"Shall I take you home?"
"I'm all right."
Burns gave him a sharp glance. "To be sure you are. But we'll go home
nevertheless. The rest of my work is at the hospital anyhow."
As they were approaching the long stretch of straight road to which King
had looked forward an hour ago, but which he was disgusted to find
himself actually rather dreading now, a great closed car of luxurious
type, and bearing upon its top considerable travelling luggage, slowed
down as it neared, and a liveried chauffeur held up a detaining hand.
Burns stopped to answer a series of questions as to the best route
toward a neighbouring city. There were matters of road mending and
detours to be made plain to the inquirers, so the detention occupied a
full five minutes, during which the chauffeur got down and came to
Burns's side with a road map, with which the two wrestled after the
fashion usually made necessary by such aids to travel.
During this period Jordan King underwent a disturbing experience.
Looking up with his usual keen glance, one trained to observe whatever
might be before it, he took in at a sweep the nature of the party in the
big car. That it was a rich man's car, and that its occupants were those
who naturally belonged in it, there was no question. From the owner
himself, an aristocrat who looked the part, as not all aristocrats do,
to those who were presumably his wife, his son, and daughters, all were
of the same type.
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