And though next
morning the horses were missing and the coach-house empty, he couldn't
be got to connect the two disappearances. He rang me up from the country
where he went next day, saying earnestly as though to convince himself,
'You know I've got on to the Paris police about those horses.' And later
in the day, again: 'I hear there has been a good deal of horse-stealing
all over the country.' Then, when the horses were found, one dead, and
the other tied to the station railings, he believed at once that she had
taken them and wouldn't talk one word more upon the subject. He sold the
remaining horse."
"It was then he grew cool about women!"
"Not yet. It was then that he met, almost at once, a young girl who
insisted in the most amazing fashion, that she loved him. He could not
understand it. He came to me and said: 'Why does she love me?'
"I thought she was merely intriguing to marry him, but no, he said:
'There's something sincere and impressive in her tone; she loves me.
What shall I do?'
'Why _shouldn't_ you marry her?' I said.
And then he was all at once taken with the idea to such a degree that
he became terrified when he was with her. 'Suppose she refuses me,' he
said twenty times a day. 'Ask her. It's simple.' 'It's staking too much.
You say, "Ask her," when all in a minute she may say no.
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