We flashed on, passing the kilometre stones in quick succession.  At pretty little Mantes we crossed the Seine, and presently came into the France I knew in my old, conventional way; for we passed St. Germain, and so on to Paris by Le Pecq, Reuil, the long descent to the Pont de Suresnes (which seemed to hold laughable memories for Jack and Molly), through the Bois down the Champs Elysees, and to our hotel in the Place Vendome, where Jack announced that we had had a run of 130 miles.  Winston and I flattered ourselves that Paris had few secrets from us (though I don’t doubt that five minutes’ wrestling with Baedeker might have made us feel small), and we had no wish to linger at this season.  But, if we were deaf to the sirens who sing in the Rue de la Paix, Molly was not.  She had discovered that there were some “little things she wanted, which she really thought she had better buy.”  I fancy that the little things were shoes; anyhow, it was to be Jack’s blissful privilege to help her choose them, and he was of opinion (probably founded on experience) that it would take nearly all day.  I decided to call on a man at the Embassy, ask him out to lunch, and do him very well.  I had not seen him for years, and he had bored me to extinction the last time we met; but it had come to my ears that he had been in love with Helen Blantock, and proposed to her, so I felt that there would be a certain charm in his society.  Later, there was a “little thing” which I, too, wished to buy (though I did not intend to seek it in the Rue de la Paix), and then I was to meet Molly and Jack about tea time at our hotel, in time to arrange for dining out somewhere.

After all, the man was more boring than ever, as he had got himself engaged to another girl, and insisted upon talking of her, instead of Helen.  My one pleasure in the day, therefore, lay in purchasing the article of which I had fixed my mind after driving yesterday.  This was a water pistol, warranted to keep dogs at bay, in motoring.  I had some difficulty in obtaining it, and when I did, it was expensive, but I was rewarded by the thought of the pleasure my acquisition would afford my friends.  The wild dashes of dogs in front of the wheels gave Molly such frequent starts of anguish, that I wondered Jack had not thought of this simple preventive, and I congratulated myself on having remembered an advertisement of the weapon which I had seen in some magazine.  It was, I thought, rather clever of me to remember, since in those days motors had been no affair of mine; but then, the illustration had been striking, in every sense of the word.  It had represented a lovely girl, with hair unbound, saving from destruction the automobile in which she sat with several companions, by shooting a fierce blast of water into the face of a huge beast well-nigh as terrible as Cerberus.  I determined to surprise Jack and Molly, when the right time should come; accordingly, the moment I reached our hotel, I filled the pistol with water, and placed it, thus loaded, in the pocket of my motoring coat ready for emergencies.  Hardly had I made this preparation for the future when I discovered on the table a note addressed to me in Winston’s handwriting.