Grey Roses Part 12

At last he looked up at her. 'How warm and beautiful and fragrant she is,' he thought. 'With her white face, with her dark eyes, with those red lips and that splendid figure--what an heroic looking woman!'

'This is altogether disgraceful,' he said, 'and I a.s.sure you I'm covered with confusion. But I won't dissemble. I haven't the remotest notion what needs to be done. I'm afraid this is the first time in my life I have ever touched anything belonging to a horse.'

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 hors.e.m.e.n,' 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble even.'

The next day, 'Yes, I suppose it's very pretty. But I wasn't thinking of Nature,' he informed her, as she approached.

She drew up.

'Oh, it has its human interest too, no doubt.' She glanced in the direction of the Chateau of Granjolaye.

'The Queen,' said he. 'But one never sees her.'

'That adds the charm of mystery, don't you feel? To think of that poor young exiled woman, after so grand a beginning, ending so desolately--shut up alone in her mysterious castle! It's like a legend.'

'Then you're not of her Court?'

'I? Of her Court? _Mais quelle idee_!'

'It was only a hypothesis. Of course, you know I'm devoured by curiosity. My days are spent in wondering who you are.'

She laughed. 'You must have a care, or you'll be typical,' she warned him.

'I never said I wasn't human,' he called after her, as she cantered away.

VIII.

The next day still (the fifteenth), 'Haven't I heard you lived at Saint-Graal when you were a child?' she asked.

'If you have, for once in a way rumour has told the truth. I lived at Saint-Graal till I was thirteen.'

'Then perhaps you knew her?'

'Her?'

'The Queen. Mademoiselle de la Granjolaye de Ravanches.'

'Oh, I knew her very well--when we were children.'

'Tell me all about her.'

'It would be a long story.'

She leaped from her horse; then, raising her riding whip, and looking the animal severely in the eye, 'Bezigue! Attention,' she said impressively. 'You're to stop exactly where you are and not play any tricks. _Entendu? Bien_.' She moved a few steps down the pathway, and stopped at an opening among the trees, where the ground was a cushion of bright green moss. 'By Jove, she _is_ at her ease,' thought Paul, who followed her. 'How splendidly she walks--what undulations!' From the French point of view, as she must be aware, the situation gave him all sorts of rights.

She sank softly, gracefully, upon the moss.

'It's a long story. Tell it me,' she commanded, and pointed to the earth. He sat down facing her, at a little distance.

'It's odd you should have chosen this place,' said he.