But when I tapped at Lisa's door (dreading, yet wishing, to have our first greeting over), it appeared that she had a bad headache and did not want to go with us to see the Rajah's automobile.

While I was with her Aunt Lil came in, looking very bright and handsome.
She was "so sorry" for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back after it was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough by that time for the shopping expedition.
The automobile really was a "magnificent animal," as Aunt Lil said, and it took her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to tool-boxes, to make up her mind that she could not be happy without it.
It was sixty horsepower, and of a world-renowned make; but that was a detail.

_Any_ car could be powerful and well made; every car should be, or you would not pay for it; but she had never seen one before with such heavenly little arrangements for luggage and lunch; while as for the gold toilet things, in a pale grey suede case, they were beyond words, and she must have them--the motor also, of course, since it went with them.
So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the two men went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary member.
If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah's agent and the car paid for.

At two o'clock, when we were to meet the men at the Ritz for luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything had been successfully arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to motor to Calais in her new automobile, instead of going by train.

Lord Bob would drive, but he meant to hire a chauffeur recommended by the Club, so that he would not have to stop behind and see to getting the car across the Channel in a cargo boat.
Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over anything new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too much occupied to notice.
Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt Lil didn't notice that either.