The Grey Cloak - Page 218/256

"What is it?" asked Victor.

"Is Monsieur le Chevalier going?"

"Yes." Victor waited. "Why?" he said finally.

"Nothing, nothing." Madame took her place in the canoe.

"It is necessary for our general safety, Madame, that the Chevalier

goes with us."

"There is danger, then?"

"There will he none," emphatically.

"Let us be off," was madame's rejoinder.

The Chevalier stepped in and took the paddle, while Victor pushed the

canoe into the water. He and Anne followed presently. Madame sat in

the bow, her back to the Chevalier, her hands resting lightly on the

sides. The rings which the Chevalier had seen on those beautiful hands

while in Quebec were gone, even to the wedding ring. They were

doubtless bedecking the pudgy digits of one Corn Planter's wife, far

away in the Seneca country. The canoe quivered as the Chevalier's

strong arms swung the narrow-bladed paddle. Past marshes went the

painted canoes; they swam the singing shallows; they glided under

shading willow; they sped by wild grape-vine and spreading elm. The

stream was embroidered with a thousand grasses, dying daisies, paling

goldenrod, berry bushes, and wild-rose thorn. A thousand elusive

perfumes rose to greet them, a thousand changing scenes. October, in

all her gorgeous furbelows, sat upon her throne. The Chevalier never

uttered a word, but studied madame's half-turned cheek. Once he was

conscious that the color on that cheek deepened, then faded.

"It is the wind," he thought. "She is truly the most beautiful woman

in all the world; and fool that I am, I have vowed to her face that I

shall make her love me!" He could hear Victor's voice from time to

time, coming with the wind.

"Monsieur," madame said abruptly, when the silence Could no longer be

endured, "since you are here . . . Well, why do you not speak?"

The paddle turned so violently that the canoe came dangerously near

upsetting.

"What shall I say, Madame?"

"Eh! must I think for you?" impatiently.

The fact that her eye was not upon him, gave him a vestige of courage.

"It is a far cry from the galleries of the Louvre, Madame, to this

spot."

"We have gone back to the beginning of the world. No music save

Nicot's violin, which he plays sadly enough; no masks, no parties, no

galloping to the hunt, no languishing in the balconies. Were it not

pregnant with hidden dangers, I should love this land. I wonder who is

the latest celebrity at the old Rambouillet; a poet possibly, a

swashbuckler, more probably."

"Move back a little, Madame. We shall land on that stretch of sand by

the willows."

Madame did as he required, and with a dexterous stroke the Chevalier

sent the craft upon the beach and jumped out. This manoeuver to assist

her did not pass, for she was up and out almost as soon as he. In a

moment Victor came to the spot. The two canoes were hidden with a

cunning which the Chevalier had learned from the Indian.