"And yet," continued Anthony, "as I think I've noticed, you do not altogether lack patronage."
"A few people who will be gone as soon as they have eaten and rested," said the Frenchman briefly. And then, "Will monsieur remain for the night?"
Anthony replied that he would; also that he was hungry and looked forward to a good supper; and then, with many assurances, the landlord left him. The young man stood before the fire for a time, his eyes fixed on the floor, frowning, his hands clasped behind him. There was a moaning of the winter wind among the high, pointed roofs of the Brig; and the mast planted in the dooryard sung keenly.
He tried to think what Lafargue and his daughter were doing in so unexpected a place. In pleasanter weather it might be laid to the desire of strangers to journey about, but the bare fields and cold roads beckoned no one on days like these. For a space he wondered at their presence; then, easily, so easily that he was not aware of it, his mind slipped into the thought that mademoiselle was beautiful. He'd always known it, yet he'd never felt it so forcefully as he did at the moment he'd seen her at the table near her father, amusedly watching his interest in the draft-board. Her tallness was marked, and—
"What the devil of it?" said Anthony. "She could be as tall and slim as a spire, and yet it would mean nothing to me."
Again he pinned his mind to a more practical thing. Rufus Stevens' Sons had a rich ship fast in the ice not many miles below; and Rufus Stevens' Sons had enemies. Among those enemies—and the young man would have laid his head on the block in support of this—was Tarrant. And Tarrant was a friend to Lafargue, and apparently to Lafargue's daughter. Anthony fixed his eye on the long flare of a candle, and stood frowning at it. He had always thought her hair quite dark; but now he knew it was not. There was a great deal of copper in it, a deep, rich copper that had shone warmly in the candle-light. He wondered what that something was that candle-light had—it seemed to bring out truth so. That's why they burned them on altars, perhaps, or that's why their lighting, spoken of in certain books, was always the signal for the appearance of pixies and fairies. He stood for a long time so.
Then he took his eyes from the candle and cursed himself for a fool! The gentle shape against the lovely glow was gone; in its place was the dirty hull of the General Stark, fast in the grip of the river; and filling the remainder of Anthony's world were the eyes of Tarrant—cold, malicious eyes, and greedy, too, and fixed upon the helpless vessel.
A man came into the room and smirked at Anthony.
"How do you do, sir?" said he.
It was the man with the patch over his eye, and he approached the fire, where he warmed his large-boned hands and basked in the heat with many little gasps and whistlings of pleasure.