"What have you been doing all the time I was away?" he said, when the awkwardness of the silence began to oppress him.
Jeanne made a little crease in her forehead, and a curl came to the rose red lip.
"I went to school until Christmas, then there was no teacher for a while. And when spring was coming I decided not to go back. I read at home. I have some books, and I write to improve myself. I can do it quite well in English. Then there is some one at the Fort, a sort of minister, who has a class down in the town, St. Louis street, and I go there."
"Is the minister a Catholic?"
"No," she answered, briefly.
"That is bad." He shook his head disapprovingly. "But you go to church?"
"There is a little chapel and I like the talk and the singing. I know two girls who go there. Sometimes I go with Pani to St. Anne's."
"But you should go all the time, Jeanne. Religion is especially for women. They have the children to bring up and to pray for their husbands, when they are on voyages or in dangers."
Pierre delivered this with an unpleasant air of masculine authority which Jeanne resented in her inmost soul. So she exclaimed rather curtly:—
"We will not discuss religion, Monsieur Pierre."