Prince or Chauffeur? Part 15

"Thanks!" Muck left beaming, searching for his disgruntled brother--and Armitage had made a friend.

A minute later Royal, or Muck, as his nickname seemed to be, thrust his head into the garage. "You 're not going to say anything to mother about the cigarettes, are you?"

"That's the best guess you ever made," smiled Armitage. "You and I 'll settle that, won't we?"

"Rather," replied the boy, who departed with a nod.

"Well, you 've done it," said Ryan, gazing at Armitage admiringly.

"Master Ronald will raise h.e.l.l!"

Armitage shook his head.

"I don't care, I just had to devil that rooster. He was insufferable.

I--"

The telephone bell rang, and Ryan, with a significant I-told-you-so grimace took up the receiver. A second later a smile of relief lighted his face.

"Very well. Thank you, sir," he said, and turned to Armitage.

"The butler, Mr. Buchan, says that Miss Wellington would have you bring out her car at once. She don't want any footman."

Armitage arose with a thrill which set his ears tingling, cranked the motor, and within a minute was rolling out of the garage.

CHAPTER XI

THE DYING GLADIATOR

She was waiting, when Armitage, who was leaning back in his seat in the most professional manner, shut off power under the _porte cochere_ and glanced at her for directions.

"To Mrs. Van Valkenberg's," she said. "Do you know where she lives?"

"No, I don't, Miss Wellington."

"No matter, I 'll direct you."

As they entered the Ocean Drive through an archway of privet, Miss Wellington indicated a road which dived among the hills and disappeared.

"Drive quite slowly," she said.

It was a beautiful road, dipping and rising, but hidden at all times by hills, resplendent with black and yellow and purple gorse, or great gray bowlders, so that impressions of Scotch moorlands alternated with those of an Arizona desert. The tang of September was in the breeze; from the moorlands which overlooked the jagged Brenton reefs came the faint aroma of burning sedge; from the wet distant cliff a saline exhalation was wafted. It was such a morning as one can see and feel only on the island of Newport.

As an additional charm to Anne Wellington, there was the tone of time about it all. From childhood she had absorbed all these impressions of late Summer in Newport; they had grown, so to speak, into her life, had become a part of her nature. She drew a deep breath and leaned forward.

"Stop here a moment, will you please."

They were at the bottom of a hollow with no sign of habitation about, save the roof of a villa which perched upon a rocky eminence, half a mile to one side.

"Will you get out and lift the radiator cover and pretend to be fixing something, McCall? I want to talk to you."

Without a word, Jack left his seat, went to the tool box and was soon viewing the internal economy of the car, simulating search for an electrical hiatus with some fair degree of accuracy.

The girl bent forward, her cheek suffused but a humorous smile playing about her face.

"McCall," she said, "I feel I should a.s.sure you at the outset that I am quite aware of certain things."

Armitage glanced at her and then quickly lowered his eyes. She gazed admiringly at his strong, clean face and the figure sharply defined by the close-fitting livery.

"Your name is not McCall and I have not the slightest idea that you are by profession a physical instructor, or a driver either."

Armitage unscrewed a wrench and then screwed the jaws back into their place.

"We are what conditions make us, Miss Wellington," he said.

"Yes, that is true," she replied, "but tell me truthfully. Did you seek employment here only because of my--of my interest in--I mean, because of the note I wrote, or did you come because my note put you in the way of obtaining a needed position?"

Armitage started to speak and then stopped short. "Oh," he said finally, "I really needed the position."

The girl gazed at him a moment. Armitage, bending low, could see a patent leather pump protruding from the scalloped edge of her skirt, tapping the half-opened door of the tonneau.

"You will then pardon me," she said, "if I call to your mind the fact that you are now employed as driver of my car: I feel I have the right to ask you who you really are."

"Your mother--Mrs. Wellington, catechised me quite fully and I don't think I could add anything to what I told her."

"And what was that? I was not present during the inquisition," said the girl.

Armitage laughed.

"Why, I told her I was Jack McCall, that I came from Louisville, that I had trained the Navy eleven of 19--."

An exclamation from the girl interrupted him and he looked up. She was staring at him vacantly, as though ransacking the depths of memory.

"The Navy eleven of 19--," she said thoughtfully. Then she smiled.

"McCall, you are so clever, really."

Armitage's eyes fell and he fumbled with the wrench.

"Thank you," he said, dubiously.

"Not at all, McCall," she said sweetly. "Listen," speaking rapidly, "I have always been crazy over football. Father was at Yale, '79, you know." She studied his face again, and then nodded. "When I was a girl, still in short dresses, father took a party of girls in Miss Ellis's school to Annapolis in his private car to see a Harvard-Navy game. A cousin of mine, Phil Disosway, was on the Harvard team. They were much heavier than Annapolis; but the score was very close, particularly because of the fine work of one of the Navy players who seemed to be in all parts of the field at once. I have forgotten his name,"--Miss Wellington gazed dreamily over the hills,--"but I can see him now, diving time after time into the interference and bringing down his man; catching punts and running--it was all such a hopeless fight, but such a brave, determined one." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Really, I was quite carried away. As girls will, I--we, all of us--wove all sort of romantic theories concerning him. Toward the end of the game we could see him giving in under the strain and at last some coaches took him out. He walked tottering down the side lines past our stand, his face drawn and streaked with blood and dirt. I snapshotted that player. It was a good picture. I had it enlarged and have always kept it in my room. 'The Dying Gladiator,' I have called it. I wonder if you have any idea who that girlhood hero of mine was?"

"Was he a hero?" Armitage was bending over the carburetor. He waited a moment and then as Miss Wellington did not reply he added; "Now that you have placed me, I trust I shan't lose my position."

"I always knew I should see you again," said the girl as though she had not heard Armitage's ba.n.a.lity. "I know now why I spoke to you on the _General_ and why I wrote you that note in church." Her slipper beat an impatient tattoo on the door. "But why," she began, "why are you willing to enter service as a physical instructor, or motor car driver?

I don't un--"