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.