The little doctor met us at the gate with a beaming face, and when Narcisse and Yorke had led away our horses we entered once more the long, low room we had first entered nearly two months before. The windows were no longer open, looking out into cool green foliage, with white muslin curtains stirring in the breeze, and there was no maiden in a white robe, with the blue ribbon of a guitar across her shoulders, singing creole love-songs. Instead, crimson damask curtains were falling over the white ones, and a great fire of logs was blazing in one end of the room, looking cozy and cheery enough on this crisp December day.

Yet, in spite of its coziness, I thought it had a dreary look. Leon was lying before the fire, and though he looked at me a little doubtfully, as he slowly rose and shook himself, I felt a rush of friendliness toward him, and showed it so plainly, as I called him to me, that at last he capitulated, and we have ever since been the best of friends.

Then Madame Saugrain came running in, flushed and rosy from the kitchen, where she had been superintending the baking of Christmas tarts and croquecignolles, and bringing with her appetizing whiffs of roasting and frying. My captain laughingly told her that the good smells made him hungry.

"You shall come and see," she said; and led us into the great kitchen, where, on tables as white as snow, were piled heaps of golden-brown croquecignolles, cut in curious patterns, and the big black cook was dropping still more into the kettle of boiling fat, and bringing out puffy and wondrously shaped birds and beasts. Narcisse, on his knees on the hearth, was turning two great fowls suspended before the fire, from which oozed such rich and savory gravy as made one smack his lips. On another table a huge venison pasty and tarts and cakes of many kinds were temptingly arrayed, and madame's pride in her housewifely preparations for the Christmas feasting was pretty to see.

She would have us taste her croquecignolles and little cakes, and had a gla.s.s of gooseberry wine brought out of the store-room for each of us, and we drank it standing in the kitchen, and helping ourselves from the pile of croquecignolles.

But kind and charming as was madame, and toothsome as were her cakes, and much as her gooseberry wine tickled our palates, I was yet on nettles to be gone and join the young people at the church. Whether madame guessed it or whether it was just one of her kindly thoughts, she said in her motherly way:

"But, my son, you should be at the church. The maidens will be vexed with me if I keep you talking to an old woman, when they might be having your help with the wreaths."

"If you think they need me?" and I tried to look as if only a stern sense of duty could induce me to go.

Madame Saugrain laughed, with the merry twinkle in her eye that made her as captivating as a young maiden.

"Allons donc!" she said. "Quel garcon!" And with my best bow to her and a salute to my captain and the good doctor, I whistled to Leon to accompany me and strode quickly down the road toward the little church.

But as I neared it I slackened my pace, and but for very shame I would have turned and fled again to the shelter of madame's motherly smile.

I had not seen Mademoiselle Pelagie since the day of the picnic, and I was much in doubt whether she regarded me as her rescuer to be esteemed with grateful and friendly feeling, or as the cause of the loss of a dear friend, perhaps a lover. I felt very sure I would be able to tell at our first meeting in which light I was held, and, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up all my courage, I made a bold dash for the church door.

Scarcely had my shadow darkened the doorway when I was surrounded by an eager group, saluting me with every form of friendly welcome back to St. Louis; but the face I looked for was not among them.

Mademoiselle Chouteau and Mademoiselle Papin seized me, one by either arm, and led me to a great pile of greens, and would have set me at once to work in tying them to long ropes. But I begged them to permit me first to pay my respects to the rest of my friends; for over in a dark corner I had seen Pelagie at work, with two or three young men around her, supplying her with greens for her nimble fingers to weave into garlands, and she had not come with the others to greet me. I thought at least that little courtesy was due me, for, whether she liked or resented my rescuing her, I had risked much in the doing of it.

I was filled with bitterness toward her, but could have no more kept away from her than the moth from the flame. My bitterness now gave me courage, and I sauntered up to her with what I flattered myself was quite as grand an air as the chevalier's might have been. Hand on the hilt of my sword, hat doffed, with its plume sweeping the ground, I bowed low.

"If mademoiselle has not forgotten an old acquaintance, will she permit me respectfully to salute her?"

