“She has little colour,” said Danton, cautiously.
“It seems to me, Danton, that you can help us.”
“How?”
“What seems to you the cause of the trouble?”
“With Mademoiselle? She takes little impression from the kindness of those about her.”
“Oh, come, Danton. You know better. Even a boy of your age should see deeper than that. You think she slights you; very likely 53 she does. What of that? You are not here to be drawn into a boy-and-girl quarrel with a maid who chances to share our canoe. You are here as my aid, to make the shortest time possible between Quebec and Frontenac. If she were to fall sick, we should be delayed. Therefore she must not fall sick.”
Danton had plucked a weed, and now was pulling it to pieces, bit by bit.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stop this moping, this hanging about. Take hold of the matter. Devise talks, diversions; fill her idle moments; I care not what you do,––within limits, my boy, within limits.”
“Oh,” said Danton, “then you really want me to?”