Then she added roguishly:
"But I will make amends. I will introduce you to many St. Louis belles, the fascinating Pelagie Chouteau, Émilie Gratiot, who dances like a fairy, and Marguerite and Marie Papin, the beautiful sisters. And there are many more just as beautiful."
I bowed gravely:
"I thank you, mademoiselle. I have heard much of the beauty of the St. Louis demoiselles, and have desired much to meet them. You remember it was largely for that inducement I consented to undertake the difficult task of looking after your ladyship."
Pelagie pouted.
"Why do you persist in calling me 'your ladyship'? I am only mademoiselle."
"Indeed!" I said, with affected surprise: "your manner has led me to suppose you marquise at least, if not duchesse."
Mademoiselle reddened, but spoke very seriously and very sweetly,
"I am afraid I have very bad manners, and a very bad temper. But I intend to be good now, and to remind me I give you permission when I am haughty or disagreeable to call me comtesse."
The sycamores and cottonwoods that bordered our path had lost more than half their leaves, and the soft haze of the late November sun filtering through flecked mademoiselle with pale gold. It touched her dark hair and turned it to burnished bronze, it brought a faint rose to the warm white of her cheek, and made little golden lights dance in the shadows of her eyes uplifted to mine. The mysterious fragrance of late autumn, of dying leaves and bare brown earth, and ripening nuts and late grapes hanging on the vines, and luscious persimmons on the leafless trees, rose like incense to my nostrils and intoxicated me. I hardly knew how I answered as I looked deep into her shadowy eyes, and I was almost glad that, our way crossing the little river by a steep path leading down to a shallow ford, I was compelled once more to take the lead.