She had been seated on a low seat with the side of her face toward me, and may or may not have been aware of my approach. As I spoke, she rose quickly and turned toward me, the rich blood rushing over her face and neck for a minute, and receding and leaving her almost as white as when I had held her in my arms and she had thought the chevalier killed.

She did not speak, but she held out her hand, and I bowed low over it, and barely touched it with my lips. The young men (among whom was of course Josef Papin) crowded around me with friendly greetings, and for a few minutes we talked fast, they asking and I answering many questions about Daniel Boone and our adventures in the far West.

I did not look at mademoiselle as we talked, but--it is a way I have--I saw her all the time. I think it must be because I am so much taller than most people that I can see all that goes on around me (or, perhaps more truly, beneath me) without seeming to look. I saw mademoiselle regard me with a strange glance, as if she were looking at some one she did not know, and was trying to explain him to herself. Then she sat down and quietly went on with her work, her head bent, and not looking at me again.

I talked on for a few minutes, and then turned to make my adieus to mademoiselle. She looked up at me with a friendly smile and I saw, what I had not noticed before, that she was paler and thinner than when I had seen her last, and there was a look in her dark eyes as of hidden trouble.

"Will you not stay and help us, monsieur?" she said in that voice which, from the first time I had heard it, had always seemed to me the sweetest in the world. Of course it set my silly pulses to beating faster, but I answered steadily and with an air of cold courtesy:

"I regret that I cannot accept mademoiselle's invitation; I have promised my services elsewhere"; and with another low bow I turned on my heel and, holding my head high, went back to weave garlands with Mademoiselle Chouteau and Marguerite Papin.

And because I was so big and they were so pet.i.te, they delighted in ordering me around (and I delighted in obeying), and they made me mount to the highest beams to suspend garlands, and applauded me when I arranged them to suit their fancy, and laughed at me or scolded me when I was awkward and stupid, until my back ached and my heart grew light; for I forgot for a time that mademoiselle, for whom I had risked my life, had not even cared to give me a friendly welcome back to St. Louis.

The last garland was fastened in its place, the last stray bit of evergreen and rubbish swept from the doors, the church garnished and beautiful to behold. There was the noisy bustle of preparing for departure and the calling back and forth:

"Be sure you are at midnight ma.s.s, Gabriel."

"Au revoir at midnight ma.s.s, Pelagie."

"I will see you at midnight ma.s.s, monsieur."

And for me there was a moment of embarra.s.sment. Was it my duty to offer myself as escort to any of the maidens? For though the hour was early it was already dark. Or, since I was going direct to mademoiselle's house, would I be expected to accompany her? I glanced over to her corner; she had already left the church. I looked through the open doorway; she was walking down the Rue de l'eglise with Josef Papin.

"Mademoiselle Chouteau," I said, "may I have the pleasure of walking home with you?"

But all the way up the Rue de l'eglise and down the steep incline of the Rue Bonhomme, and up the Rue Royale to the great barred gate that led into the stone-walled inclosure of Pierre Chouteau, while Mademoiselle Chouteau, with her nimble tongue, was flitting from one bit of village gossip to another, like a b.u.t.terfly among the flowers, I was saying bitterly to myself:

"And she had even the discourtesy to walk away without waiting to see whether the guest of her house was going home or not."

It was a long mile and a half from Pierre Chouteau's house to Dr.

Saugrain's, and it was a frosty December evening. It was only five o'clock, but the stars were out, and through the leafless trees I could see lights twinkling from the houses as I pa.s.sed. Faster and faster I walked, as my thoughts grew more and more bitter toward mademoiselle, and by the time I had reached the cheery living-room, with its blazing lightwood fire, I was in such a glow from exercise and indignation as made the fire all unwelcome.

I had quite made up my mind, on my long walk, that mademoiselle should find me as cool as herself; and through the evening meal I scarce looked at her. But if I had fancied mademoiselle suffering from some secret trouble, I changed my mind at supper. She sat between my captain and her guardian, and was in such merry mood that she had my captain alternately laughing uproariously at her wit, and making fine speeches about her beauty, in a fashion that quite amazed me, for I had ever considered him a sober-minded fellow, above all such light ways.

