"But are there any savage men about here now?"
"Oh, plenty of them," declared Peggy. "We have some Pottawatomies and Kickapoos and Kaskaskias always with us,—like the poor. Nobody is afraid of them, though. Colonel Menard has them all under his thumb, and if nobody else could manage them he could. My father says they will give their furs to him for nothing rather than sell them to other people. You must see that Colonel Menard is very fascinating, but I don't think he charms Angélique as he does the Indians."
Mademoiselle Saucier's smile excused anything Peggy might say. Maria thought this French girl the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The waist of her clinging white gown ended under the curve of her girlish breasts, and face, neck, and arms blossomed out with the polish of flower-petals. Around her throat she wore gold beads suspending a cross. Her dark hair, which had an elusive bluish mist, like grapes, was pinned high with a gold comb. Her oval face was full of a mature sympathy unusual in girls. Maria had thought at first she would rather be alone on the gallery, but this reposeful and tender French girl at once became a necessity to her.
"Peggy," said Angélique, "I hear Jules Vigo inquiring for you in the hall."
"Then I shall take to the roof," responded Peggy.
"Have some regard for Jules."
"You may have, but I shan't. I will not dance with a kangaroo."
"Do you not promise dances ahead?" inquired Maria.
"No, our mothers do not permit that," answered Angélique. "It is sometimes best to sit still and look on."
"That means, Miss Jones," explained Peggy, "that she has set a fashion to give the rest of the girls a chance. I wouldn't be so mealy-mouthed about cutting them out. But Angélique has been ruined by waiting so much on her tante-gra'mère. When you bear an old woman's temper from dawn till dusk, you soon forget you're a girl in your teens."