COMPACT

We paddled that afternoon till the men splashed water into the canoes,
which was their way of telling me that I had worked them hard enough.
It was dusk when we landed, and starlight before our kettles were hot.
I had been silent, when I had not been fault finding, till, supper
over, the woman, leaning across the fire, asked me why.

"Is something wrong?" she ventured. "Ever since we met the
Pottawatamies you have seemed in haste."

I looked around. The men were at a distance preparing for sleep. "I
wish to reach the Pottawatamie Islands before to-morrow night.
Mademoiselle Starling, may I talk of our future?"

She rose. "You called me mademoiselle."

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"And you mean"--

I took off my hat. "Will you come with me?" I asked,--"come where we
shall not be overheard? We must talk of our future."

I knew that she trembled as she bowed her assent, but I pretended to be
blind. I led the way outside of the circle of light, then waited for
her to come to me. I stood with my hat in hand, and my heart cried in
pity for the woman, but my tongue was heavy as a savage's.

"I learned from the Pottawatamies," I said, "that Father Nouvel is
tarrying at their islands. If we haste, we may find him there.
Mademoiselle, will you marry me?"

I do not know that I was cool enough to measure rightly the space of
the silence that ensued, but it seemed a long one. The woman stood
very still. A star fell slanting from the mid-sky, and I watched it
slip behind the horizon. The woman's head was high, and I knew that
she was thinking. It troubled me that she could think at such a time.

"Mademoiselle"--I began.

"Wait!" she interrupted. She raised her hand, and her fingers looked
carven white in the moonlight, though by daylight they were brown.
"Monsieur, you watched the star. It went into the unknown,--a way so
wide and terrible that we may not follow it even in thought. We live
alone with majestic forces,--forests greater than an empire, unmapped
waters, and strange, savage men. We are pygmies; yet, if we have
spirit we can grow into some measure of the greatness and inflexibility
around us. Monsieur, when you asked me--what you asked me now--you
were thinking of France and its standards. Of little, tidy, hedged-in
France. You were not---- Oh, monsieur, I am sorry you asked me that
question. Of course I answer 'no,' but--but I am sorry that you asked
it."

I went to her. "You are