“All right,” said he. “I think I'm fit for general society again. I wasn't when I tackled this job. Nothing like fifteen minutes of woodpile for taking the temper out of the saw—and the man.”
Macauley, a stout, good-humoured fellow of thirty-five, laughed. “That temper of yours, Red has it been on the rampage again?”
“It has. Don't talk about it or it'll lift to confounded red head again—it's only scotched for the present. New car's here, eh?”
“Yes, and the pretty widow's here, too—my wife's sister, Ellen Lessing. We've a great plan for tomorrow, Red. I can't venture to drive this elephant of a car yet, but the women are wild for a trip in her. She holds seven. Martha wants you to drive us and the Chesters to-morrow a hundred and fifty miles seventy-five to F—— and back. Will you do it? You're not so horribly busy just now, and Mrs. Lessing and Pauline Hempstead together ought to make it worth while for you.”
This feature of the invitation did not appear to appeal to Burns, but the sight of the touring car, brave and shining in russet and brass, plainly did.
“Not that I'd care to drive such a whale for myself, but I shouldn't mind a run for the fun of trying her out. You say she's been driven enough to warm up her engines? Suppose we take her out and let me get the feel of her mouth before to-morrow?”
“Come on.” And they were off.
“For a whale she's a bird,” was Burns's paradoxical verdict two hours later. The “trying out” had merged into a smooth run of forty-five miles at not anything like the full pace of which the motor was capable. “Best not to overheat her at first. Run your first three hundred miles with consideration for her vital organs—she'll have her wind by that time.”
Next morning four women, long-coated, tissue-veiled, watched the brown beauty roll invitingly up to Macauley's porch steps.
As she crossed the lawn with Winifred, Pauline Hempstead, the guest of the Chesters, was studying not only the car, but the undeniably attractive gray-clad figure of the lately-arrived younger sister of Mrs. Macauley. “Will Red P. look at her any more than he does at me?” she murmured in Winifred Chester's ear.
“I doubt it, my dear. But he'll be foolish if he doesn't, won't he?”
“I don't care for widows myself.”
“I presume not.” Winifred laughed comprehendingly.
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-eight, I believe—though she doesn't look it.”
“Doesn't look it! She looks a lot more.”
Winifred laughed still, quietly. Although Pauline undoubtedly had the advantage of Ellen in years, her fair-haired, blue-eyed, somewhat sumptuous beauty was not of so youthful a type as the darker colouring and slenderer outlines of Martha's sister.
The man at the wheel of the brown car lifted his leather cap as the women came out, but he left all the bestowal of them to the other men. Miss Hempstead asked to be allowed to sit beside the driver, but Macauley vowed that on the first long run of his new machine he himself should occupy that post of honour and interest.
“Coming back, then,” insisted the girl, and Macauley agreed reluctantly. Burns made no comment, but applied himself to his task—not only then, but also for every minute of the seventy-five miles to their destination.
“He might as well be a hired chauffeur,” complained Miss Hempstead when, during a stop of ten minutes on account of a switching freight train, she had leaned forward and attempted in vain to carry on a conversation with Burns. “That abstracted mood of his—is there any breaking into it?”
“Fall out and break your collar-bone. He'll be all attention,” advised Chester.
“Thank you. I'm almost tempted to. Why don't you drive awhile, Mr. Macauley, and give him a rest?”
“And let him sit here in the middle with you? He couldn't be pried loose from that wheel now. Besides, I haven't driven this car yet, and she's too different in her steering from my old one. I shouldn't like to try with this crowd behind me.”
They reached the distant city; drew up at the steps of the most attractive hotel; went in to lunch. That is to say, all did this except R. P. Burns. He remained in the garage in the rear where he had taken the car, busying himself with some details of mechanism whose working did not quite suit him. In spite of summons and appeals he continued to work until the rest had finished; then he bolted in to wash off dust and engine grease, ate his lunch in ten minutes—Macauley sitting by and expostulating—and bolted out again.
“We're going to walk about a bit,” Chester announced, invading the garage. “The girls insist that you come. Where are your eyes, man? If Pauline bores you—I admit that she's a trifle persistent, but she's jolly good company, I think—try Mrs. Lessing. She's delightful, and not the pursuing style at all—she's learned better. She hasn't shown the slightest interest in you all morning. That ought to attract you.”
“I'm going to try a bit of adjustment on this timer now that Mac's out of the way. Go along, and don't bother me.” Burns was in his shirt-sleeves again and spoke gruffly. His cap was off, and thick locks lay damply against his moist brow; in his eyes sparkled enthusiasm but not for women.
“You certainly are a hopeless case,” and Chester went back to his party.
“We might as well not have a bachelor along,” mourned Pauline. “Four women—with only two old married men to look after them—it's a shame.”
“But we're both of us much handsomer than Red Pepper Burns,” asserted James Macauley, Junior. “And I've hardly spoken a word to my wife since I started—that sort of thing ought to content you.”
“It doesn't. And neither of you is half as good-looking as Doctor Burns. He has the most interesting profile I ever saw—and I ought to know—I seldom catch sight of his full face.”
“I shouldn't suppose an interesting profile, whatever that is, would offset a shock of fire-red hair. Now, both Chester's hair and mine—”
“His hair isn't fire-red. It's a—rather strong—auburn.”
Macauley shouted and the rest laughed with him.
“Rather strong! I should say it was. I've been worried about having him sit near the gasoline tank, it brings his hair so close to a high combustible. But it has one advantage: if we don't get home before dark we shan't need to light up. Red's torch of a head will do the trick; we can come in by the refulgence from that.”
“I shall be sitting in its light going back, anyhow,” Miss Hempstead exulted.
“Much good it will do you,” prophesied Chester.
It did Pauline so much good as that she was able to obtain many looks at the profile she admired, for she saw it clean-cut against the passing landscape for the sixty miles of daylight out of the seventy-five miles home, while she sat beside its owner and tried many times to draw him into talk. His taciturnity on this particular day was a thing beyond any experience with it she had yet had. She had heard Burns talk, and talk well, on many different subjects, the while he sat upon the Chesters' porch of a summer evening, the three of them about him, and he had seemed to enjoy talking. He certainly could not be wholly occupied with the machine, for at no time did he let the engine out for what it could do, but contented himself with a steady, moderate pace very different from the sort of furious speed in which he and the Green Imp were accustomed to indulge when occasion offered. Altogether he presented to the girl a problem which she could not solve and was never further from solving than during the seventy-five miles she sat beside him on the run home.