Then, as though to punish Jack, Mlle. Nadiboff asked: 

“You will hand me into the car, Mr. Hastings?”

Hal did so, taking the seat beside her in the tonneau.  Jack Benson, suppressing a twinkle that struggled to his eyes, closed the tonneau door, then stepped in on the front seat beside the chauffeur.

Despite her own cleverness, the young woman gave a slight gasp of astonishment over this swift arrangement.

“Decidedly, my young captain is not wholly, a fool,” she told herself.  “When I seek to snub him, he puts it past my power.  However, it may be that this young engineer will be better suited to my purpose.  I will study him.”

“Toot! toot!” The Farnum auto, getting away first, went past them, sounding its whistle while Mr. Farnum and Eph lifted their hats.

“Our gallant friend, the captain, must feel out of conceit with me,” laughed Mlle. Nadiboff to Hal.  “He prefers the chauffeur’s company to mine.  So we must console ourselves.”

Though he had not been able to hear any of the conversation, M. Lemaire, looking out from behind the lace curtains of a parlor window, had seen what had happened.

“Sara is doing better this morning,” he muttered to himself.  “Though why should she take two of the young men with her?  Ah, I see that she has the engineer at her side, while young Benson rides on the front seat.  Clever little woman!  She is going to make the young captain jealous!  Well enough does she know how to do that!”

Not quite so well pleased was the young woman herself, as the drive proceeded.  Though she did all in her power to charm Hal, and though she did succeed in interesting him, she could not draw the boy out into much conversation.  Hal usually had little to say.  Though he answered Mlle. Nadiboff courteously from time to time, he did not utter many words.  Indeed, he appeared to be thinking of something far remote from the present scene.

“Are you bored, Mr. Hastings?  Does the sound of my voice annoy you?” asked Mlle. Nadiboff, as the auto flew over the quiet country roads inland from Spruce Beach.

“Good gracious, no!” replied Hal.

“Then why do you say so little?”

“Because you say it so much better, Mademoiselle.”

“But flattery will never take the place of interested conversation.”

“Engineers don’t talk much,” protested Hal.

“So they think a great deal.  Of what were you thinking?”

“Oh?” murmured Hal.  “Oh, I was thinking of my engine, I guess.”

Mlle. Nadiboff bit her lips in secret rage.  If she had felt that she was doing poorly with Captain Jack Benson, evidently she was now seated beside an absent-minded sphinx.

“What place is that over there?” inquired Hal, coming out of a brown study as he felt some reproach in the stiffening attitude of his companion.