“Then what am I to tell him? That you are too young to think about such things?”
“That I shall never think about him in that manner. Oh, make him understand that!”
“There, dear, it is not worth crying over. He is not the first man who has found the rose out of reach or been pricked by thorns.”
Gaspard turned up the sweet, flushed, tear-wet face and kissed it. He was so glad to have it back safe and innocent of the great knowledge that sooner or later comes to all womanhood. Some day it would come to her, but let him keep his little girl as long as he could.
So it was all settled, but Renée could not feel quite at rest about it. These people did not make tyrants of conscience; they were not analytical nor given to inquisitorial scrutiny of every feeling or motive. The priests were as simple-hearted as the people. True, some of them were considered rather lax when they had left their people open to Protestant influences. But here there were no Protestants, no religious arguments. To tell the truth, to be honest, just and kindly was creed enough for the women. Their hearts were not probed to the deepest thought. They confessed a bit of temper, a little envying, perhaps some laxness about prayers, and took a simple penance. Church-going was one of their pleasures.
Yet Renée had a kind of misgiving that she had thrown at Monsieur Laflamme some of those radiant looks that might mean much or little, according to one’s way of translating them. She put the thought of marriage far away from her. Some time a delightful, devoted man, like M. Marchand, might cross her path. He was so strong and yet so gentle. He was always thinking of what would please Wawataysee. Even now, with two babies, he went out rambling with her, and they came home laden with wild flowers or berries. Then it was out canoeing, of which the young wife was extremely fond.
But it did not seem as if M. Laflamme would be given to this kind of devotion. He would seek to bend a woman to his will. There were wives who cheerfully bowed their heads to their masters, but as a general thing these simple-minded French husbands were not tyrants.
She did not like him to come so near; it made her afraid. And, girlish contradiction, she had delighted in her power of bringing him near, of tasting the sweets of a certain kind of exaction. André always yielded to her whims and seldom had any will of his own.
She sat in the garden awhile listening to the birds and a pretty black-eyed squirrel, who kept running up and down the tree beside her and looking as if he would presently jump on her shoulder. Then she saw André coming up the path, and a tormenting impulse seized her. She skipped across the grass with a triumph of laughter in her eyes.
“André!” she cried gayly. “André, you were quite mistaken—” How should she word it?