“There are many enemies of my soul. One is my great, my very great love.”
La Salle’s face whitened and flushed. He cast a quick glance upon the dozing matron, the backs of people whose conversation buzzed about his ears, and returned to Jeanne’s childlike white eyelids and crucifix-folding hands.
“Whom do you love, Sainte Jeanne?”
“I love my father so much, and my mother; and the children are too dear to me. Sometimes when I rise in the night to pray, and think of living apart from my dear father, the cold sweat stands on my forehead. Too many dear people throng between the soul and heaven. Even you, Sieur de la Salle,—I have to pray against thoughts of you.”
“Do not pray against me, Sainte Jeanne,” said the explorer, with a wistful tremor of the lower lip. “Consider how few there be that love me well.”
Her eyes rested on him with divining gaze. Jeanne le Ber’s eyes had the singular function of sending innumerable points of light swimming through the iris, as if the soul were in motion and shaking off sparkles.
“If you lack love and suffer thereby,” she instructed him, “it will profit your soul.”
La Salle interlaced his fingers, resting his hands upon his knees, and gave her a look which was both amused and tender.