crumpled with his hands, placed two or three chairs in
their usual places, and moved from this to that with the air of a
housewife who is in the habit of brushing up a bit in the morning.

She seemed not at all embarrassed because he was her prisoner, nor
uncomfortably restrained because of the message she had sent to him by
Bateese. She was warmly and gloriously human. In her apparent unconcern
at his presence he found himself sweating inwardly. A bit nervously he
struck a match to light his pipe, then extinguished it.

She noticed what he had done. "You may smoke," she said, with that
little note in her throat which he loved to hear, like the faintest
melody of laughter that did not quite reach her lips. "St. Pierre
smokes a great deal, and I like it."

She opened a drawer in the dressing-table and came to him with a box
half filled with cigars.

"St. Pierre prefers these--on occasions," she said, "Do you?"

His fingers seemed all thumbs as he took a cigar from the proffered
box. He cursed himself because his tongue felt thick. Perhaps it was
his silence, betraying something of his mental clumsiness, that brought
a faint flush of color into her cheeks. He noted that; and also that
the top of her shining head came just about to his chin, and that her
mouth and throat, looking down on them, were bewitchingly soft and
sweet.

And what she said, when her eyes opened wide and beautiful on him
again, was like a knife cutting suddenly into the heart of his thoughts.

"In the evening I love to sit at St. Pierre's feet and watch him
smoke," she said. "I am glad it doesn't annoy you, because--I like to
smoke," he replied lamely.

She placed the box on the little reading table and looked at his
breakfast things. "You like muffins, too. I was up early this morning,
making them for you!"

"You made them?" he demanded, as if her words were a most amazing
revelation to him.

"Surely, M'sieu David. I make them every morning for St. Pierre. He is
very fond of them. He says the third nicest thing about me is my
muffins!"

"And the other two?" asked David.

"Are St. Pierre's little secrets, m'sieu," she laughed softly, the
color deepening in her cheeks. "It wouldn't be fair to tell you, would
it?"

"Perhaps it wouldn't," he said slowly. "But there are one or two other
things, Mrs.--Mrs. Boulain--"

"You may call me Jeanne, or Marie-Anne, if you care to," she
interrupted him. "It will be quite all right."

She was p