with my wife. She was like Suzanne."

"How long ago did you come from France, Monsieur?" I asked, to get away
from an uncomfortable subject.

"It is twenty years," said he, dreamily, in French. "I was born in the
Quartier Saint Jean, on the harbor of the city of Marseilles near
Notre Dame de la Nativite." And he told of a tall, uneven house of four
stories, with a high pitched roof, and a little barred door and window
at the bottom giving out upon the rough cobbles. He spoke of the smell
of the sea, of the rollicking sailors who surged through the narrow
street to embark on his Majesty's men-of-war, and of the King's white
soldiers in ranks of four going to foreign lands. And how he had become
a farmer, the tenant of a country family. Excitement grew on him, and he
mopped his brow with his blue rumal handkerchief.

"They desire all, the nobles," he cried, "I make the land good, and
they seize it. I marry a pretty wife, and Monsieur le Comte he want her.
L'bon Dieu," he added bitterly, relapsing into French. "France is for
the King and the nobility, Monsieur. The poor have but little chance
there. In the country I have seen the peasants eat roots, and in the
city the poor devour the refuse from the houses of the rich. It was we
who paid for their luxuries, and with mine own eyes I have seen their
gilded coaches ride down weak men and women in the streets. But it
cannot last. They will murder Louis and burn the great chateaux. I, who
speak to you, am of the people, Monsieur, I know it."

The sun had long set, and with flint and tow they were touching
the flame to the candles, which flickered transparent yellow in the
deepening twilight. So absorbed had I become in listening to Lenoir's
description that I had forgotten Nick. Now I searched for him among the
promenading figures, and missed him. In vain did I seek for a glimpse
of Suzanne's red ribbons, and I grew less and less attentive to the
miller's reminiscences and arraignments of the nobility. Had Nick indeed
run away with his daughter?

The dancing went on with unabated zeal, and through the open door in the
fainting azure of the sky the summer moon hung above the hills like a
great yellow orange. Striving to hide my uneasiness, I made my farewells
to Madame Chouteau's sons and daughters and their friends, and with
Colonel Chouteau I left the hall and began to walk towards Monsieur
Gratiot's, hoping against hope that Nick had gone there to change. But
we had sca