“Yes; it seemed best, considering the danger that others might feel the same doubts which troubled you.”
“I wouldn’t do that. The canoe was all right, once the direction were decided on.”
“Above all else, the true portrait should convey to the mind of the observer the impression that a single, an unmistakable purpose underlies the work. When one considers––”
“Very true, Father, very true,” said Menard abruptly, looking about at the beginning of the twilight. “And now we had better get back. The supper will be ready.”
Menard strode away toward the camp. Father Claude watched him for a time through the trees, then turned again to the picture. Finally he got together his materials, and carrying them in a 49 fold of his gown, with the picture in his left hand, he followed Menard.
The maid was leaning back against the tree, looking up at the sky, where the first red of the afterglow was spreading. She did not hear Menard; and he paused, a few yards away, to look at the clear whiteness of her skin and the full curve of her throat. Her figure and air, her habits of gesture and step, and carriage of the head, were those of the free-hearted maid of the seignory. They told of an outdoor life, of a good horse, and a light canoe, and the inbred love of trees and sky and running water. Here was none of the stiffness, the more than Parisian manner, of the maidens of Quebec. To stand there and look at her, unconscious as she was, pleased Menard.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, coming nearer, “will you join us at supper?”
The maid looked at him with a slow blush (she was not yet accustomed to the right of these men to enter into the routine of her life). Menard reached to help her, but she rose easily.
“Lieutenant Danton is not here?”
“No, M’sieu, he walked away.”