All unwitting was it--out of his ignorance of the ways of thought of a sex with which he held the view that it is an ill thing to meddle--that he wounded her by his disclaimer, in which her sensitive maiden fancy imagined a something that was almost contemptuous.
They rode in silence for a little spell, broken at last by Garnache in expression of the thoughts that had come to him as a consequence of what she had said.
"On this same subject of thanks," said he--and as she raised her eyes again she found him smiling almost tenderly--"if any are due between us they are surely due from me to you." "From you to me ?" she asked in wonder.
"Assuredly," said he.

"Had you not come between me and the Dowager's assassins there had been an end to me in the hall of Condillac." Her hazel eyes were very round for a moment, then they narrowed, and little humorous lines formed at the corners of her lips.
"Monsieur de Garnache," said she, with a mock coldness that was a faint echo of his own recent manner, "you overstate the case.

That which I did I must have done, no matter whom it was a question of saving.

I was but an instrument in this matter, monsieur." His brows went up.

He stared at her a moment, gathering instruction from the shy mockery of her glance.