"The chevalier has gone no farther south than Cape Girardeau. He is waiting near there, in an Osage camp, to seize an opportunity to rescue me, he says, and restore me to my people. If I had replied to either of these letters, professing my willingness to go with him, then I should have received a note of instructions as to where to be on a certain day and at a certain hour. But I have replied to none, and the last letter has grown desperate. In it he says if he does not hear from me he shall return to St. Louis on the evening of the Jour des Rois and be present at the dance, which is by custom a masked dance, and will then find means to carry me off. If I am not willing to go with him, then I must send him a letter before the Jour de l'An, telling him so finally, when he will return to New Orleans and leave me to my fate. Now, Monsieur, it will seem to you an easy matter that I should write him, finally, that I will not go with him. But a woman's heart is a strange thing. I want to go with him, with all my heart, and yet I shudder at the very thought of going with him. When I let my thoughts dwell on the glories that await me in Paris, wealth and power and luxurious living, and the society of the great and the noble, such as the chevalier has described it, I feel as if I must go, and all this life which has been so sweet to me here on the very borders of civilization grows utterly distasteful. Yes, even the friends that have been so dear to me begin to seem rude and boorish, as the chevalier called them. Sometimes, in some of my wayward moods, the very perils of the journey attract me with a strange fascination. The ride through the forest with savages for guards; the long journey in an open boat on the bosom of the great Father of Waters; and at last the perilous voyage by sea, all draw me strangely. At such times the chevalier seems to me an angel of light, and my only hope of escape from my narrow confines to a broad and beautiful life. But there are times when it all seems very different: when the thought of leaving my two dear guardians is unbearable, and the life I have known and loved from childhood, among sweet, true friends, the only life I desire. Ah, Monsieur, I am so torn by these conflicting states of mind that what wonder my guardians think me changed! They believe the chevalier's tales have spoiled me for my life in St. Louis, and that I would gladly leave them. When I see them sad over what they believe to be my heartlessness my own heart is like to break, but I say nothing, and they believe me to be entirely ungrateful and unfeeling.
"So you can see how unhappy I have been and am, and how sometimes I am tempted to break away from it all and fly with the chevalier to new scenes, whether they bring joy or sorrow."
Mademoiselle did not tell me all this without much hesitation, sometimes stopping entirely until she could find courage to go on again, and, as I said before, often trembling so much that the little arm about my great waist nearly lost its grip. I did not interrupt her once, but waited, even after she had finished, for fear she might have more to say. And presently she added:
"If I do not answer the chevalier's letter he will be here on the Jour des Rois, and it is more than likely he will lose his life in the attempt to carry me off, even if I were willing to go with him."
"Mademoiselle," I said slowly, "it is a hard thing you have asked me, and I feel sure that whatever I may say I will make you angry, as I did last night. Of course you know that what I would most like would be that you should let the chevalier come on the Jour des Rois, and we would capture him, and there would be an end to all this trouble. But you know, too, that since you have trusted me with his secret I would feel in duty bound to save him and get him safely outside the stockade again, even, if need were, at the risk of my own life. The thing, therefore, that I wish you would do, and that seems to me the only thing to do, is to write him at once, telling him you will never go with him, and bidding him return at once to France since his task is a hopeless one."
"And cut myself off from seeing France and recovering my possessions!"
"'Tis not cutting yourself off." (I spoke a little sternly, for I was beginning to feel irritated that she could not see the utter folly of thinking for a moment of going with the chevalier.) "Your guardian is only waiting for two things, and as soon as they are accomplished he will send you to Paris. He is awaiting letters from your friends to say the time is ripe for your return, and they are ready to receive you, and he is waiting to find a proper person in whose care he can place you to make the voyage."
"Then here is the time and the opportunity," said mademoiselle, eagerly: "my friends have sent the chevalier for me, and he is waiting to conduct me there."
I could have shaken her, for a minute, her stupidity seemed so vast to me. Then I remembered she was really only a child, and that there are many things maidens do not understand so well as men. So I tried to speak gently, but so plainly that once for all she might understand.
"Mademoiselle," I said, "do you not see that the very fact that the chevalier is trying to induce you to go to France alone with him is proof either of his villainy or of his colossal stupidity? Were he the angel of light he has sometimes seemed to you, and should he carry you safely to France and deliver you into the hands of your friends, yet who, in gay and skeptical Paris, would not be willing to believe the worst of both of you? The society that he has painted to you as ready to fall at your feet would be only ready to spurn you. Forgive me, Mademoiselle, for speaking thus plainly, but there is no man in the world who would not believe that the very fact of the chevalier's trying to persuade you to go with him to France proves him a villain of the deepest dye."