“I do not.” She threw back her head with a movement expressive of her feeling of unchecked action. “I fear no one now.”
“But you will not tell him your name,” Michelle urged, still anxious. “Do me so small a favor as this, Alaine.”
“I have already told him I am Alaine Mercier, and I shall not likely meet him again.”
“Yet promise me.”
“If it please you, yes, I promise. Now, Papa Louis, why do you not make Gerard promise the same thing on his part?”
Papa Louis rubbed his hands together and chuckled. He was a little man, with an eager, gentle face. He stooped slightly and had the air of a student rather than of a peasant or a mechanic. Gerard towered far above him.
“Papa Louis and I have nothing to lose,” said the young man. “Those from whom all has been taken have nothing to conceal. Every one knows our story.”
“Still,” said the cautious Michelle, “I would not be too free to tell it.”
“Maman has not yet lost her fear of the dragonnades,” remarked Papa Louis. “She cannot quite grasp the fact that we are utterly safe, and wakes up with a dread of having insolent soldiers quartered upon her before night.”
“Which is not true,” maintained Michelle, sturdily; “but, Louis, I know too much not to feel that the long arm of resentment can stretch across seas.”