"It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a lunatic with a pistol. It wasn't my fault that you found out."
"I shall never forgive you!"
"Why not Cornwall?" said Sam. "The Riviera of England! Let's go to Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?"
"I said I should never forgive you and I won't."
"Well, I hope you're fond of motoring," said Sam, "because we're going on till you do."
"Very well! Go on, then!"
"I intend to. Of course, it's all right now while it's dark. But have you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan't notice them myself because it's a little difficult to notice anything from inside this thing, but I'm afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you ... I know what we'll do. We'll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That will be fun!"
There was a long silence.
"Is my helmet on straight?" said Sam.
Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered road. Always a girl of sudden impulse, she had just made a curious discovery, to wit, that she was enjoying herself. There was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with a desire to laugh.
"Lochinvar!" said Sam suddenly. "That's the name of the chap I've been trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? 'Young Lochinvar' the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I'm doing now, and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those days a helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man should wear. Odd how fashions change!"
Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any enquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer.
"Why are you wearing that thing?"
"I told you. Purely and simply because I can't get it off. You don't suppose I'm trying to set a new style in gents' headwear, do you?"
"But why did you ever put it on?"