"Poor boy, a very sharp reality you find me most of the time, I'm afraid."
For this unexpected utterance Jean had no words of answer ready, but his look was a sufficiently eloquent refutation. He took a few eager steps toward her; then, reading inhibition in the sudden gravity of her mouth, he checked himself.
"Day after to-morrow, about sundown," said he, "our Lady and St. Joseph permitting, we will get her launched. The tide will be full then, and we will run down with it, and pass the fort before moonrise. If the wind's fair we will get out of the Basin and off to sea that same night; but if it fails us there'll be tide enough to get us round the Island and into a hidden anchorage in Hibert River. Then—a cargo of Acadian beef and barley for Louisburg! And then—money! And then—and then—you!"
He looked at her with pleading and longing in his eyes, but with a doggedness about his mouth which told of much pain endured and a determination which might bide its time, indeed, but would not be balked. The look of the mouth she was conscious of, deep down in her heart, and she in reality rested upon it; but it was the look in his eyes which she answered. She answered it lightly. A mocking smile played about the corners of her lips and her eyes sparkled upon him whimsically. The look both repulsed and invited him; and he hung for some moments, as it were, trembling midway between the promise and the denial.
"Don't be too sure of—me!" she said at last. And his face fell—not so much at the words themselves as at their discouraging accent.
"But," he protested, "it is all planned, all done, just for you, Barbe. There is nothing in it at all, except you. It is all you. That is understood between us from the first, and all the time."
Still her mouth mocked him; and still her eyes gleamed upon him with their enigmatic light.
"You will have your beautiful little ship," she said slowly. "You will have wonderful adventures—and little time to think of me at all. You will make a wonderful deal of money. You will make your name famous and hated among these English. I am expecting you to do great things. But as for me—I am not won yet, Jean."
His eyes glowed upon her, and the lines of his face set themselves with a sudden masterfulness. He gave a little, soft laugh.
"You are mine! You will be my wife before I make my second voyage."