Something seemed to press against the door. Nick started and bristled.
"Who's there?" demanded Mam'selle. There was no reply—only that tense pressure that made the panels creak.
CHAPTER III
MAM'SELLE DOES NOT BUY A HUSBAND
The tall clock in the kitchen struck eight in a sharp, affrighted way much as a chaperone might have done who wished to call her heedless charge to the demands of propriety.
Eight o'clock in Point of Pines meant, under ordinary conditions, just two things: house and bed for the respectable, Dan's Place—a reeking, dirty tavern—for the others.
And while Jo Morey's door creaked under the unseen pressure from without, Pierre Gavot and Captain Longville smoked and snoozed by the red-hot stove at Dan's, occasionally speaking on indifferent subjects.
These two men disliked and distrusted each other, but they hung together, drank together; for what reason who could tell? Gavot had eaten earlier in the day at the Longville house and during the meal the name of Jo Morey had figured rather prominently. However, Gavot had paid little heed, he had little use for women and no interest, whatever, in an ugly one. A long past French ancestry had given Gavot as it had Longville a subtle suavity of manner that somewhat cloaked his brutality, and he was an extremely handsome man of the big, dark type.
Suddenly now, in the smoky drowsiness of the tavern, Mam'selle Morey's name again was introduced.
"Mam'selle! Mam'selle!" muttered Pierre impatiently; "I tire of the mention of the black Mam'selle. Such a woman has but two uses: to serve while she can, to die when she cannot serve."