"Drive as fast as you dare without being held up," I ordered; and Timmins, lately demobbed from the Tank Corps, obeyed with violence. The distance was forty miles; the hour of starting, six; and at seven-thirty we were spinning up the long avenue at Courtenaye Abbey; good going for Devonshire hills!
I took the chance that Jim might be at the Abbey rather than at Courtenaye Coombe, where he lodged. The way was shorter and--there were as many hiding-places in the Abbey as at Dun Moat. Luck was with me! It had been one of the days when Jim opened the Abbey to tourists, and he was late because he'd gone the rounds with the guardian. His small car, which he drove himself, stood before the door, and from that door he flew like a Jack-in-the-box as we dashed up.
"Elizabeth! I mean Princess!" he exclaimed.
"Call me _anything_!" I whispered, recklessly, bending out of the car as we shook hands. "Mum's the word! But look what I've brought; something I want you to _store_ for me."
A jerk of my head introduced him to a red-cloaked, gray-veiled child asleep on the taxi floor.
Most men would have shown some sign of surprise or other emotion. But Jim Courtenaye's _sang-froid_ is a tribute to the cinema life he must have led even before he burst into the war. Whether he thought that the object in red was my own offspring, concealed from the world till now, I don't know and probably never shall. All I do know is that, judging from his expression, it might have been a borrowed shoulder of veal.
Deftly he scooped Bertie up without rousing him, and had borne the bundle gently through the open door before it occurred to Timmins to turn his head. "Hurray!" thought I. "Not a soul has seen the little wretch between Dun Moat and here!"
I jumped out of the car and followed Jim into the house, which I'd never entered since it had been let to him. He had not paused in the great hall, but was carrying his burden toward a small room which Grandmother had used for receiving tenants, and such bothersome business. I flashed in after him, and realized that Jim had fitted it up as a private sanctum.
Somehow I didn't like him to go on fancying quaint things about my character, and by the time he'd deposited Bertie on a huge sofa like a young bed, I had plunged into my story.