I hope you are prepared to pay the penalty--" "Penalty ?" she interrupted, and opened her eyes at me innocently; a bit _too_ innocently, I may say.
"Penalty; yes.

The penalty of letting me find you outside of King's Highway, _alone_," I explained brazenly.
She tried a lever hurriedly, and the car growled up at her so that she quit.

Then she pulled herself together and faced me nonchalantly.
"Oh-h.

You mean about the black velvet mask?
I'm afraid--I had forgotten that funny little--joke." With all she could do, her face and her tone were not convincing.
I gathered courage as she lost it.

"I see that I must demonstrate to you the fact that I am not altogether a joke," I said grimly, and got down from my horse.
I don't, to this day, know what she imagined I was going to do.