The Grey Cloak - Page 217/256

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 gods, 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 manuscript 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

passing 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

passed 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.