"My word has been given, Mademoiselle; I cannot go back on my word."
"Your word was given to me, and I absolve you from it," she said.
"But in the presence of others," I objected. "I am bound by it, unless I be shamed before them."
"Only your captain is here," she said, still gently; "and he, too, urges it."
But still I was obdurate. Then at last she drew away her hand and lifted her head proudly.
"Your Queen commands you!" she said haughtily, and turned and walked away. Yet she walked but slowly. Perhaps she thought I would overtake her, or call her back and tell her I had yielded. But I was still fighting with my stubborn pride, and let her go. I watched her close her cabin door, then for five minutes I strode rapidly up and down, the slippery deck.
"Your Queen commands you!" I thrilled at her words. My Queen! Yes, but only if I were her king. Now that I was away from her, and her glowing eyes were not melting my heart to softest wax, I was resolved never again to submit to her tyranny and caprice. I would go to supper, because she commanded it; but I would never for a moment forget that she was a great lady of France, and I a proud citizen of America—too proud to woo where I could only meet with scorn.
So I went to my cabin and made a careful toilet, and when Yorke came to call me to supper, I presented myself in mademoiselle's cabin. I had not been in it since she had come aboard, and, though I had carefully planned and arranged every detail of it for her comfort, I would not have known it for the same place. What she had done to it I know not; a touch here, a touch there, such as women's fingers know how to give, and the bare and rough boat's cabin had become a dainty little boudoir. The round table, draped in snowy linen, with places set for three; the silver and glass shining in the rays from two tall candles; Yorke and mademoiselle's maid Clotilde bringing in each a smoking dish to set upon it; and mademoiselle standing beside it like the glowing heart of a ruby, her dark beauty well set off by a gown of crimson paduasoy, with rich lace through which the graceful neck and rounded arms gleamed white and soft: it all looked to me like a picture from one of Master Titian's canvases, and I could hardly believe that if I should look through the closely drawn curtains I would see the rough and dirty decks of our barge, and, beyond, the dark forest of the Illinois shore, where even now hostile savages might be lurking, ready to spring upon us with blood-curdling yells.
The captain was already there, chatting gaily with mademoiselle as I came in, and he had the delicacy to make his greeting of me as natural and unsurprised as if I had never been absent from the little board, while mademoiselle added a touch of gracious cordiality to hers.
I was on my mettle. Determined that never again, even to herself, should she call me a boy, I summoned to my aid all the savoir-faire I could command. I was (at least, in my own estimation, and I hoped also in hers) the elegant man of the world, discoursing at ease on every fashionable topic, and, to my own amazement, parrying every thrust of her keen repartee, and sometimes sending her as keen in return. I think the situation had gone to my head. Certainly I had never before thought myself a brilliant fellow, but when I rose to make my bow to mademoiselle (and it was indeed a very grand one), I hoped that even in her mind I would not suffer by comparison with any French gentleman, no, though it were the chevalier himself.