did not know what was the matter with me, but suddenly I seemed to be
enjoying myself. The tension of muscles relaxed, as if a string which
had held them tight--like the limbs of a Jumping Jack--had been let
go. I leaned back against the crimson cushions of my seat with a new
and singular sense of well-being. Once, as a volunteer in South
Africa, I had felt the same when, after having a splinter of bone
taken out, under chloroform, I had waked up to be told it was all
over. This wasn't over, but somehow, I didn't want it to be.

We took Putney Bridge at a gulp, and swallowed the long hill to
Wimbledon Common in the fashion of a hungry anaconda; but before we
arrived at this stage a thing happened which unexpectedly raised my
opinion of motor cars. It was in the Fullham Road that we glided close
behind a hansom bowling along at a rattling pace. Traffic on our right
prevented us from passing, and Molly had just remarked how vexing it
was to be kept back by a mere hansom, when plunk! down went the little
nag on his nose. It was one of those tumbles in which the horse
collapses in a limp heap without any sliding, though he had been going
fast downhill, and of course the hansom stopped dead. The whole scene
was as quick as the flashing of a biograph. The driver struggled to
keep his seat, clawing at the shiny roof of the cab; his fare, in a
silk hat and pathetic frock coat, shot from the vehicle like a flying
Mercury, and this time it seemed that nothing could keep us from
telescoping the vehicle thus suddenly arrested a few feet ahead.

But I reckoned without Molly. Her little gloved hand, and the
high-heeled American toys she had for feet, moved like lightning.
Without any violent wrench, the car stopped apparently in less than
its own length, and as, even thus, we were too close upon the cab,
Molly threw a quick glance behind, then bade Mercédès glide gently