She was waiting, when Armitage, who was leaning back in his seat in the most professional manner, shut off power under the _porte cochère_ and glanced at her for directions.
"To Mrs. Van Valkenberg's," she said. "Do you know where she lives?"
As they entered the Ocean Drive through an archway of privet, Miss Wellington indicated a road which dived among the hills and disappeared.
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.
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 assure 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.