Kirke Waldron, understanding intuitively the position as come-between in which he had been placed in Ridgeway Jordan’s big automobile by Julius’s misreading of the railway timetable, and, as far as that part of the situation was concerned, wishing himself a hundred miles away, was also keenly alive to that which the gods—­and Julius—­had given him by seating him beside Dorothy.  As the car hummed down the long trail from the inn he played his part with all the discretion of which he was capable; and he had learned many things since the days when he had fallen over his own awkward feet on the way to the blackboard.  He talked a little with Dorothy—­not too much; he talked considerably more with Ridgeway Jordan—­but not more than was necessary; the greater part of the time he was silent with the rest, as was most fitting of all in the summer moonlight and the balmy night air.

Dorothy, sitting beside him, reminded Julius, as from time to time he glanced contentedly back at her from, his place beside the chauffeur, of a particularly demure kitten in the presence of two well-bred but definitely intentioned hunting dogs.  She was very quiet, and only now and then he caught a word or two from her or the low sound of her attractive contralto laugh.

Just once, as the car whirled through a brightly lighted square in a small village where a country festival of some sort was in progress, he saw her take advantage of a moment when everybody’s attention was caught by the scene, and look suddenly and absorbedly at Kirke Waldron’s face in profile.  But when Ridge Jordan whirled about upon his folding seat, to call her attention to the antics of a clown in the square, she was ready for him with a smile and a gay word of assent.  Julius laughed to himself.  There was no question that Kirke’s face, even in profile, was one to make Ridge’s look insignificant.  As for the man himself—­

The car, rushing on through the summer night, its powerful searchlights sending ahead a long, clear lane of safety where the road was straight, but making the dark walls on either side resolve into black pockets of mystery where the curves came, approached one of those long, winding descents, followed by a second abrupt turn and a corresponding ascent, which are—­or should be—­the terror of motorists.  All good drivers, at such places, hurling themselves through the darkness, sound warning signals, lest other cars, less cautious, be rushing toward them without sound of their coming.

Jordan’s chauffeur, sending his car on down the winding hill with hardly appreciable loss of speed, took this precaution, and the mellow but challenging notes of his horn were winding a long warning when the thing happened which was to happen.  No accident, but the horror of one which comes so close that it all but seizes its victims, and leaves them weak and shuddering with what might have been.