“It was constancy to thy attractions, it was disinclination to marriage with another, that prevented me from entering the forest, engaging in warfare against the Iroquois, becoming a renowned fighter, and making my fortune in the fur trade,” pursued the imperturbable Jean.
“Think, then, and is it truly so?” Nanon interposed with exasperating simplicity, “and I had really believed that it was thine own cowardice that made thee prefer the ease of home to ranging the woods with the savages and wild beasts.”
“Indeed, yes, such is really the case. A cow, a pair of swine, a pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in good money have my own constancy and thine hard-heartedness cost me. Surely some recompense may be considered my due. And during all these long years I have been pursued by a frightful nightmare, a dream of awakening to find myself a husband against my will. Consider how sad a fate, my good Nanon; and when once the ceremony is performed, no redress, for when the Church binds she ties fast; one fastens a knot with the tongue which the hands cannot untie.”
Nanon smiled complacently upon all this, until Baptiste, who felt that he had reached the extreme limit of endurance, rushed out. Then the girl promptly gathered up her work and prepared to ascend to her mistress’s apartment. Jean made another attempt to detain her.
“And Nanon, I have observation, me. I see many things. I would tell a secret but between ourselves. It is the blonde English demoiselle whom the Sieur du Chesne adores, and not the most noble the demoiselle de Monesthrol.”
The ruddy peasant face flamed into fiery wrath. That her lady’s attractions should be cheapened, that her pretensions should be slighted, infuriated the devoted maid. Such a dread had awakened in her own mind—would another dare to put it into words?
“Guard thy mouth! And is it a good-for-nothing of thy species who will dare to compare my demoiselle—the daughter of great nobles who fought and bled for the King—to any dirt of bourgeois? It is with such as the Comte de Frontenac—except that M. le Gouverneur has already had the ill-luck to make choice of a lady, and if report speaks true, of one not so admirable either—that our demoiselle should mate. Bête! cease, then, thy bellowing and mend thy manners. Like a serpent thou wouldst bite the hand that nourishes thee.”
In terror Jean fled from the storm he had evoked. Nanon stood wringing her hands and stamping her feet.
“In truth, I know not whether to weep like a watering-pot or to scratch somebody’s eyes out. Ah! if I could but reach that craven-hearted wolf with my nails. The worst sting of all is that it is all true. And this English girl will pay him with his own coin, loving herself always best and last, with but small thought to spare for anyone else. My noble, proud mistress who smiles and is happy, seeing nothing, decking that other one in her best, and never weary of praising that one’s beauty and sweetness. Sweetness?—it is the look of the cat at the cream. The neuvena I made in honor of that worthless St. Joseph, with the intention of securing our little lady’s happiness, all goes for nothing. That useless image shall no longer delude innocent believers.”
Like a whirlwind the serving-woman swept to the altar where stood the figure of St. Joseph, serenely unconscious of the enormity of his own offences, or of the storm which was about to descend upon him. It was the work of an instant to snatch him from his eminence, to shake and belabor him viciously, pouring out the while a flood of abuse as eloquently vituperative as a fertile brain and fluent tongue could devise, to rush down the garden and with all the strength inspired by fury to hurl him over the stone wall. Then, and then only, when her vengeance was accomplished, did Nanon pause for breath, drawing a long sigh of relief.