Nor did she refrain from a slight stab at me whenever it was possible to get it in. I took no more notice of these than I could help, yet I felt my cheeks, already burning from my frosty walk, grow hotter and hotter, until the very tips of my ears were on fire; and I felt it the unkindest cut of all when she said, with her pretty accent and air of polite condescension to a very young boy:

"'Tis a long walk from Mademoiselle Chouteau's, monsieur, but it has given you une grande couleur. What would not our St. Louis belles give for such roses!"

I turned toward her just long enough to say gravely, "I thank you, mademoiselle," and then renewed at once my conversation with madame.

But I could see from the tail of my eye that she had the grace to blush also, and to be ashamed of her petty persecutions, for she left me to myself the remainder of the meal.

CHAPTER VIII

I GO TO MIDNIGHT Ma.s.s

"Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains."

In our room, making ready for midnight ma.s.s, which all the family, including guests, were expected to attend, my captain told me what Dr.

Saugrain had said to him about mademoiselle. He had told her fully her history and expectations (save only her exact rank and t.i.tle, which he had thought best still to withhold from her), and the plans of her friends for her future. He had also told her very plainly that he had suspected the chevalier of just such an attempt at her capture as he had made, and for that reason had been so unwilling that she should go to Chouteau's Pond.

Mademoiselle had listened, and had asked him many questions, and had at last said that she could not doubt the truth of her guardian, but she thought it possible the chevalier was honest also, and misjudged Dr. Saugrain because he did not know him. The doctor had tried to convince her of the chevalier's duplicity, and showed her the letter of warning from France concerning him; but the doctor was not sure that mademoiselle was convinced, and he had determined, as soon as safe convoy could be found, to send her to her friends in Paris.

In the meantime mademoiselle did not seem happy, and the good doctor was much puzzled to know whether it was, as he hoped, regret at leaving his wife and himself, who had been father and mother to her, or, as he feared, a secret regret for the chevalier, and a lurking doubt of the Saugrains.

And now all my bitterness toward mademoiselle had suddenly vanished. I seemed to understand fully the state of mind the poor girl was in, and there was no room in my heart for anything but a great pity for her.

The remembrance of her face as I had seen it when the chevalier was talking to her, the generous indignation changing to doubt, and then the gradual kindling of a desire for the life depicted to her by the chevalier (and, perhaps, a touch of a softer emotion for the chevalier himself),--it was like reading an open book, and I said to myself:

"Mademoiselle is torn by conflicting emotions: her love for her friends here whom she is to leave, and longing for the life in Paris which may soon be hers, and, perhaps, love for the chevalier, whom she feels she ought to despise. What does it matter if she sometimes vents her irritation with herself upon me, whom she regards as but a boy? I shall not resent it; but if I find a chance I will try to let her know I understand."

But I had no chance on the way to ma.s.s. Madame Saugrain seemed to take it for granted that Captain Clarke and the doctor would walk with mademoiselle, and I was her peculiar property; and I suppose I had given her the right to think so by always pointedly devoting myself to her.

It was a solemn service at that midnight hour: the bare little church made beautiful with our garlands of green, and the twinkle of many candles around the altar; the heads bowed in prayer; the subdued murmur of voices making the responses; the swelling note of triumph in the Gregorian chant; and then coming out under the quiet stars and exchanging greetings with friend and neighbor.

And last of all the quiet walk home, and, to my surprise, I was walking by mademoiselle's side. I was surprised, for it was not of my arranging, and it set my blood to leaping to think it was possibly of hers. I made up my mind that no word of mine should mar the friendliness of the act, and I plunged quickly into a lively discussion of the ball that was to take place at Madame Chouteau's on Christmas evening. But she interrupted me almost in the beginning, and, as was her habit when she talked with me, she spoke in French. It was only rarely she tried her English, though, when she did, it was with such a witching grace I could have wished it oftener.

"Monsieur," she said, "I have been so unmaidenly as to inflict my company upon you for the walk home when you had not solicited it, but I had a reason for so doing. I hope," as if a sudden thought had struck her, "I have not interfered with other plans. Had you desired to escort some one else home?"