The car swept across the narrow bridge and round the corner beyond it.
Geoffrey Dane opened the throttle a little and allowed the speed to
increase. The road was new to him, but he had studied his map carefully
and he knew that a long hill, two miles or more of it, lay before him.
His car was highly powered and the engine was running smoothly. He
looked forward to a swift, exhilarating rush from the river valley
behind him to the plateau of the moorlands above. The road was a lonely
one. Since he left a village, three miles behind him, he had met nothing
but one cart and a couple of stray cattle. It was very unlikely that he
would meet any troublesome traffic before he reached the outskirts of
Hamley, the market town six miles beyond the hill and the moorland. The
car swept forward, gathering speed. Geoffrey Dane saw the hand of his
speedometer creep round the dial till it showed forty miles an hour.
Then rounding a bend in the road he saw another car motionless in the
very middle of the road. Greoffrey Dane swore abruptly and slowed down.
He was not compelled to stop. He might have passed the obstructing car
by driving with one wheel in the ditch. But he was a young man with
a troublesome conscience, and he was a member of the Royal Automobile
Club. He was bound in honour to render any help he could to motorists in
distress on the high road.
On a stone at the side of the road sat a girl, smoking a cigarette. She
was, apparently, the owner or driver of the motionless car. Greoffrey
Dane stopped.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
The girl threw away the cigarette she was smoking and stood up.
“Everything,” she said.
Geoffrey Dane stopped his engine with a sigh and got out of his car.
He noticed at once that the girl was dishevelled, that her face,
particularly her nose, was smeared with dirt, and that there was a good
deal of mud on her frock. He recognised the signs of a long and useless
struggle with an engine; but he was too well bred to smile. He also
noticed that the girl was pretty, slight of figure, and fair, with
twinkling eyes.
This consoled him a little. Succouring a stranger in distress on a
lonely road towards the close of a winter afternoon is not pleasant, but
it is distinctly less unpleasant if the stranger is a pretty girl.
“Do you know anything about motors?” said the girl.
To Geoffrey the question was almost insulting. He was a young man who
particularly prided himself on his knowledge of mechanics and his skill
in dealing with engines. Also the girl spoke abruptly, not at all in the
manner of a helpless damsel seeking charitable assistance. But Geoffrey
was a good-humoured young man and the girl was very pretty indeed. He
was prepared to make allowances for a little petulance. No temper is
exactly sunny after a struggle with a refractory engine.
“I ought to know something about motors,” he said. “I’m driving one.”
He looked round as he spoke at his own large and handsome car. The
girl’s car in comparison, was insignificant.
“It doesn’t in the least follow that you know anything about it,” said
the girl. “I was driving that one.” She pointed to the car in the middle
of the road. “And I haven’t the remotest idea what’s wrong.”
This time Geoffrey felt that the girl, though pretty, deserved a snub.
He was prepared to help her, at some personal inconvenience, but he felt
that he had a right to expect politeness in return.
“I don’t think you ought to have drawn up right in the middle of the
road,” he said. “It’s beginning to get dark and if anything came down
the road at all fast there’d be an accident.”
“I didn’t draw up in the middle of the road,” said the girl.
Geoffrey looked at her car. It was in the middle, the very middle of the
road.
“I didn’t draw up at all,” said the girl. “The beastly thing just
stopped there itself. But I don’t mind telling you that if I could, I’d
have turned the car across the road so as to block the way altogether.
I’d rather there wasn’t any room to pass. I wanted anyone who came along
to stop and help me.”