He said it with a pathetic drawl, and she laughed.—­’And yet you’re English.’

’Oh, I dare say I’m English enough.  Though I don’t see how you knew it.  Don’t tell me you knew it from my accent.’

‘Oh, non pas,’ she hastened to protest.  ’But you’re the new owner of Saint-Graal.  Everybody of the country knows, of course, that the new owner of Saint-Graal, Mr. Warringwood, is English.’

‘Ah, then she’s of the country,’ was Paul’s mental note.

‘And I thought all Englishmen were horsemen,’ she went on.

’Oh, there are a few bright exceptions—­there’s a little scattered remnant.  It’s the study of my life to avoid being typical.’

‘Ah, well, then give me the strap.’

He gave her the strap, and in the twinkling of an eye she had snapped the necessary buckle.  Then she looked up at him and smiled oddly.  It occurred to him that the entire comedy of the strap had perhaps been invented as an excuse for opening a conversation; and he was at once flattered and disappointed.  ‘Oh, if she’s that sort ...’ he thought.

‘I’m heart-broken not to have been able to serve you,’ he said.

‘You can help me to mount,’ she answered.

And, before he quite knew how it was done, he had helped her to mount, and she was galloping down the path.  The firm grasp of her warm gloved hand on his shoulder accompanied him to Saint-Graal.  ’It’s amazing how she sticks in my mind,’ he said.  He really couldn’t fix his attention on any other subject.  ’I wonder who the deuce she is.  She’s giving me my money’s worth in walking.  That business of the strap was really brazen.  Still, one mustn’t quarrel with the means if one desires the end.  I hope she isn’t that sort.’

VII.

On the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth days, she passed him with a bow and a good-morning.

‘This is too much!’ he groaned, in the silence of his chamber.  ’She’s doing it with malice.  I’ll not be trifled with.  I—­I’ll do something desperate.  I’ll pretend to faint, and she’ll have to get down and bandage up my wounds.’

On the thirteenth day, as they met, she stopped her horse.

‘You’re at least typically English in one respect,’ she said.

’Oh, unkind lady!  To announce it to me in this sudden way.  Then my life’s a failure.’

‘I mean in your fondness for long walks.’

‘Ah, then you’re totally in error.  I hate long walks.’

’But it’s a good ten kilometres to and from your house; and you do it every morning.’

’That’s only because there aren’t any omnibuses or cabs or things.  And’ (he reminded himself that if she was that sort, he might be bold) ‘I’m irresistibly attracted here.’

‘It’s very pretty,’ she admitted, and rode on.

He looked after her, grinding his teeth. Was she that sort?  ’One never can tell.  Her face is so fine—­so noble even.’