been whirling us to destruction magically change into a swan-like
creature skimming just out of harm's way.

I now reflected, with a vague sense of self-disgust, that, instead of
being glad to leave the world which had denied me Helen, I had felt
distinctly annoyed at the necessity, had not given a thought to my
lost love, and had been thankful for the mere gift of life without
her.

"I'm so glad you don't think I'm reckless," said Molly, as quietly as
though we had not passed through a crisis; and indeed to this day I do
not believe she would admit that we had.

"I'm really very careful; Jack says I am. He takes tremendous risks
sometimes, or at least it seems so when you're not driving. You'll see
the difference when _he's_ in front."

I refrained from comment, but I had never valued Jack's friendship
less, and I was in the act of concocting a telegram from Locker which
might recall me to London, when from the speed of the Scotch express
we slowed down to a pace which would have been mean even for a donkey.
We continued this rate of progression for a peaceful but all too brief
interval; then in the line of traffic opened a narrow canal which I
hoped might escape Molly's eye. But there was no such luck. She saw;
we leaped into it, raced down it, and before I could have said
"knife," or any other equally irrelevant word of one syllable, we had
left everything else behind.

I expected to be (to put it mildly) as uncomfortable as I had been
before my short respite, yet strange to say, this was not the case. I