“Yes, I am too cautious,” he agreed heavily.
“You do not know the meaning of love.”
“Then God grant I may never know, if it is worse than this:”
“If I were a man, and loved a woman, I would think less of myself and more of her. When I saw her unhappy and being forced to a terrible thing, I would move heaven and earth to save her.”
“How would you do it?” said Nikky in a low tone.
Hedwig shrugged her shoulders. “I would find a way. The world is large. Surely, if one really cared, it could be managed. I should consider my first duty to her.”
“I am a soldier, Highness. My first duty is to my country.”
“You?” said Hedwig, now very white. “I was not speaking of you. I was speaking of a man who truly loved a woman.”
She rode away, and left him there. And because she was hurt and reckless, and not quite sane, she gave him a very bad half-hour. She jumped again, higher each time, silencing the protests of the riding-master with an imperious gesture. Her horse tired. His sides heaved, his delicate nostrils dilated. She beat him with her crop, and flung him again at the hurdle.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto was delighted, a trifle envious. “She jumps better than I do,” he observed to Nikky, “but she is in a very bad humor.”