She gave him her hand and was led into the long dining-room, where a plentiful meal was spread.
CHAPTER V
FROM THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER
Alaine’s youthful appetite sufficed to cause her to consume a good supper. The talk around the table was cheerful, and there were no issues raised. “A strange position for a young French girl,” Alaine thought, “in company of these men, I who all my life have taken refuge by the side of my aunt or Michelle, and have never even taken a walk with any man save Gerard or Papa Louis, unless I except that one Sunday when I walked to church with Pierre as companion. What would my aunt say to my present situation? Allowed free converse with a young man? Shocking!” She smiled to herself in spite of the condition of affairs. The Indian woman stood in one corner of the room during the meal, and the girl wondered if she were to be again conducted to her chamber, but she was relieved to find that this was not intended, for the other gentlemen, sitting over their wine, allowed François Dupont to lead her from the room.
“I am your guard, mademoiselle, therefore see that you do not overpower me and make your escape,” he said, playfully.
“Into what?” she asked. “Into the terrors of the forest? Into unknown ways? I am not so foolhardy, monsieur. I wish I might trust you,” she added after a pause in which she had eyed him wistfully.
“Have I given you reason for lack of confidence?”
“Have you not? Ever since your arrival you have been persistently following me up and prescribing my actions. For why is this?”
“Said I not that I was a friend of Étienne Villeneau? I will tell you, mademoiselle, they believe you to have been spirited away by your nurse, if not by force, by over-persuasion, and that once you are brought back you will conform.”
She shook her head. “That will I never do. I am Protestant as my father is. If I did not accept entirely the teachings of his faith before I left France it was because I was not sufficiently informed. I now know them and accept them fully. I shall never retract.”
“But you cannot blame your friends over there in France if they desire it.”