To-day the Velox had its usual effect on him. At Vezza, when they started, he was all shyness and submission. He assented meekly to all the arrangements that Mrs. Aldwinkle made and remade every five minutes, however contradictory and impossible. He did not venture to suggest that Irene should come in his car; it was through no good management of his own, but by the mere luck of Mrs. Aldwinkle’s final caprice before the actual moment of starting, that he did in fact find her sitting next him when at last they moved off from before the palace doors. At the back sat Mr. Falx, in solitude, surrounded by suit-cases. To him Lord Hovenden had even dutifully promised that he would never go more than five and twenty miles an hour. Pedestrian slavishness could hardly go further. Heavily loaded, Mrs. Aldwinkle’s limousine started first. Miss Elver, who had begged to be granted this special favour, sat in front, next the chauffeur. An expression of perfect and absolute bliss irradiated her face. Whenever the car passed any one by the roadside, she made a shrill hooting noise and waved her handkerchief. Luckily she was unaware of the feelings of disgust and indignation which her conduct aroused in the chauffeur; he was English and enormously genteel, he had the reputation of his country and his impeccable car to keep up. And this person waved handkerchiefs and shouted as though she were on a char-à-banc. Miss Elver even waved at the cows and horses, she shouted even to the cats and the chickens. In the body of the car sat Mrs. Aldwinkle, Mrs. Chelifer, Chelifer and Mr. Cardan. Calamy and Miss Thriplow had decided that they had no time to go to Rome and had been left—without a word of objection on Mrs. Aldwinkle’s part—at the palace. The landscape slid placidly past the windows. Mr. Cardan and Mrs. Chelifer talked about traditional games. Meanwhile, a couple of hundred yards behind, Lord Hovenden disgustfully sniffed the dusty air. “How intolerably slowly old Ernest drives!” he said to his companion. “Aunt Lilian doesn’t allow him to do more than thirty miles an hour,” Irene explained. Hovenden snorted derisively. “Firty! But must we eat veir filthy dust all ve way?” “Perhaps you might drop back a bit,” Irene suggested. “Or perhaps we might pass vem?” “Well ...” said Irene doubtfully. “I don’t think we ought to make poor Aunt Lilian eat our dust.” “She wouldn’t eat it for long, if old Ernest is only allowed to do firty.” “Well, in that case,” said Irene, feeling that her duty towards Aunt Lilian had been done, “in that case....” Lord Hovenden accelerated. The road was broad, flat and straight. There was no traffic. In two minutes Mrs. Aldwinkle had eaten her brief, unavoidable meal of dust; the air was clear again. Far off along the white road, a rapidly diminishing cloud was all that could be seen of Lord Hovenden’s Velox.