"There is quality and quant.i.ty without end. I am not a lover who pines and goes without his meals. Madame, observe me--I kneel. I tell you that I adore you. Will you be my wife?"
"No, a thousand times no! I know you to be a brave man, Monsieur le Vicomte; but who can put a finger on your fancy? To-day it is I; to-morrow, elsewhere. You would soon tire of me who could bring you no dowry save lost illusions and confiscated property. Doubtless you have not heard that his Eminence the cardinal has posted seals upon all that which fell to me through Monsieur de Brissac."
"What penetration!" thought the vicomte, rising and dusting his knees.
"And yet, Monsieur," impulsively, "I would not have you for an enemy."
"One would think that you are afraid of me."
"I am," simply.
"Why?"
"You are determined that I shall love you, and I am equally determined that I shall not."
"Ah! a matter of the stronger mind and will."
"My will shall never bend toward yours, Monsieur. What I fear is your persecution. Let us put aside love, which is impossible, and turn our attention to something nearer and quite possible--friendship." She extended her hand, frankly, without reservation. If only she could in some manner disarm this man!
"What!" mockingly, "you forgive my attempt at Quebec to coerce you?"
"Frankly, since you did not succeed, Monsieur, I have seen too much of men not to appreciate a brilliant stroke. Had I not torn that paper from your hand, you might have scored at least half a trick. There is a high place somewhere in this world for a man of your wit and courage."
"Mazarin"s interpretation of that would be a gibbet on Montfaucon."
"I am offering you friendship, Monsieur." The hand remained extended.
The vicomte bowed, placed his hands behind his back and bowed again.
"Friendship and love; oil and water. Madame, when they mix well, I will come in the guise of a friend. Sometimes I"ve half a mind to tell the Chevalier who you are; for, my faith! it is humorous in the extreme. I understand that you and he were affianced, once upon a time; and here he is, making violent love to you, not knowing your name any more than Adam knew Eve"s."
"Very well, then, Monsieur. Since there can be no friendship, there can be nothing. Hereafter you will do me the kindness not to intrude into my affairs."
"Madame, I am a part of your destiny. I told you so long ago."
"I am a woman, and women are helpless." Madame was discouraged. What with that insane D"Herouville, the Chevalier, and this mocking suitor, her freedom was to prove but small. France, France! "And I am here in exile, Monsieur, innocent of any wrong."
"You are guilty of beautiful eyes."
"I should have thrown myself upon Mazarin"s mercy."
"Which is like unto the flesh of the fish--little blood and that cold.
You forget your beauty, Madame, and your wit. Mazarin would have found you very guilty of these. And is not Madame de Montbazon your mother?
Mazarin loves her not overwell. Ah, but that paper! What the devil did we sign it for? I would give a year of my life could I but put my hands upon it."
"Or the man who stole it."
"Or the man who stole it," repeated he.
"When I return to France, I shall have a deal to revenge," her hands clenching.
"Let me be the sword of wrath, Madame. You have but to say the word.
You love no one, you say. You are young; I will devote my life to teaching you."
Madame"s gesture was of protest and of resignation. "Monsieur, if you address me again, I shall appeal to Father Le Mercier or Father Chaumonot. I will not be persecuted longer."
"Ah, well!" He moved aside for her and leaned against a tree, watching her till she disappeared within the palisade. "Now, that is a woman!
She lacks not one attribute of perfection, save it be a husband, and that shall be found. I wonder what that fool of a D"Herouville was doing this morning with those dissatisfied colonists and that man Pauquet? I will watch. Something is going on, and it will not harm to know what." He laughed silently.
Before the women entered the wilderness to create currents and eddies in the sluggish stream which flowed over the colonists, Victor began to compile a book on Indian lore. He took up the work the very first night of his arrival; took it up as eagerly as if it were a gift from the G.o.ds, as indeed it was, promising as it did to while away many a long night. He depended wholly upon Father Chaumonot"s knowledge of the tongue and the legends; and daring the first three nights he and Chaumonot divided a table between them, the one to scribble his lore and the other to add a page to those remarkable memoirs, the Jesuit Relations. The Chevalier watched them both from a corner where he sat and gravely smoked a wooden pipe.
And then the ma.n.u.script of the poet was put aside.
"Why?" asked Chaumonot one night. He had been greatly interested in the poet"s work.
Victor flushed guiltily. "Perhaps it may be of no value. There are but half a dozen thoughts worth remembering."
"And who may say that immortality does not dwell in these thoughts?"
said the priest. "All things are born to die save thought; and if in pa.s.sing we leave but a single thought which will alleviate the sufferings of man or add beauty to his existence, one does not live and die in vain." Chaumonot"s afterthought was: "This good lad is in love with one or the other of these women."
But Clio knew Victor no more. On the margins he drew faces or began rondeaux which came to no end.
"Laughter has a pleasant sound in my ears, Paul," said Victor; "and I have not heard you laugh in some time."
"Perhaps the thought has not occurred to me," replied the Chevalier, glancing at the entrance to the palisade. Madame had only that moment pa.s.sed through, having left the vicomte. "I have lost the trick of laughing. No thought of mine is spontaneous. With a carpenter"s ell I mark out each thought; it is all edges and angles."
"Something must be done, then, to make you laugh. Madame and mademoiselle have promised to take a canoe trip back into the hills this afternoon. Come with us."
"They suggested . . . ?" the Chevalier stammered.
"No. But haven"t you the right? At least you know madame."
"Madame?"
"Madame, always madame. Here formalities would only be ridiculous.
You will go with us for safety"s sake, if for nothing more."
"I will go . . . with that understanding. Ah, lad, if only I knew what you know!"
"We should still be where we are," evasively. The poet had a plan in regard to madame and the Chevalier. It twisted his brave heart, yet he clung to it.
Caprice is an exquisite trait in a woman; a woman who has it--and what woman has not?--is all the seasons of the year compressed into an hour--the mildness of spring, the warmth of summer, the glory of autumn, and the chill of winter. And when madame saw the Chevalier that afternoon, she put a foot into the canoe, and immediately withdrew it.
"What is it?" asked Victor.
"Is Monsieur le Chevalier going?"
"Yes." Victor waited. "Why?" he said finally.