“I don’t believe you.”

I was wrong.  But there was a waggon full of logs and a limousine full of children, which were rather worse.

We proceeded amid faint cries of indignation.

“What do you do,” said I, “when you come to a level-crossing with the gates shut? "

“I don’t,” said Miss Childe.

I was still working this out, when my companion slowed down and brought the car to a standstill in front of a high white gate bearing the legend “Private,” and keeping a thin brown road that ran for a little way between fair meadows before plunging into a swaying beechwood.

“Anything the matter?” I asked.

Miss Childe laid a hand on my arm.

“Be an angel,” she said in a caressing voice.

“Certainly,” said I.  “With or without wings?”

“And open the gate, so that——­”

“I know,” I cried, “I know.  Don’t tell me.  ’So that the automobile may pass unobstructed between the gate-posts.’  Am I right?”

“How on earth did you know?”

“Instinct.”  I open the door and stepped backwards into the road.  “I’m always like this before eating kidneys,” I added.

As I re-entered the car—­

“Now we can let her out,” said Miss Childe contentedly.  “It’s such a relief to feel there’s no speed limit,” she added, with a ravishing smile.

As soon as I could trust my voice—­

“I shouldn’t think your chauffeurs live very long, do they?”

“On the contrary, they grow old in our service.”

“I can believe you,” said I heartily.  “I myself have aged considerably since we left Highlands.”

By this time we had flung through and out of the beechwood, and the car was storming past stretches of gleaming bracken, all red and gold and stuck with spreading oak trees that stood sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of two or three together, and made you think of staring cattle standing knee-deep in a golden flood.

The car tore on.

“We’re coming to where I used to gather the mushrooms,” my companion announced.

“Barefoot?”

“Sometimes.”

“Because of the dew?”

She nodded.

I sighed.  Then—­

“Up to now I’ve been feeling like a large brandy and a small soda,” I said.  “Now I feel like a sonnet.  What is your name, and who gave you that name?”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary.  I’ve seen a sonnet ’To a lady upon her birthday.’”

“As you please.  Shall I post it to you or pin it to a tree in Battersea Park?”

Miss Childe nodded her head in the direction in which we were going.

“That,” she said, “is the house.”

At the end of a long avenue of elms I could see the bold flash of windows which the afternoon sun had set afire, and a moment later we swept by the front of an old red mansion and round into a paved court that lay on its farther side.