Chapter VI

'Now, let's be logical,' he said next morning. 'Let's be logical and hopeful--yet not too hopeful, not utopian. Let's look the matter courageously in the face. Since she rode there once, why may she not ride again in the Sentier des Contrebandiers? Why mayn't she ride there often--even daily? I think that's logical. Don't _you_ think that's logical?'

The person he addressed, a tall, slender young man, with a fresh-coloured skin, a straight nose, and rather a ribald eye, was vigorously brushing a head of yellowish hair, in the looking-glass before him.

'Tush! But of course _you_ think so,' Paul went on. 'You always think as I do. If you knew how I despise a sycophant! And yet--you're not bad looking. No, I'll be hanged if I can honestly say that you're bad looking. You've got nice hair, and plenty of it; and there's a weakness about your mouth and chin that goes to my heart. I hate firm people.--What? So do you? I thought so.--Ah, well, my poor friend, you're booked for a shocking long walk this morning. You must summon your utmost fortitude.--_Under the greenwood tree, who loves to lie with me?_' he carolled forth, to Marzials's tune. 'But come! I say! That's anticipating.'

And he set forth for the Smugglers' Pathway,--where, sure enough, she rode again. As she passed him, her eyes met his: at which he was conscious of a good deal of interior commotion. 'By Jove, she's magnificent, she's really stunning,' he exclaimed to himself. He perceived that she was rather a big woman, tall, with finely-rounded, smoothly-flowing lines. Her hair,--velvety blue-black in its shadows,--where the light caught it was dully iridescent. Her features were irregular enough to give her face a high degree of individuality, yet by no means to deprive it of delicacy or attractiveness. She had a superb white throat, and a soft voluptuous chin; and 'As I live, I never saw such a mouth,' said Paul.

Where did she come from? Bayonne? Never. André might have been mistaken about Château Yroulte; the Spanish Jew had perhaps sold it, or found a tenant. Or, further afield, there were Châteaux Labenne, Saumuse, d'Orthevielle. Or else, the Queen had a guest.

'Anyhow,' he mused, when he got home, 'that makes five, six miles that you have tramped, to enjoy an instant's glimpse of her. Fortunately they say walking is good for the constitution. It only shows what extremities a country life may drive one to.'

The next day, not only did her eyes meet his, but he could have sworn that she almost smiled. Oh, a very furtive smile, the mere transitory suggestion of a smile. But the inner commotion was more marked.

The next day (the fourth) she undoubtedly did smile, and slightly inclined her head. He removed his hat, and went home, and waited impatiently for twenty-four hours to wear away. 'She smiled--she bowed,' he kept repeating. But, alas, he couldn't forget that in that remote countryside it is very much the fashion for people who meet in the roads and lanes to bow as they pass.

On the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth days she bowed and smiled.

'I fairly wonder at myself--to walk that distance for a bow and smile,' said Paul. 'To-morrow I'm going to speak. _Faut brusquer les choses_.'

And he penetrated into the forest, firmly determined to speak. 'Only I can't seem to think of anything very pat to say,' he sighed. 'Hello! She's off her horse.'

She was off her horse, standing beside it, holding the loose end of a strap in her hand.

Providence was favouring him. Here was his obvious chance. Something was wrong. He could offer his assistance. And yet, that inner commotion was so violent, he felt a little bewildered about the _mot juste_. He approached her gradually, trying to compose himself and collect his wits.

She looked up, and said in French 'I beg your pardon. Something has come undone. Can you help me?'

Her voice was delicious, cool and smooth as ivory. His heart pounded. He vaguely bowed, and murmured, 'I should be delighted.'

She stood aside a little, and he took her place. He bent over the strap that was loose, and bit his lips, and cursed his embarrassments. 'Come, I mustn't let her think me quite an ass.' He was astonished at himself. That he should still be capable of so strenuous a sensation! 'And I had thought I was blasé!' He was intensely conscious of the silence, of the solitude and dimness of the forest, and of their isolation there, so near to each other, that superb pale woman and himself. But his eyes were bent on the misbehaving strap, which he held helplessly between his fingers.

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 assure 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 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.'