"But for a ride you are perfect; for a rush over the plain, in the teeth of the wind, I have never had any one approaching you. You are a cavalier of the gods." "Have you had many?" "Cavaliers?--plenty. Of the gods?--no." "Plenty! I reckon you have," said Ash, half to himself. "Would you wish me to have had few? You must remember that I have been in many countries and have seen many peoples. I shouldn't have appreciated _you_ otherwise; I should have thought you dangerous--horrible! There is Isabella, who has not been in many countries; Isabella is sure that you are 'so dissipated.'" "Dissipated!--mild term!" "Then you acknowledge it?" "Freely." Pauline looked about for a rock of the right height, and finding one, seated herself, and began to draw off her gloves. "Some time--in some other existence--will you come and tell me how it has paid you, please? You are so preternaturally intelligent, and you have such a will of your own, that you cannot have fallen into it from stupidity, as so many do." Her gloves off, she began to tighten the braids of her hair, loosened by the gallop. "It pays as it goes; it makes one forget for a moment the hideous tiresomeness of existence. But you put your question off to some other life; you have no intention, then, of redeeming me in this?" "I shouldn't succeed. In the first place, I have no influence--" "You know I am your slave," said Ash; his voice suddenly deepened. "And how much of a slave shall you be to the next pretty peasant girl you meet?" Mrs. Graham demanded, turning towards him, both hands still occupied with her hair. "I don't deny that. But it has nothing to do with the subject." "In one way I know it has not," she answered, after she had fastened the last braid in its place with a long gold pin. "How right I was to like you! You understand of yourself the thing that so few women can ever be brought to comprehend. Well, if you acknowledge that it makes no difference--I mean about the peasant girls--we're just where we were; I am your slave, yet you have no desire to reclaim me. I believe you like me better as I am," he added, abruptly. "Do you want me to tell you that you are impertinent?" demanded Pauline, with her lovely smile, that always contradicted in its sweetness any apparent rebuke expressed by her words. "Do I know what you are in reality, or care to know? I know what you seem, and what you seem is admirable, perfect, for these rides of ours, the most enchanting rides I have ever had." "And the rides are to be the end of it? You wouldn't care for me elsewhere?" "Ah!" said Pauline, rising and drawing on her gloves, "you wouldn't care for _me_. In Paris I am altogether another person; I am not at all as you see me here. In Paris you would call me a doll. Come, don't dissect the happy present; enjoy it as I do. 'He only is rich who owns the day,' and we own this--for our ride." [Illustration: "'YOU KNOW I AM YOUR SLAVE'"]