Mademoiselle stopped and turned toward me, and we stood facing each other in the middle of the road, alone in the white moonlight, for the others were quite out of sight around a bend in the road, and there were no houses near. Below us lay the Mississippi, a white flood in the moonlight, and far across the river the twinkling lights of Cahokia, one of them, no doubt, in Mr. Gratiot's house, where I had first seen mademoiselle. Her eyes were flashing scorn at me now, as they flashed at me when she knelt with her arms around the great shaggy brute, and, looking up in my face, called me "Bête!" There was no doubt about it, mademoiselle could be a little fury at times, and no doubt she would have liked to call me once more, "Bête!"
"Mademoiselle," I said, "I am so unhappy as to be always offending you. From the moment when I made my descent of Mr. Gratiot's staircase on the back of your dog, to the present moment, I seem to have been able to make myself only ridiculous or offensive to you! I beg you to believe that it is a matter of the deepest regret to me that this should be so, and to believe that to offend you is ever farthest from my desire. I realize that I was over-zealous for Dr. Saugrain, whom I greatly admire and love, and that you certainly had never given me any right to take such interest in you and your affairs as I just now displayed. I beg you to believe that I shall never again offend in like manner, mademoiselle la comtesse."
I saw her face slowly change from its expression of scorn to that same wondering look I had noticed in the church, as if she were regarding some one she did not know and was trying to understand. As I uttered the last words, "mademoiselle la comtesse," another and a swift change came over her. Her eyes fell, her head drooped. Still standing there in the moonlight, she suddenly buried her face in her hands and sobs shook her slender figure.
"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" I cried. "I beg, I implore, you to forgive me. I am, indeed, a brute!" And as she continued to sob drearily, I was beside myself. What could I do? She looked so like a little child, and I was so big, to have hurt her seemed cruel and shameful. I was in a state of desperation. I begged her and implored her not to weep; but it seemed to me she only sobbed the harder. What did one do, I wondered, with a weeping maiden? Had it only been a child I would have known, for I had ever a way with children; but before a weeping maiden I was helpless.
And still mademoiselle sobbed on, her sobs coming faster and harder, until, in a paroxysm of grief (or I know not what), she flung herself upon a low bank beside the road, moaning and crying aloud.
Instantly my courage returned to me. Mademoiselle was acting like a child; I should treat her as one.
"Mademoiselle," I said firmly, "I cannot permit you to sit upon the cold ground. I am very, very sorry for you, but you must at once arise and dry your eyes and tell me what is the matter, so that I can help you."
Mademoiselle but wept the louder. There was no help for it; at the risk of being rude I must stop her weeping and make her rise from the ground.
"Mademoiselle!" I said sternly, "you will oblige me by rising at once from that cold ground or you will compel me to go for Madame Saugrain and deliver you into her hands."
For a second, amazement at my tone of authority kept her silent, then followed a storm of sobs and tears more violent than before.