ure."

She held his hand in both of hers, and looked up into his eyes with
a smile at once child-like and naive--and masterful; for behind the
simplicity and the girlish manner there was a power, a mind, with which
this sweet golden hair and cheeks like a rose-garden had nothing to
do. The Cure, beaming, touched by her warmth, and by her tiny caressing
fingers, stooped and kissed them both like an old courtier. He had come
of a good family in France long ago, very long ago,--and even in this
French-Canadian village; where he had taught and served and lingered
forty years, he had kept the graces of his youth, and this beautiful
woman drew them all out. Since his arrival in Pontiac, he had never
kissed a woman's hand--women had kissed his; and this woman was a
Protestant, like Medallion!

Turning from the Cure, she held out a hand to the young Seigneur with
a little casual air, as if she had but seen him yesterday, and said:
"Monsieur De la Riviere--what, still buried?--and the world waiting for
the great touch! But we in Pontiac gain what the world loses."

She turned to the Cure again, and said, placing a hand upon his arm:

"I could not pass without stepping in upon my dear old friend, even
though soiled and unpresentable. But you forgive that, don't you?"

"Madame is always welcome, and always unspotted of the dusty world," he
answered gallantly.

She caught his fingers in hers as might a child, turned full upon
Valmond, and waited. The Cure instantly presented Valmond to her. She
looked at him brightly, alluringly, apparently so simply; yet her first
act showed the perception behind that rosy and golden face, and the
demure eyes whose lids languished now and then--to the unknowing with an
air of coquetry, to the knowing--did any know her?--as one would shade
one's eyes to see a landscape clearly, or make out a distant figure. As
Valmond bowed, a thought seemed to fetch down the pink eyelids, and
she stretched out her hand, which he took and kissed, while she said in
English, though they had been talking in French:

"A traveller too, like myself, Monsieur Valmond? But Pontiac--why
Pontiac?"

A furtive, inquiring look shot from the eyes of the young Seigneur, a
puzzled glance from the Cure's, as they watched Valmond; for they did
not know that he had knowledge of English; he had not spoken it to
Medallion, who had sent into his talk several English words. How did
this woman divine it?

A strange suspicion fl