“Pierre Boutillier’s and that evil creature’s yonder, out of doors there, not to mention this mynheer’s.”
Alaine was silent, but she gave a quick glance to where François sat under the tree. She, too, would feel more comfortable when he had departed. How was it that, openly culpable as he had been, he had yet almost persuaded them all that he had contrived no ill again her? “Yet a wicked, deceitful maid am I,” she reflected. “I am this moment posing as an innocent before Michelle; I have let Pierre go with my promise, while out there is a man I have known only a few weeks, and to whom I have given my inconstant heart. No, no, Lendert, it is my constant heart which I give you.” Mère Michelle had left her alone, and she had taken up the spinning. With the whir of the wheel her thoughts kept time. “I love you, love you, love you, Lendert Verplanck. I see you out there with the sun shining on your yellow hair, under the blue sky, blue like your eyes. Lendert, who loves me, who kissed me, who held me in his strong arms. I feel so safe, so happy, Lendert, with you near. I wish you might never go, Lendert Verplanck, with your yellow hair, your beautiful smile, and your broad shoulders. Monkey under the tree, if you but knew how insignificant you look beside him you would cease your mowing and grimacing.”
François was beckoning to Lendert, who viewed him imperturbably from his point of vantage within the stable-yard. “Here, oaf, boor, ox, stolid ox! By St. Michael! it is as much as one’s life is worth to bring an idea into that thick skull. He does well out there with the cattle in the barn-yard, for he looks at me as if he had no notion of what I am. I might be a stick or a stone for all the intelligence in his perception of me. The devil! I cannot rise without assistance and he does not budge. Here, you, I want your arm.”
Lendert, over the fence, looked at him composedly. “I want both my arms myself,” he said. “You’d better get the man who deprived you of the use of yours to supply you with what you want.”
François laughed grimly. “He actually tries to display a sense of humor, the elephant; he would be light of speech. Eh bien, monsieur, stay where you are; mademoiselle there must help me, for go indoors will I.”
At this Lendert came forward.
François laughed maliciously. “It is because you fear the word to mademoiselle, I see, and not of compassion for me. Well, monsieur, it will not be long that the occasion for rivalry exists; you leave us, and then——”
“And then?” said Lendert, a heavier set to his mouth.
“And then—she is mine.”
“You lie,” returned Lendert, quietly.