By way of answer came the soft drone of a high-powered motor; then the car itself rolled into view, a stately limousine coming from the direction of the avenue de Friedland.

The footman shut gates and door as the limousine moved away: it had not been sixty seconds at rest.

" "I do not understand..." "What automobile are you using for our trip this afternoon?" "My limousine for you and me.

" "Now tell me what you know about the chauffeur who drives the limousine?"

At all events, we will exchange cars with Marthe and Leon, leaving the latter to bring on the limousine while Jules drives for us.

You may lose a limousine, but you can afford to risk that as long as you are not in iteh, little long-lost sister?"

Lanyard said nothing at the time, but later, when a long stretch of straight road gave him the chance, verified his suspicions by looking back to see the grey car lurking not less than a mile and a half astern; the Delorme touring car driven by Leon keeping a quarter of a mile in the rear of the limousine.

In the meantime he was making no effort to do more than keep step with the limousine, but at a decent distance.

At about seven they dined on the wing, from the hamper which, with Liane's jewel case in its leather disguise of a simple travelling bag, constituted all the limousine's load of luggage.

A luminous lilac twilight vied with the street lamps of Caen when the limousine rolled through the city at moderate speed.

Our present plan is merely to change cars with Leon and Marthe; the grey car will pass and go on ahead before we make the shift; then you, mademoiselle and I follow in the touring car, the others in the limousine.

Lanyard moved toward the middle of the road and flagged the Delorme touring car as it rounded the turn, a few seconds later, at such speed that Leon was put to it to stop the car fifty yards beyond the limousine.

The man jumped down and, followed by the maid, ran back, but before he reached the limousine was obliged to jump aside to escape the grey car which, tooled by a crack racing hand, took the corner on two wheels, then straightened out and tore past in a smother of dust, with its muffler cut out and the exhaust bellowing like a machine-gun.

" Leon departed hastily for the limousine, where Marthe joined him, while Lanyard and Liane Delorme proceeded to the touring car.

Liane uttered perfunctory thanks and called to Jules, who was still tinkering at the limousine engine with the aid of an electric torch.

" They drew away from the limousine so quickly that in thirty seconds its headlights were all that marked its stand.

" "It will be in this hour of darkness, then..." A bend in the road blotted out the stationary lights of the limousine.

Far ahead the red sardonic eye in the rear of the limousine leered as if mocking their hopes of keeping it in sight.

The impetus of the limousine broke it, but not before it had slewed the car off toward the ditch, wrenching the wheel out of the driver's hands.

Thus it frequently happened that a young staff officer, who had never before known the joys of motoring, would tear madly down the street in a luxurious limousine, his spurred boots resting on the broadcloth cushions, while the ci-devant owner of the car, who might be a banker or a merchant prince, would jump for the side-walk to escape being run down.

When I first went to Belgium I was given a sixty horse-power touring car, and when the weather turned unpleasant I asked for and was given a limousine that was big enough to sleep in, and when I found this too clumsy, the commandant of the Parc des Automobiles obligingly exchanged it for a ninety horse-power berline.

Though by this time the German gunners had the range and shrapnel was bursting all about him, he was as cool as though he were turning a limousine in the width of Piccadilly.

Whedbee and I were lunching on Sunday noon in the front of the Palace Hotel, when a big limousine flying the American flag drew up on the other side of the square and Mr. Julius Van Hee, the American Vice-Consul at Ghent, jumped out.

As we rode out in the big limousine I undertook to study her, but the reading of women isn't my game.

When you see a certain big limousine flying a small British flag pass you know that it belongs to the Commander-in-Chief; and though it may be occupied only by one of his aides, often you will have a glimpse of a man with a square chin and a drooping white moustache, who is the sole one among the hundreds of thousands at the British front who wears the wreath-circled crossed batons of a field-marshal.