friendly to tell you that you have something more than the weather and my
gratitude in common."

She laughed as she spoke; then became suddenly grave, and sat down again
with her hand to her eyes.

"And I am going to faint," she added, with ghastly lips that tried to
smile, "and nobody but you two men,"

"It is the reaction," said Colonel Gilbert, in his soothing way. But he
exchanged a quick glance with de Vasselot. "It will pass, baroness."

"It is well to remember at such a moment that one is a sportswoman,"
suggested de Vasselot.

"And that one has de Vasselot blood in one's veins, you mean. You may as
well say it." She rose as she spoke, and looked from one to the other
with a brave laugh. "Bring me that horse," she said.

De Vasselot conveyed by one inimitable gesture that he admired her
spirit, but refused to obey her. Colonel Gilbert smiled contemplatively,
He was of a different school--of that school of Frenchmen which owes its
existence to Napoleon III.--impassive, almost taciturn--more British than
the typical Briton. De Vasselot, on the contrary, was quick and
vivacious. His fine-cut face and dark eyes expressed a hundred things
that his tongue had no time to put into words. He was hard and brown and
sunburnt, which at once made him manly despite his slight frame.

"Ah," he cried, with a gay laugh, "that is better. But seriously, you
know, you should have a patent stirrup--"