but ah! how I wished that
I were ignorant of what it was not my right to know....

I led her to the edge of the little bed of husks and found her kerchief.
Ah, she was of breeding and courage! Presently, her voice rose steady
and clear as ever. "Threlka!" she called. "Please!"

When Threlka came, she looked closely at her lady's face, and what she
read seemed, after all, to content her.

"Threlka," said my lady in French, "I want the little one."

I turned to her with query in my eyes.

"_Tiens!_" she said. "Wait. I have a little surprise."

"You have nothing at any time save surprises, Madam."

"Two things I have," said she, sighing: "a little dog from China, Chow
by name. He sleeps now, and I must not disturb him, else I would show
you how lovely a dog is Chow. Also here I have found a little Indian
child running about the post. Doctor McLaughlin was rejoiced when I
adopted her."

"Well, then, Madam, what next!"

--"Yes, with the promise to him that I would care for that little child.
I want something for my own. See now. Come, Natoka!"

The old servant paused at the door. There slid across the floor with the
silent feet of the savage the tiny figure of a little child, perhaps
four years of age, with coal-black hair and beady eyes, clad in all the
bequilled finery that a trading-post could furnish--a little orphan
child, as I learned later, whose parents had both been lost in a canoe
accident at the Dalles. She was an infant, wild, untrained, unloved,
unable to speak a word of the language that she heard. She stood now
hesitating, but that was only by reason of her sight of me. As I stepped
aside, the little one walked steadily but with quickening steps to my
satin-clad lady on her couch of husks. She took up the child in her
arms.... Now, there must be some speech between woman and child. I do
not know, except that the Baroness von Ritz spoke and that the child put
out a hand to her cheek. Then, as I stood awkward as a clown myself and
not knowing what to do, I saw tears rain again from the eyes of Helena
von Ritz, so that I turned away, even as I saw her cheek laid to that of
the child while she clasped it tight.

"Monsieur!" I heard her say at last.

I did not answer. I was learning a bit of life myself this night. I was
years older than when I had come through that door.

"Monsieur!" I heard her call yet again.

"_Eh bien_, Madam?" I replied, lightly as I could, and so turned, giving
her all possi