nding 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 blase!' 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
occu