Jeanne hitched her shoulders and gave a twitch to her petticoats. “I couldn’t stand them much longer. We must go back. We could not endure any other life now.”
“But why we? You do not need to follow Petit Marc. Come and live with us in our home in Manhatte.”
Jeanne screwed up her eyes in the way that she had when embarrassed or amused. “Didn’t I tell you?” she said. “We are married.”
And then Alaine hugged her and kissed her till she cried, and called herself an old stupide, a chat-huant, an insensée, a dindon, and various other names with which Alaine had been familiar of old.
“I have not forgotten,” she told Alaine, “but one must have something to do, and Petit Marc, he will soon be growing old, and who will take care of him then?”
“Who indeed?” Alaine held the good weather-beaten face between her palms. “I shall often, often think of you up there, you two who have done so much for me, to whom I owe so much, and it will make me very glad to know you are together. But you must remain to see me married. Trynje and her husband and Mynheer van der Deen and Madam, his goede vrouw, and I cannot miss you from among those who love me and who will come to see me take my Lendert for my husband.”
After more persuasion Jeanne promised, and with Petit Marc attended the ceremony, a month later, the two being the most conspicuous couple present, if one may except the bride and groom. And, even in that day when romantic stories were common and thrilling adventure no novelty, the tale of the love of Lendert and Alaine brought to the French church in Marketfield Street such a crowd on that Sunday that the “cars” and the people fairly jostled each other for blocks around.
It was a few days after her marriage that Alaine answered the letter of Felice, and among other things she wrote: “If it be any comfort to you, madame, take my assurance that with my whole heart I love and have ever loved the man who is now my very dear husband. He is Lendert Verplanck, whom your husband will remember, and though fate has played us many sad tricks, we are now supremely happy. At one time it seemed that we should never marry, yet even then, believe me, I could never have become the wife of any one else. We shall live in Manhatte, where my father and my husband have entered into business, and my husband has promised that upon one of his voyages to the islands he will take me with him that I may thank you in person for your great kindness to my father. I congratulate you, madame, upon possessing so good a husband, and I congratulate, with all my heart, my old friend Pierre Boutillier, who has been so fortunate as to win you for his wife.”
When Felice showed this to Pierre she did so with dancing eyes and dimpling mouth. “What did I tell you?” she said. “Are you fortunate, my melancholy love?”
And Pierre, for answer, smiled, and kissed her.