Mrs. King made no opposition, or none which her son thought best to convey to the Burnses, and the trip was arranged.

“Is there a good hotel in the place?” Ellen asked.

“No hotel within miles—­nor anything else.  We’re to stay overnight with the family.  You won’t mind.  They can put us up pretty comfortably, even if not just as we’re accustomed to be.”  Burns’s eyes were twinkling, and he refused to say more on the subject.

It did not matter.  It was early May, and the world was a wilderness of budding life, and to go motoring seemed the finest way possible to get into sympathy with spring at her loveliest.  And although Ellen would have much preferred to drive alone with her husband in his own car, she found herself anticipating the affair, as it was now arranged, with not a little curiosity to stimulate her interest.  Mrs. Alexander King, for her son’s sake, was sure to be a complaisant and agreeable companion, and Ellen was glad to feel that such a pleasure might come her way.

“This is great stuff!” exulted Jordan King early on Thursday morning as the big, shining car, standing before Burns’s door, received its full complement of passengers.  “Mother and I are tremendously honoured, aren’t we, mother?”

“Even though we had the audacity to invite ourselves and ask for this magnificent car?” Burns inquired, grasping Mrs. Alexander King’s gloved hand, and smiling at her as her delicate face was lifted to him with a look of really charming greeting.  He knew well enough that she liked him in spite of certain pretty plain words he had said to her in the past, and he had prepared himself to make her like him still better on this journey together.  “I’m the one who is responsible, you know.  I’ve merely broken out in a new place.”

“We appreciate your caring to include us in your party,” Mrs. King said cordially.  “The car is all too little used, for Jordan prefers his own, and I go about mostly in the small coupe.  I have never taken so long a drive as you plan, and it will doubtless be a pleasant experience.  I see so little of my son I am happy to be with him on such a trip.”

“Altogether we’re mightily pleased with the whole arrangement,” declared Jordan King, regarding Mrs. Burns with high approval.  “Mother, did you ever see a more distinguished-looking pair?”

“In spite of our brown faces?” Ellen challenged him gayly.

“My wife’s face simply turns peachy when she tans.  I look like an Indian,” observed Burns, bestowing certain professional luggage where it would be most out of the way.

“That’s it; you’ve said it.  Great Indian Chief go make big medicine for sick squaw; take along whole wigwam; wigwam tickled to death to go!” And King settled himself with an air of complete satisfaction.