She held his hand in both of hers, and looked up into his eyes with a smile at once child-like and naive—and masterful; for behind the simplicity and the girlish manner there was a power, a mind, with which this sweet golden hair and cheeks like a rose-garden had nothing to do. The Cure, beaming, touched by her warmth, and by her tiny caressing fingers, stooped and kissed them both like an old courtier. He had come of a good family in France long ago, very long ago,—and even in this French-Canadian village; where he had taught and served and lingered forty years, he had kept the graces of his youth, and this beautiful woman drew them all out. Since his arrival in Pontiac, he had never kissed a woman’s hand—women had kissed his; and this woman was a Protestant, like Medallion!
Turning from the Cure, she held out a hand to the young Seigneur with a little casual air, as if she had but seen him yesterday, and said: “Monsieur De la Riviere—what, still buried?—and the world waiting for the great touch! But we in Pontiac gain what the world loses.”
She turned to the Cure again, and said, placing a hand upon his arm:
“I could not pass without stepping in upon my dear old friend, even though soiled and unpresentable. But you forgive that, don’t you?”
“Madame is always welcome, and always unspotted of the dusty world,” he answered gallantly.
She caught his fingers in hers as might a child, turned full upon Valmond, and waited. The Cure instantly presented Valmond to her. She looked at him brightly, alluringly, apparently so simply; yet her first act showed the perception behind that rosy and golden face, and the demure eyes whose lids languished now and then—to the unknowing with an air of coquetry, to the knowing—did any know her?—as one would shade one’s eyes to see a landscape clearly, or make out a distant figure. As Valmond bowed, a thought seemed to fetch down the pink eyelids, and she stretched out her hand, which he took and kissed, while she said in English, though they had been talking in French:
“A traveller too, like myself, Monsieur Valmond? But Pontiac—why Pontiac?”
A furtive, inquiring look shot from the eyes of the young Seigneur, a puzzled glance from the Cure’s, as they watched Valmond; for they did not know that he had knowledge of English; he had not spoken it to Medallion, who had sent into his talk several English words. How did this woman divine it?
A strange suspicion flashed into Valmond’s face, but it was gone on the instant, and he replied quickly:
“Yes, madame, a traveller; and for Pontiac—there is as much earth and sky about Pontiac as about Paris or London or New York.”