The Motormaniacs | Page 2

of a little slipper.
"I thought all the while it was to be Captain Cartwright--that Englishman with the eyeglass."
"I thought so, too."
"I read of the engagement in the papers, and I can not recollect that it was ever contradicted or anything."
"Oh, it wasn't," she said. "Ax least, not till later--lots later."
"I suppose I ought to hurriedly talk about something else," I remarked.
"You needn't feel like that at all," she returned. "The captain and I are very good friends--only be doesn't play in my yard any more."
"I can't remember Gerard Malcolm very well," I went on. "Wasn't he rather tall and thin, with a big nose and a hidden-away sister who was supposed to be an invalid?"
"That's one way of describing him."
"I'd rather like to hear yours."
"Oh, I'm quite silly about him."
"That must have happened later," I said. "It certainly didn't show at the time."
"Everything must have a beginning, you know."
"That's what I want to get at,--what made you get a transfer from the captain?"
"It all happened through an automobile," she said.
"Oh, an automobile!" I exclaimed.
"It was an awfully up-to-date affair altogether!"
"I suppose it ran away and he caught it by the bridle at the risk of his life?"
"No, he didn't stop it," she said. "He made it go."
"It isn't everybody can do that with an automobile."
"You ought to have seen the poor captain turn the crank!" she exclaimed, with a little laugh of recollection.
"So the captain was there, too?" I said. "He never struck me as the kind of man that could make anything go, exactly."
"Oh, he didn't," she said.
"I am surprised that he even tried."
"But Gerard is a perfectly beautiful mechanic. You ought to see how respectful they are to him at the garage--especially, when there's a French car in trouble."
"They are respectful to me, too."
"That's only because you're rich," she returned.
"I own a French car and drive it myself," I said, "and--but I see there's no use of my saying anything."
"It's genius with Gerard," she said. "It makes one solemn to think how much he knows about gas engines."
"So that's how he did it!" I observed. "Different men have different ways to charm, I suppose. I don't remember that looks were his long suit."
"If you were a woman, that would be called catty."
"Oh, I don't want to detract from him," I said. "He used to dance with wall-flowers and they said he was an angel to his sister."
"It was that sister who was the real trouble," she said meditatively.
"What had she to do with it?" I asked.
"Oh, just being there--being his sister--being an invalid, yon know."
"No, I don't know, at all."
"The trouble is, I'm telling you the end of the story first."
"Let's start at the very beginning."
"In real life beginnings and middles and ends of things are all so jumbled up."
"When I went away," I said, "everybody thought it was Harry Clayton, with the Englishman as a strong second, and there wasn't any Malcolm about it."
"Do yon remember the flurry in Great Westerns?" she asked.
"That's surely the beginning of something else," I remarked,
"No, it's the beginning of this."
I've a faint memory they jumped up to something tremendous, didn't they?"
"It was the biggest thing of its kind ever seen on Wall Street."
"Wall Street!" I exclaimed. "The voice is Jess Hardy's, but--"
"Well, you can't buy a Manton car without a little trouble."
"Or twenty-five hundred dollars in a certified check."
"It's nearer three thousand, with acetylene lamps, top, baskets, extra tires, French tooter, freight, insurance, extra tools and a leather coat."
"You've got the thing down fine," I said. "You speak like a folder."
"Well, I didn't have any three thousand dollars," she continued, undisturbed; "all I had was an allowance of a hundred a month, a grand piano, a horse (you remember my, blood mare, Gee-whizz?) a lot of posters, and a father."
"He seems to me the biggest asset of the lot," I observed.
"I thought so, too, till I tried him," she said. "He had the automobile fever, too--only the negative kind--wanted to shoot them with a gun."
"Surely it's dangerous enough already, without adding that."
"For a time I didn't know what to do," she went on. "I thought I'd have to try the stage, or write one of those Marie Bashkirtseff books that shock people into buying them by thousands--and whenever I saw a Manton on the road my eyes would almost pop out of my head. Then, when I was almost desperate, Mr. Collenquest came on a visit to papa."
"I see now why you said Wall Street," I remarked.
"Mr. Collenquest is an old friend of papa's," she continued. "They were at the same college, and both belonged to what they call 'the wonderful old class of seventy-nine,' and there's nothing in the world papa wouldn't do for Mr. Collenquest or Mr. Collenquest for papa. I had never seen him before and had rather