"Where is Mademoiselle?" I questioned anxiously, as he remained silent.
"Surely she was with us as we came in!"
"Pish! of course," he returned carelessly; "if she chooses to dismount and rejoin her friends, what has that to do with John Wayland? Cannot the girl so much as move without your permission, Monsieur?"
The words were insolent, not less than the manner that accompanied them. Instantly there flashed upon me the thought that this Frenchman sought a quarrel with me; but I could conceive no reason therefor, and was not greatly disposed to accommodate him.
"'T was no more than curiosity that urged my question," I answered, assuming not to notice his bravado. "I was so deeply interested in other things as to have forgotten her presence."
"Something no lady is ever likely to forgive," he interjected. "But what think you they propose doing with us here?"
As if in direct answer to his question, the young officer who had met us without now elbowed his way through the throng, until he stood at our horses' heads.
"Gentlemen," he said, with a quick glance into our faces, "dismount and come within. There is but little to offer you here at Dearborn, we have been cut off from civilization so long; but such as we possess will be shared with you most gladly."
De Croix chatted with him in his easy, familiar manner, as we slowly crossed the parade; while I followed them in silence, my thoughts upon the disappearance of Toinette and the Frenchman's sudden show of animosity. My glance fell upon the groups of children scattered along our path, and I wondered which among them might prove to be Roger Matherson's little one. At the entrance of one of the log houses fronting the parade,—a rather ambitious building of two stories, if I remember rightly, with a narrow porch along its front,—an officer was standing upon the step, talking with a sweet-faced woman who appeared scarce older than seventeen.
"Lieutenant Helm," said Ronan, politely, "this is Captain de Croix, of the French army."
He presented De Croix to Mrs. Helm, and then turned inquiringly toward me.