"I can't see how I can ever repay you for what you've done tonight," she persisted.
He was coldly uncompromising. "You needn't bother about any pay, if that's what you call it."
Skilfully she drew her horse a step closer to him. "What shall I call it?" she asked innocently, "debt, obligation? I owe you a lot, ever so much to me—my life."
"I've done no more for you than I've done for less than a human being," he returned impatiently.
"I'm sure that's so. But human beings," she added, with a touch of gentle good-nature, "are supposed to have more feeling than cows or steers, you know."
"I never had a cow or a steer call me names," he retorted rudely.
"If you weren't a human being you wouldn't mind being called names; you wouldn't be so angry with me, either."
"I'm not angry," he said resentfully. His very helplessness in her hands pricked her conscience at the moment that it restored her supremacy. His strength might menace others—she at least had nothing to fear from it.
"Do you know," she exclaimed, shaking off for the moment all restraint, "what I'd like to do?"
He looked at her surprised.