entered service in our house. Surely I--you--you must have had some good reason." "Anne," Sara hastened to relieve Armitage of apparent confusion, or irritation, she could not tell which, "naturally his reasons for the deceit were excellent." She looked at her friend with a significant raising of the brows. "I--those reasons still exist, do they not, Jack?" She scowled admonishingly at him. Armitage, who plainly diagnosed Sara's drift, was smiling broadly, as Anne looked at him with a curious, wondering expression. "They still exist--decidedly, Sara," he said. He paused for a second, and then continued in the lamest sort of way, "Will you let me be a driver just a little while longer, Miss Wellington? It is really important. When I explain everything you 'll understand. Of course, I 've been governed by the best motives." Anne was somewhat more dignified. "Certainly, I have not the slightest objection to having a naval officer for a driver--if you have none. I must say, though, I shall be eager to learn the reasons for your rather--rather unconventional behavior." "You shall be the first one to know," replied Jack, with quite a different meaning in mind than that which Sara Van Valkenberg read, whose eyes, by the way, were dancing with excitement. There was an awkward silence for a moment and Jack was turning to the wheel when Anne leaned forward.