“Ma’m’selle is a pretty girl and sweet tempered. She has a dot, too,” said the placid woman. “But then I think——”
Renée burst into a passion of tears, and springing up stamped on the ground.
“She shall not come here!” she cried vehemently. “She shall not have Uncle Gaspard! Oh, why did he go clear to Canada for me, why did he bring me here?”
“There was your gran’père——”
“But he doesn’t want me. No one wants me!”
“Chut! chut! little one. Do not get in such a passion. Surely a child could not help it if it was to be so. But now that I think the matter over, he said I must come, as there would be no one here to look after you, and that your gran’père’s was no place for you. Truly, it is not, if the whispers about him are well grounded. It is said the river pirates gather there. And he goes away for weeks at a time. No, I do not believe M. Denys means to marry.”
“Oh, truly? truly?” Renée flung her arms about the woman’s neck. “Say again you do not believe it.”
Every pulse was throbbing, and her breath came in tangled gasps. The woman’s tranquillity rasped her.
“Nay, he would have planned different. And Ma’m’selle Barbe has young admirers. Ah, you should have seen her at Christmas and Epiphany! She was chosen Queen, she had one of the lucky beans. She would hardly want so grave a man. All young things love pleasure, and it is right; care comes fast enough.”
And now Renée remembered that a young man had spent evenings with his violin, and they two had sat out on the gallery. But she could not divest her mind of the curious sort of suspicion that Barbe cared very much for Uncle Gaspard.