'Very often.'
'But not with me, and I have given you cause many a time. If you would be angry with me even once, Jack, causelessly angry, then I should know I had a friend to whom I could go if I were in trouble—in such trouble as I am to-night!'
'If there is anything I can do for you——'
The quiet tone annoyed her. She rose quickly.
'If—if—if! Any man could help me who—cared.'
'I do care.'
'I wonder,' she said wistfully, 'how much you mean of what you say. I have no standard to judge you by, because you are not quite like other men. But I owe you my life, and I sometimes think it gives me a claim on you.'
'I can never pretend you owe me anything: you were quite safe; no accident could have happened. You are far too good a horsewoman, though you were nervous for the moment.' He spoke with a careless affectionateness, for the young Countess in her helpless beauty appealed to him.
'Look at me!' she said tragically. 'Do I seem hateful?'
'You are a young queen,' he paused, and added, 'a young queen—seen in a dream! You are too ethereal to be of common earth.'