“Come upstairs, Miss Houghton!” called Madame’s voice from above. Alvina mounted, to find Madame packing.
“It is an uneasy moment, when we are busy to move,” said Madame, looking up at Alvina as if she were a stranger.
“I’m afraid I’m in the way. But I won’t stay a minute.”
“Oh, it is all right. Here are the things you brought—” Madame indicated a little pile—“and thank you very much, very much. I feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one little token of my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionaires in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Just a little remembrance of our troublesome visit to Woodhouse.”
She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, woven in a weird, lovely pattern, with soft deerskin soles and sides.
“They belong to Kishwégin, so it is Kishwégin who gives them to you, because she is grateful to you for saving her life, or at least from a long illness.”
“Oh—but I don’t want to take them—” said Alvina.
“You don’t like them? Why?”
“I think they’re lovely, lovely! But I don’t want to take them from you—”
“If I give them, you do not take them from me. You receive them. Hé?” And Madame pressed back the slippers, opening her plump jewelled hands in a gesture of finality.