Winding Paths Part 19

"And where do the babies come in?"

"The babies will represent mankind."

"I never heard such rot. Why should mankind be represented by babies?

Much better let them be represented by green peas or gooseberries."

"Not at all. Mankind can only properly be represented by babies; mankind being in its infancy."

"But it isn't. It's much older than vegetables."

"It is not. Man was made last, and instead of developing into a reasonable, rational object, like a potato or a cabbage, he has strayed away into all manner of wild side-issues, and is still nothing but a very much perplexed infant."

"And do you propose to try and help him to emulate the reasonable, rational condition of the potato and cabbage?"

"I propose to show him his inferiority to these delectable creations."

"Then if he has any sense he will just duck you in the Serpentine and make you apologise. Personally I consider myself anything but a baby, and far superior to any of the cabbage tribe."

"Ah!..." he cried gleefully. You are actually proving my theory. I can't explain now, but just wait till that book is written."

"Are you taking rooms at Colney Hatch while you do it?"

"I have thought about it. You show more understanding in that remark than in any of the others."

"It doesn't require much effort of understanding to think that out. Is the onion or the mangel-wurzel to be your hero?"

"You are unsympathetic. I shall not tell you any more."

"Not at all. I am most interested really. I should make the cabbage your hero, and the onion your herone, then she can weep on his breast."

They swerved violently, and with a little gasp she added, "All the same, I've no desire to weep on the highway underneath a motor-car.

What _are_ you doing?"

"I don't know. The steering-wheel seems a bit odd."

They stopped to examine the wheel, and almost immediately, out of the gathering darkness behind shot another car, hooting violently to them to get out of the way. Unable to stop the oncoming car in time, d.i.c.k tried to move aside, failed, and in less than a minute the newcomer, in spite of brakes swiftly adjusted, crashed into them, smas.h.i.+ng their lamp, and badly damaging the back near-side wheel of the car.

"Well, I'm blowed!" said d.i.c.k, "that's the only moment in the whole day you shouldn't have been on that particular square yard of the entire globe. Any other moment, I could either have moved aside or stopped you in time."

The occupant of the other car, who was driving alone, sprang out and came briskly forward.

"What the devil!..." he began, then noticed the lady, and stopped short.

"It was certainly the devil," said d.i.c.k, ruefully examining his battered wheel, and "I always thought he was credited with the deceny to look after his own. How have you fared?"

"Well, he seems to have looked after me all right," in a cheery voice; "there's nothing that will prevent my going on to town. But if you will pardon my curiosity, why take root in the middle of the road and ask for trouble?"

Hal's smile suddenly flashed out in the lamp-light irresistibly.

"It's a new theory about vegetables being wiser than mankind, but of course we took root too soon."

A pair of grey eyes looked quizzically at her in the darkness, discerning only the gleam of a white face in a close-fitting bonnet, and the flash of white, even teeth.

"The blasted steering wheel wouldn't act," said d.i.c.k. "We had just that second slowed down to examine it. You might have come along here to all eternity and not have been as inopportune.""

"You take it very well." The big-coated apparition, in motor-cap with the ear-flaps down, and motor-goggles, and the suggestion of a rotundity about the centre, was not at all engaging to look at, but he had a charming voice.

"I'm taking it so ill that I daren't express myself out loud," said Hal. "What in the world are we to do? Is there a train anywhere near?"

"I'm afraid not, but there is a decent enough inn close by."

"An inn isn't much use to me." She paused, then added solemnly: "I've got a strait-laced brother."

Hal's voice was rather deep and rich for a woman, and it had a dangerous allurement in the darkness. The stranger took off his goggles and tried again to see her face, while d.i.c.k took a minute stock of his damage.

"Well," he suggested, a little daringly, "if he is able to chaperone you at the inn himself? -"

"He isn't," said Hal; "he's somewhere east of Piccadilly, studying Phoenician Architecture, and the herringbone pattern on antique masonry."

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" intercepted d.i.c.k, "the old man has let me down badly this time; this car won't move before daybreak. It means a red light burning all night, and we must go to the inn."

"But, d.i.c.k," Hal exclaimed in quick alarm. "How can I let Dudley know?

He'll have a fit at the idea of my being out all night like that."

"He ought to be too thankful you are safe and sound to mind anything else."

"But he won't; because he is always grumbling at my not getting back before dark. There must surely be a train from somewhere?"

Her voice had grown seriously alarmed as she began to realise what sort of a fix she was in. The stranger came forward to lend his aid to the inspection, and after a cursory glance added his verdict to d.i.c.k's.

"You won't move her before morning; and there are no trains anywhere near here on Sunday night. I am going to London myself; you must let me give you both a lift."

d.i.c.k stood up with an air of finality.

"I can't leave her. She isn't exactly all my own, you see. I must stay at the inn, but if you wouldn't mind taking Miss Pritchard..." he looked at Hal a little anxiously.

"I shall be delighted," came the brisk response from the stranger.

Hal for once was nonplussed, but her habitual humour rea.s.serted itself.

"I don't know which Dudley will think the most dreadful," she remarked comically, "for me to stay at the inn unchaperoned, or motor back with a stranger. I seem to be fairly between the devil and the deep sea."

The men laughed, but d.i.c.k made the decision.

"You had better go back," he said. "He will at least have you safe under lock and key by midnight that way and not lie awake worrying all night himself."

"Then let me run you to the inn first," said the stranger, and after fixing his red lights, d.i.c.k went off with them in search of help to make the car safer for the night.

A little later the stranger's motor turned Londonwards with two occupants only, one in front and one behind. After a few miles he stopped.

"Won't you come and sit in front?" It seems so unsociable to travel like this."