For a year she must endure the strain,—then, as the good God willed, the leap forward, the wild breath in her nostrils, the forging into the unknown.
“Ah, yes!” she said again, “it is the spring.”
“Bon jour,” she nodded, unsmiling, as a slim youth swung jauntily up the hard-beaten way between the cabins.
“Eh!” said Marie, alert, “and who is that lord-high-mighty, with his red cheeks and his airs, Maren? You know, as it is always, every man in the post already. It is not so with the women, I'll wager. For instance, who lives in the tiny house there by the south bastion?”
“I know not,” answered Maren, as though she humoured a child, and taking the last question first; “as for the youth, 'tis young Marc Dupre, and one of a sturdy nature. I like his spirit, though all I know of it is what sparkles from his roguish eyes. A fighter,—one to dare for love of chance.”
Marie looked quickly up, ever ready to pounce on the first gleam of aught that might ripen into a love interest, but she saw Maren's eyes, cool and shining, watching the swaggering figure with a look that measured its slim strength, its suggestion of reserve, its gay joy of life, and naught else.
“A pretty fellow,” she said, with a touch of disappointment.
Each and every man went by Maren just so,—eliciting only that interest which had to do apart from the personal.
But the black eyes of Marc Dupre had softened a bit under their daring as he approached the factory.
“Holy Mother!” he whispered to himself; “what a woman! No maid, but a WOMAN—for whose word one would fillip the face of Satan. She is fire—and, if I am sure, all men are tow.”