gentleman
in," he added. In the room without, the envoy from Quebec had stood
flicking the dust from his leggings with a scarf. He was not more than
eighteen, his face had scarcely an inkling of moustache, but he had an
easy upright carriage, with an air of self-possession, the keenest of
grey eyes, a strong pair of shoulders, a look of daring about his rather
large mouth, which lent him a manliness well warranting his present
service. He had been left alone, and the first thing he had done was
to turn on his heel and examine the place swiftly. This he seemed to do
mechanically, not as one forecasting danger, not as a spy. In the
curve of his lips, in an occasional droop of his eyelids, there was a
suggestion of humour: less often a quality of the young than of the old.
For even in the late seventeenth century, youth took itself seriously at
times.

Presently, as he stood looking at the sunshine through the open door,
a young girl came into the lane of light, waved her hand, with a little
laugh, to some one in the distance, and stepped inside. At first she did
not see him. Her glances were still cast back the way she had come.
The young man could not follow her glance, nor was he anything curious.
Young as he was, he could enjoy a fine picture. There was a pretty
demureness in the girl's manner, a warm piquancy in the turn of the
neck, and a delicacy in her gestures, which to him, fresh from hard
hours in the woods, was part of some delightful Arcady--though Arcady
was more in his veins than of his knowledge. For the young seigneur of
New France spent far more hours with his gun than with his Latin, and
knew his bush-ranging vassal better than his tutor; and this one was too
complete a type of his order to reverse its record. He did not look to
his scanty lace, or set himself seemingly; he did but stop flicking the
scarf held loose in his fingers, his foot still on the bench. A smile
played at his lips, and his eyes had a gleam of raillery. He heard
the girl say in a soft, quaint voice, just as she turned towards him,
"Foolish boy!" By this he knew that the pretty picture had for its
inspiration one of his own sex.

She faced him, and gave a little cry of surprise. Then their eyes met.
Immediately he made the most elaborate bow of all his life, and she
swept a graceful courtesy. Her face was slightly flushed that this
stranger should have seen, but he carried such an open, cordial look
that she paused, instead of hur