“Well, you can give us something to eat. Your supper has a grand fragrance to a hungry man. Then we can discuss the other points. A bear taken away from his meal is always cross—eh, Antoine?”
Freneau turned swarthy; he was dark, and the red tinge added made him look dangerous.
“I don’t understand——”
“Well, neither do I. You married your daughter to a French title when you knew she would have been happier here with a young fellow who loved her; and—yes, I am sure she loved me. Somewhere back, when my forebears called themselves St. Denys, there might have been a title in the family. In this New World we base our titles on our courage, ambitions, successes. Then her little daughter was born, and she pined away in the old Château de Longueville and presently died, while her husband was paying court and compliments to the ladies at the palace of Louis XVII. There are deep mutterings over in France. And De Longueville, with his half dozen titles, marries one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies in waiting. The child goes on in the old château. Two boys are born to the French inheritance, and little mademoiselle is not worth a rush. She will be sent to her grandfather somewhere in the province of Louisiana. But the nurse goes to Canada to marry her lover, expatriated for some cause. You see, I know it all. If mademoiselle had stayed in France she would have been put in a convent.”
“The best thing! the best thing!” interrupted the old man irascibly.
“Word was sent to enter her in a convent at Quebec. Well, I have brought her here. Give us some supper.”
He had been taking off the child’s cap and coat after they entered the living room. A great flaming torch stood up in one corner of the chimney, and shed a peculiar golden-red light around the room, leaving some places in deep shadow. The old man turned his meat, took up his cake of bread, and put them on the table. Then he went for plates and knives.
“This is your grandfather, Renée,” Denys said, turning the child to face him.
The girl shrank a little, and then suddenly surveyed him from his yarn stockings and doeskin breeches up to his weather-beaten and not especially attractive face, surmounted by a shock of grizzled hair. She looked steadily out of large brown eyes. She was slim, with a clear-cut face and air of dignity, a child of nine or so. Curiously enough, his eyes fell. He turned in some confusion without a word and went on with his preparations.
“Let us have some supper. It is not much. Even if I had expected a guest I could not have added to it.”