My Friend the Chauffeur | Page 9

till one had been
acquainted a little longer. Well, anyway, if you could dine with us,
without your friend--"
I also thanked her and said that matters would arrange themselves more

easily if Barrymore and I were together.
"Then can you both lunch with us to-morrow at one o'clock?"
Quickly, before Terry could find time to object if he meditated doing so,
I accepted with enthusiasm.
Farewells were exchanged, and we had walked to the gate with the
ladies--I heading the procession with Mrs. Kidder, Terry bringing up
the rear with the two girls--when my companion stopped suddenly. "Oh,
there's just one thing I ought to mention before you come to see us at
the hotel," she said, with a little catch of the breath. Evidently she was
embarrassed. "I introduced myself to you as Mrs. Kidder, because I'm
used to that name, and it comes more natural. I keep forgetting always,
but--but perhaps you'd better ask at the hotel for the Countess Dalmar. I
guess you're rather surprised, though you're too polite to say so, my
being an American and having that title."
"Not at all," I assured her. "So many charming Americans marry titled
foreigners, that one is almost more surprised--"
"But I haven't married a foreigner. Didn't I tell you that I'm a widow?
No, the only husband I ever had was Simon P. Kidder. But--but I've
bought an estate, and the title goes with it, so it would seem like a kind
of waste of money not to use it, you see."
"It's the estate that goes with the title, for you, Mamma," said Beechy
(she invariably pronounces her parent "Momma"). "You know you just
love being a Countess. You're happier than I ever was with a new doll
that opened and shut its eyes."
"Don't be silly, Beechy. Little girls should be seen and not heard. As I
was saying, I thought it better to use the title. That was the advice of
Prince Dalmar-Kalm, of whom I've bought this estate in some part of
Austria, or I think, Dalmatia--I'm not quite sure about the exact
situation yet, as it's all so recent. But to get used to bearing the title, it
seemed best to begin right away, so I registered as the Countess Dalmar
when we came to the Cap Martin Hotel a week ago."

"Quite sensible, Countess," I said without looking at
Beechy-of-the-Attendant-Imps. "I know Prince Dalmar-Kalm well by
reputation, though I've never happened to meet him. He's a very
familiar figure on the Riviera." (I might have added, "especially in the
Casino at Monte Carlo," but I refrained, as I had not yet learned the
Countess's opinion of gambling as an occupation.) "Did you meet him
here for the first time?"
"No; I met him in Paris, where we stopped for a while after we crossed,
before we came here. I was so surprised when I saw him at our hotel
the very day after we arrived! It seemed such a coincidence, that our
only acquaintance over on this side should arrive at the same place
when we did."
"When is a coincidence not a coincidence?" pertly inquired Miss
Beechy. "Can you guess that conundrum, Cousin Maida?"
"You naughty girl!" exclaimed her mother.
"Well, you like me to be childish, don't you? And it's childish to be
naughty."
"Come, we'll go home at once," said the Countess, uneasily; and
followed by the tall girl and the little one, she tottered away, sweeping
yards of chiffon.
"I do hope she won't wear things like that when she's in--ahem!--our
motor-car," I remarked sotto voce, as Terry and I stood at the gate,
watching, if not speeding, our parting guests.
"I doubt very much if she'll ever be there," prophesied Terry, looking
handsome and thoroughly Celtic, wrapped in his panoply of gloom.
"Come away in, while I see if I can find you 'The harp that once
through Tara's halls,' to play your own funeral dirge on," said I. "You
look as if it would be the only thing to do you any good."
"It would certainly relieve my feelings," replied Terry, "but I could do

that just as well by punching your head, which would be simpler. Of all
the infernal--"
"Now don't be brutal!" I implored. "You were quite pleasant before the
ladies. Don't be a whited sepulchre the minute their backs are turned.
Think what I've gone through since I was alone with you last, you great
hulking animal."
"Animal yourself!" Terry had the ingratitude to retort. "What have I
gone through, I should like to ask?"
"I don't know what you've gone through, but I know how you
behaved," I returned, as we walked back to the magnolia tree. "Like a
sulky barber's block--I mean a barber's sulky block. No, I--but it doesn't
signify.