"Oh, yes. So is the flower sweet, and it drops off into withered leaves. And her eyes looked askance at M'sieu Ralph, yet she hath a husband. Come, eat of thy bird and bread, and to-morrow maybe thou wilt run about lest thy limbs stiffen up to a palsy."
"Mistress, mistress," called Pani—"here is a man to see thee."
She went through both rooms. The man stood without, rather rough, unkempt, with buckskin breeches, fringed leggings, an Indian blanket, a grizzled beard hanging down on his breast, and his tousled hair well sprinkled with white; his face wrinkled with the hardships he had passed through, but the gray-blue eyes twinkled.
"Ha! ha!" A coarse, but not unfriendly laugh finished the greeting as he caught both hands in an impetuous embrace. "Lalotte, old girl, has thy memory failed in two years? Or hast thou gotten another husband?"
The woman gave a shriek of mingled surprise and delight. "The saints be praised, it is Antoine. And how if thou hast taken some Indian woman to wife? Braves do not consort with white women who cannot be made into slaves," she answered, with spirit.
"Lalotte, thou wert hard to win in those early days. But now a dozen good kisses with more flavor in them than Burgundy wine, and I will prove to you I am the same old Antoine. And then—but thy supper smell is good to a hungry man. And a dish of shallots. It takes a man back to old Barbizon."
Stout and strong as was Madame Dubray, her husband almost kissed the breath out of her body in his rapturous embrace.
"But I had no word of your coming——"
"How could you, pardieu! But you knew the traders were coming in. And a man can't send messengers hundreds of miles."
"I looked last year——"