“I do not know what you will think of me for taking this for granted, Mr. Vane,” she said as he took his seat beside her, “but I couldn’t resist the chance of driving behind your horse.”

“I realized,” he answered smilingly, “that Pepper was the attraction, and I have more reason than ever to be grateful to him.”

She glanced covertly at the Vane profile, at the sure, restraining hands on the reins which governed with so nice a touch the mettle of the horse.  His silence gave her time to analyze again her interest in this man, which renewed itself at every meeting.  In the garden she had been struck by the superiority of a nature which set at naught what had been, to some smaller spirits, a difficult situation.  She recognized this quality as inborn, but, not knowing of Sarah Austen, she wondered where he got it.  Now it was the fact that he refrained from comment that pleased her most.

“Did Humphrey actually send for you to take up the injured horse case?” she asked.

Austen flushed.

“I’m afraid he did.  You seem to know all about it,” he added.

“Know all about it Every one within twenty miles of Leith knows about it.  I’m sure the horse was doctored when he bought him.”

“Take care, you may be called as a witness.”

“What I want to know is, why you accepted such a silly case,” said Victoria.

Austen looked quizzically into her upturned face, and she dropped her eyes.

“That’s exactly what I should have asked myself,—­after a while,” he said.

She laughed with a delicious understanding of “after a while.”

“I suppose you think me frightfully forward,” she said, in a lowered voice, “inviting myself to drive and asking you such a question when I scarcely know you.  But I just couldn’t go on with Mrs. Pomfret,—­she irritated me so,—­and my front teeth are too valuable to drive with Humphrey Crewe.”

Austen smiled, and secretly agreed with her.

“I should have offered, if I had dared,” he said.

“Dared!  I didn’t know that was your failing.  I don’t believe you even thought of it.”

“Nevertheless, the idea occurred to me, and terrified me,” said Austen.

“Why?” she asked, turning upon him suddenly.  “Why did it terrify you?”

“I should have been presuming upon an accidental acquaintance, which I had no means of knowing you wished to continue,” he replied, staring at his horse’s head.

“And I?” Victoria asked.  “Presumption multiplies tenfold in a woman, doesn’t it?”

“A woman confers,” said Austen.

She smiled, but with a light in her eyes.  This simple sentence seemed to reveal yet more of an inner man different from some of those with whom her life had been cast.  It was an American point of view—­this choosing to believe that the woman conferred.  After offering herself as his passenger Victoria, too, had had a moment of terror:  the action had been the result of an impulse which she did not care to attempt to define.  She changed the subject.