ed partly from him, and he stepped to the opposite
side of the table so he could look at her fairly. If there had been
unpleasantness in the cabin on the raft, St. Pierre's wife in no way
gave evidence of it. The color had deepened to almost a blush in her
cheeks, but it was not on account of embarrassment, for one who is
embarrassed is not usually amused, and as she looked up at him her eyes
were filled with the flash of laughter which he had caught her lips
struggling to restrain. Then, finding a bit of lace work with the
needles meshed in it, she seated herself, and again he was looking down
on the droop of her long lashes and the seductive glow of her lustrous
hair. Yesterday, in a moment of irresistible impulse, he had told her
how lovely it was as she had dressed it, a bewitching crown of
interwoven coils, not drawn tightly, but crumpled and soft, as if the
mass of tresses were openly rebelling at closer confinement. She had
told him the effect was entirely accidental, largely due to
carelessness and haste in dressing it. Accidental or otherwise, it was
the same tonight, and in the heart of it were the drooping red petals
of a flower she had gathered with him early that afternoon.

"St. Pierre brought me over," she said in a calmly matter-of-fact
voice, as though she had expected David to know that from the
beginning. "He is ashore talking over important matters with Bateese. I
am sure he will drop in and say good night before he returns to the
raft. He asked me to wait for him--here." She raised her eyes, so clear
and untroubled, so quietly unembarrassed under his gaze, that he would
have staked his life she had no suspicion of the confessions which St.
Pierre had revealed to him.

"Do you care? Would you rather put out the lights and go to bed?"

He shook his head. "No. I am glad. I was beastly lonesome. I had an
idea--"

He was on the point of blundering again when he caught himself. The
effect of her so near him was more than ever disturbing, in spite of
St. Pierre. Her eyes, clear and steady, yet soft as velvet when they
looked at him, made his tongue and his thoughts dangerously uncertain.

"You had an idea, M'sieu David?"

"That you would have no desire to see me again after my talk with St.
Pierre," he said. "Did he tell you about it?"

"He said you were very fine, M'sieu David--and that he liked you."

"And he told you it is determined that I shall fight Bateese in the
morning?"

"Yes."

The