Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it.
“S—Mr. Marlowe!” she exclaimed.
“Get in,” said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. “Where can I take you?”
“Go away!” said Billie.
“Get in!”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I want to talk to you! Get in!”
“I won’t.”
Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted her like a kitten and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever increasing speed down the drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came and went in the golden glow of the head-lights.
6
“Put me down,” said Billie.
“You’d get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Drive about till you promise to marry me.”
“You’ll have to drive a long time.”
“Right ho!” said Sam.
The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand and grabbed at the steering wheel. “Of course, if you want to smash up in a ditch!” said Sam, righting the car with a wrench.
“You’re a brute!” said Billie.
“Cave-man stuff,” explained Sam, “I ought to have tried it before.”
“I don’t know what you expect to gain by this.”
“That’s all right,” said Sam, “I know what I’m about.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I thought you would be.”
“I’m not going to talk to you.”
“All right. Lean back and doze off. We’ve the whole night before us.”
“What do you mean?” cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk.
“Have you ever been to Scotland?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought we might push up there. We’ve got to go somewhere and, oddly enough, I’ve never been to Scotland.”
Billie regarded him blankly.
“Are you crazy?”
“I’m crazy about you. If you knew what I’ve gone through to-night for your sake you’d be more sympathetic. I love you,” said Sam swerving to avoid a rabbit. “And what’s more, you know it.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will!” said Sam confidently. “How about North Wales? I’ve heard people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?”
“I’m engaged to Bream Mortimer.”
“Oh no, that’s all off,” Sam assured her.
“It’s not!”
“Right off!” said Sam firmly. “You could never bring yourself to marry a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need. Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran away! No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won’t do!”
This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not bring herself to dispute it.
“Anyway, I hate you!” she said, giving the conversation another turn.
“Why? In the name of goodness, why?”
“How dared you make a fool of me in your father’s office that morning?”
“It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a lunatic with a pistol. It wasn’t my fault that you found out.”
“I shall never forgive you!”
“Why not Cornwall?” said Sam. “The Riviera of England! Let’s go to Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?”
“I said I should never forgive you and I won’t.”
“Well, I hope you’re fond of motoring,” said Sam, “because we’re going on till you do.”
“Very well! Go on, then!”
“I intend to. Of course, it’s all right now while it’s dark. But have you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan’t notice them myself because it’s a little difficult to notice anything from inside this thing, but I’m afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you … I know what we’ll do. We’ll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That will be fun!”
There was a long silence.
“Is my helmet on straight?” said Sam.