"Well," Leon said, getting up with a laugh, "now I must be off. Mercedes, who has developed into a regular tyrant, only gave me leave to come out on condition that I would not stop more than five minutes, and if it had been anybody but yourself she would not have let me come at all; not, I think, even if the Queen Regent had sent for me."
"She is quite right, Leon, though I should like to keep you here; but I am sure that after riding in here this morning you ought not to have moved out again. Well, I will walk with you back to your own door."
Arthur, on calling on the following morning, was received with great enthusiasm by Mercedes' two younger sisters, with whom he had become a great favourite, and also by the young count. Mercedes, however, seemed painfully shy with him.
"I don't think I shall ever feel comfortable with you again, señor," she said with a great effort. "I feel quite overpowered with the sense of what I owe you."
"Then, señora, you will oblige me to regret that I ever interfered in your behalf," Arthur said with a smile. "The sooner you get that idea out of your head the sooner I shall feel comfortable again. It was a great pleasure to me to be of service to you, but you will take the pleasure out of it altogether if you are going to be unnatural with me."
"But I can't help it," she said.
"Then I sha'n't rescue you another time when you get into a scrape. Once I picked a young cousin of mine out of the water. The ice was thin, and I had no right to take her on; but as I scarcely ever did what was right I took her, and she went through. Of course I went in after her, and we were both nearly drowned. Well, I did not hear the last of that for a long time; it was always being thrown up in my teeth, till I declared that I would never take a girl out skating again. And now it seems that you are going to make it just as disagreeable for me."
The girl laughed.
"Well, I will really try hard not to. I will tell myself that anyone else would have done just the same as you did, and that there was no danger in it, and that it was altogether a most commonplace affair."
"Good!" he said. "That will make us both much more comfortable."