"Not to us, Highness. We are not their children. Perhaps the Indian when he bade them farewell could understand their counsels."
"You were a soldier," she said, as a suggested possibility caught her, "did you ever fight Indians?" Her eager face was almost as a child's who begs a story.
"Sorry I can't oblige you," he laughed indulgently. "I engaged only the prosaic European from Spain."
"You fought in Cuba? Tell me about it."
So much as he modestly might tell, he related to her as they rode on. They were young, time was cheap and the tale was not uninteresting.
The labored heaving of the horses' shoulders brought them back to their surroundings. They were leaving the forest to mount a little hill upon whose side a small hovel stood, which Carter some time in his need was to bless.
"It's Hans's, the charcoal-burner's," Trusia said with surprise; "we've ridden ten miles, Major Carter, and scarcely faster than a walk. We must turn back at once; my household will be filled with alarm. Please come," she said earnestly.
Together they turned their horses about, and started the return journey at a good ground-eating gallop. Mile after mile they canceled, occupied in the thoughts the ride had awakened. She was silent, in the spell of a new obsession wrought by this man with his honest voice and stories of the new, strange land, from which he came. Carter, distressed that possibly he had caused trouble by his senseless prattle, was dutifully bent on getting her back to the castle with the least possible delay. Mentally he was attempting to frame a suitable and fitting apology to offer her. Several times he cleared his throat, but she seemed so preoccupied that he maintained silence.
Finally he achieved an explanation.
"I have been trying, Highness, to apologize, but really I can't. You understand, don't you? I would be a hypocrite to say that I am sorry. I am not. It must have been the magic of the place to which a year is as a second quickly passed, so old is the forest."