"You'd better go back," I said. "Put those things down and go back to
the car, in case we miss her ladyship's maid. Don't let her go off in
the wagonette."
"Very good, sir."
He put the luggage on a seat and ran back to the exit. Exactly
opposite to where we were standing was a first-class carriage. As the
guard's whistle was blown:
"Have you got my bag, Peter?" said a plaintive voice.
"Yes, m'dear," and Sir Peter and Lady Tagel passed down the platform.
We watched them greedily.
The train began to move.
"The last lap," said Berry. "Courage, my travel-stained comrades.
Where was it we broke down? Oh, yes, Scrota Gruff. Such a sweet name,
so full of promise, so--"
Then he took his head in and pulled up the window.
"Fancy you two being in the next carriage all the time," said Daphne.
"I expect Boy's introduced himself, Julia dear. Yes, I thought so.
Still for what it's worth, my brother--Lady Julia Lory."
Which is why she's 'my lady'. Though she always says it isn't.
CHAPTER X
PRIDE GOETH BEFORE
"Who is Silvia? What is she?
That all her swains commend he.
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be."
The song and its melody floated out into the night, away and over the
sleeping countryside. In no way breaking the silence; rising up out of
it, rather. It was as if Nature dreamed as she lay sleeping, a dream
clear-cut, melodious. Over all the moon hung full, turning the world
to silver. Never had music so fairy a setting.
"Then to Sylvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling,
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling
To her let us garlands bring."
Half-past eleven o'clock of a fine moonlit night, and I was alone with
the car all among the Carinthian Alps. It was for Fladstadt that I was
making. That was the Bairlings' nearest town. Their place, St.
Martin, lay twenty odd miles from Fladstadt. But in the town people
would show me the way. At St. Martin I should find Daphne and the
others, newly come from Vienna this afternoon. Friends of Jonah's, the
Bairlings. None of us others knew them.
At ten o'clock in the morning I had slid out of Trieste, reckoning to
reach Fladstadt in twelve hours. And, till I lost my way, I had come
well. I had lost it at half-past nine and only discovered that I had
lost it an hour later. It was too late to turn back then. I tried to
get on and across by by-roads--always a dangerous game. Just when I
was getting desperate I had chanced on a signpost pointing to the town
I sought. The next moment one of the tires had gone.
The puncture I did not mind, The car had detachable wheels, and one was
all ready, waiting to be used. But when I found that I had no
jack...Better men than I would have sworn. The imperturbable Jonah
would have stamped about the road. As for Berry, with no one there to
suffer his satire, suppressed enmity would have brought about a
collapse. He would probably have lost his memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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