'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 occurred to him that the entire comedy of the strap had perhaps been invented as an excuse for opening a conversation; and he was at once flattered and disappointed. 'Oh, if she's that sort ...' he thought.
'I'm heart-broken not to have been able to serve you,' he said.
'You can help me to mount,' she answered.
And, before he quite knew how it was done, he had helped her to mount, and she was galloping down the path. The firm grasp of her warm gloved hand on his shoulder accompanied him to Saint-Graal. 'It's amazing how she sticks in my mind,' he said. He really couldn't fix his attention on any other subject. 'I wonder who the deuce she is. She's giving me my money's worth in walking. That business of the strap was really brazen. Still, one mustn't quarrel with the means if one desires the end. I hope she isn't that sort.'
VII.
On the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth days, she passed him with a bow and a good-morning.
'This is too much!' he groaned, in the silence of his chamber. 'She's doing it with malice. I'll not be trifled with. I—I'll do something desperate. I'll pretend to faint, and she'll have to get down and bandage up my wounds.'
On the thirteenth day, as they met, she stopped her horse.