[Illustration:  “HERE WE WERE AT ANNECY".]

“We shall see,” murmured the Baron, as the Boy had murmured a few days ago; and behind this hint also I felt that there lurked some definite plan.

I had been to Aix-les-Bains years before, but it had not then occurred to me to visit Annecy, so near by.  It was the Boy who had suggested coming, and we had planned excursions up the lake, looking out on our guide-book maps various spots of historic or picturesque interest which we should see en route, especially Menthon, the birthplace of St. Bernard.  Now, here we were at Annecy, and in all the world there could not be a town more charming.  By the placid blue lake—­whose water, I am convinced, would still be the colour of melted turquoises if you corked it up in a bottle—­you could wander along shadowed paths, strewn with the gold coin of sunshine, through a park of dells as bosky-green as the fair forest of Arden.  In the quaint, old-fashioned streets of the town you were tempted to pause at every other step for one more snap-shot.  You longed to linger on the bridge and call up a passing panorama of historic pageants.  All these things the Boy and I would have done, and enjoyed peacefully, had we been alone, but Gaeta elected to find Annecy “dull.”  There was nothing to do but take walks, or sit by the lake, or drive for lunch to the Beau Rivage, or go out for an afternoon’s trip in one of the little steamers.  Beautiful?  Oh, yes; but quiet places made one want to scream or stand on one’s head when one had been in them a day or two.  It would be much more amusing at Aix.  There were the Casinos, and the fetes de nuit, with lots of coloured lanterns in the gardens, and fireworks, and music; and then, the baccarat!  That was amusing, if you liked, for half an hour, and when you were bored there was always something else.  She must really get to Aix, and see that the Villa Santa Lucia was in order.  We would promise—­promise—­promise to follow at once?  We would find our rooms at her villa ready, with flowers in them for a welcome, and we must not be too long on the way.

Gaeta left in the evening, the Boy and I seeing her off at the train; and twelve hours later we started for Chatelard, Joseph taking us away from the highroads—­which would have been perfect for Molly’s Mercedes—­along certain romantic by-paths which he knew from former journeys.  Conversation no longer made itself between us; we had to make it, and in the manufacturing process I mentioned my “friends who were motoring.”

“They may turn up before long now,” I said, “judging from the plans they wrote of in a letter I had from them at Aosta.  It’s just possible that they will pass through Aix.  You would like them.”

“I have run away from my own friends, and—­gone rather far to do it,” said the Boy.  “Yet I seem destined to meet other people’s.  It was with very different intentions that I set out on this journey of mine.”