"I have heard—yes."
"It is not my wish, but if he can make money in his youth so much the better. And the others are growing up to fill his place. Good day to thee, Jeanne."
That noon Madame De Ber said to her husband, "Jeanne Angelot improves greatly. Perhaps the school will do her no harm. She is rather sharp with her replies, but she always had a saucy tongue. A girl needs a mother to correct her, and Pani spoils her."
"She will have quite a dowry, I have heard," remarked her husband.
Pierre flushed a little at this pleasant mention of her name. If Jeanne only walked down in the town like some of the girls! If Rose might ask her to go!
But Rose did not dare, and then there was Martin ready to waylay her. Three were awkward when you liked best to have a young man to yourself.
How many times Pierre had watched her unseen, her lithe figure that seemed always atilt even when wrapped in furs, and her starry eyes gleaming out of her fur hood. Not even Rose could compare with her in that curious daintiness, though Pierre would have been at loss to describe it, since his vocabulary was limited, but he felt it in every slow beating pulse. He had resolved to speak, but she never gave him the opportunity. She flashed by him as if she had never known him.
But he must say good-by to her. There was Madelon Dace, who had quarreled with her lover and gone to a dance with some one else and held her head high, never looking to the right or the left, and then as suddenly melted into sweetness and they would be married. Yet Madelon had said to his sister Marie, "I will never speak to him, never!" What had he done to offend Jeanne so deeply? Girls were not usually angered at a man falling in love with them.
So Pierre's pack was made up. In the autumn they could send again. He took tea the last time with Marie. The boats were all ready to start up the Huron.
He went boldly to the little cottage and said courageously to Pani, though his heart seemed to quake almost down to his feet, "I am going away at noon. I have come to say good-by to Jeanne—and to you," put in as an afterthought.