Jeanne burst into a laugh. “For once, madam, your penetration is at fault, for I must contradict you. I, also, am a woman.”
“Impossible!” Madam drew herself away a little.
“Even so, and my own story, though not in the same way romantic, may not be uninteresting to you.”
“Will you tell it?”
Jeanne began monotonously, but by degrees her natural dramatic fire crept into it, and at the end the tears were dropping from Madam’s eyes. She caught Jeanne’s hand in hers. “Stay with me,” she cried; “I, too, have been bereft. I will not constrain you, but stay with me as my guest.”
“As your servitor, for a season; but I have promised, and I must perform. I must see the girl safe at home, and then what is ordered will come next. I am all unused to delicate living, and I pray you house me among those who work in your fields.”
“As you like; I will give you quarters to yourself, and hope you may be comfortable, but you are my guest, none the less.”
She could be very gracious, this Madam De Vries, but she could be none the less haughty, imperious, and obstinate, as Alaine found before two days were over. The servants stood in awe of her, yet grumbled over the insistence with which an unimportant point was often carried. Uncompromising and unyielding as she was when angered or crossed, she was uniformly gentle to Trynje, whom she did not hesitate to call daughter. She was impulsive and changeable, too, and impatient of those who disagreed with her. Just now it pleased her to make much of these uninvited visitors who appealed to her imagination and love of excitement.
The plantation, some miles from Albany, was one of those comfortable Dutch estates which thrift and industry had secured to its owner, who, dying, left it to his widow to carry on in the same competent way, and it was by no means a bad place to live.
After a discussion of the matter, Madam agreed that both Jeanne and Alaine should retain the dress in which they had arrived. “It will cause less comment,” she said, “and until she is safe in her home I do not feel that the girl may not be tracked by the Dupont.”