Black Hawk had planned our forces well, but I did not like his title for me, "Fine Dress"; I would rather he had called me "Straight Shoot," the name he had several times given me on our trip together up the Missouri. I had a lurking doubt that he was rebuking me for my vanity.
But there was no time to quarrel about titles. I hunted up Dr. Saugrain, whom I found in the wide chimney-corner, the center of a group of choice spirits,—the two Chouteaus, Mr. Gratiot, Mr. Cerré, Francis Vigo, and Manuel Lisa,—and he was telling them all, with great enthusiasm, about his experiments in quicksilver, and, to my surprise, they were listening as eagerly as if he had been telling tales of war and adventure—which was a marvelous thing to me, to whom science was ever dull and dry-as-dust. I liked not to interrupt him, but the need was pressing, and when I had called him to one side and told him of the presence of the chevalier and his Osages, he was greatly excited.
The thing that troubled me most was that we were without firearms. I had my sword on, of course, and so had the captain, but swords would be of little use, for the savages would not wait for a hand-to-hand encounter, but would fire at long range. The only thing to be done was to borrow from the governor; and in his grand Spanish manner he pressed all the guns of his armory upon us, and said he would send a messenger at once to the fort to have a troop despatched to scour the town and rid it of every suspicious character; which was somewhat of a relief to me, but would have been more so if I could only have felt more confidence in his slow-moving Spanish soldiers.
But the governor begged, since it was a matter that required no haste, that we would say nothing to alarm his guests and so break up the dance in undue time, for, as he said, the kings had not yet been chosen, and it would be a great pity to interfere with that pleasant ceremony. As for me, I would have been quite willing to dispense with it. There would be no pleasure to me in seeing mademoiselle pin her bouquet on the lapel of Josef Papin's coat, thus choosing him her king; but there was nothing to do but go back to the ball-room and see it out.
As I entered the room, there happened to be a little break in the coterie of young men surrounding mademoiselle, and through it I met her glance of eager inquiry. She had evidently missed me from the room, and had her suspicions as to the cause of my long absence. I returned her glance with an assuring smile that all was well, and went on to where I had left Mademoiselle Chouteau a half-hour before. I could not have expected her to sit in a corner waiting for me all that while, yet when I found that she too had her little coterie, and I was evidently not missed, I felt unaccountably hurt and forlorn: as if there was no place for me, an alien, among these St. Louis French people. As I had done many times before, I turned to Madame Saugrain for comfort.
It was nearing midnight, and I had wondered as I came in why they were not dancing. Now I saw the reason of it. Down through the center of the floor came the governor, followed by his tall butler bearing a silver tray with four small bouquets upon it. He went directly to mademoiselle first, and then to the three other queens in turn, presenting each with one of the bouquets and making to each a gallant little speech, which the four maidens received with smiles and blushes and curtsies as became them, but mademoiselle also with a stately grace befitting a queen.
Then there was a moment of intense expectancy, for it was mademoiselle who was first to place her bouquet on the lapel of the coat of the chosen king. I would not look at her. I did not want to see her put it upon Josef Papin's coat, though there was no other there more fitting to receive it or who would make a more royal king for such a queen. So I half turned my back and talked busily to madame, who listened to me not at all, so engrossed was she in the spectacle. It seemed to me a long time in the doing, and presently I saw in madame's eyes a light of eager surprise.
"Look, m'ami, look!" she cried to me. But I would not look; no, not even when I began to feel a suspicion of what was going to happen, from a queer feeling in my backbone, and my heart beating like a trip-hammer, and the blood rushing to the roots of my hair.
"Look, look! I beg you to turn!" madame cried again. But I would not turn, though I heard a subdued murmur of voices all around me, and a soft rustle of silken skirts coming nearer and nearer—not until the soft rustle stopped close beside me, and a sweet voice said: