She looked down. "I do not know that I thought at all about it. It has gone on like a play, a dream. Perhaps I thought it would continue. Your plan is to travel from tribe to tribe, and come back here at intervals?"
"That is my plan. I shall buy furs and cache them here. I shall try not to be away more than a week at a time. I regret that I surprised you. I did not think but that you understood."
She stood biting her lips and smiling to herself in half-satiric, half-whimsical fashion. "It says little for my intelligence that I was unprepared. You are a man, not a courtier. I should have known that you would not waste an hour. I wish that I might go with you."
"Madame, I wish it, too."
She looked up more briskly. "But that would be impossible. Have you instructions for me, monsieur?"
"Madame, if you are afraid, come with me."
"I am not afraid if you say that it is safe, monsieur."
"Thank you, madame. I think that it is entirely safe. Pierre is a good deal of a fool and more of a knave, but in some few respects there is no one like him; he is a rock. You are my wife and in his charge. He will guard you absolutely."
"Are we in danger of attack?"
"I can imagine no possible reason for attack, else I should not leave you. The Indians are friendly. One thing troubles me. Your cousin—— Should"——