“What luck, my boy?” said he.

“All have returned safely, including the ladies,” I replied quickly, “and I have the honor to submit a report.”

He took a chair, and read the report carefully, and looked up at me, laughing.

“What a lucky and remarkable young man!” said he.  “I declare, you should have lived in the Middle Ages.”

“Ah, then I should not have enjoyed your compliments or your friendship,” was my answer.

He laughed again heartily.

“Nor the demoiselles’,” said he.  “I congratulate you.  They are the loveliest of their sex; but I’m sorry they’re not Americans.”

“Time enough.  I have decided that one of them shall become an American,” said I, with all the confidence of youth.

“It is quite an undertaking,” said he.  “You may find new difficulties.  Their father is at the chateau.”

“M’sieur de Lambert?” I exclaimed.

“M’sieur de Lambert.  Came yesterday, via Montreal, with a fine young nobleman—­the Count Esmon de Brovel,” said he.  “You must look out for him; he has the beauty of Apollo and the sword of a cavalier.”

“And I no fear of him,” I answered soberly, with a quick sense of alarm.

“They rode over in the afternoon with Chaumont,” he went on.  “It seems the young ladies’ father, getting no news of them, had become worried.  Well, you may go and have three days for your fun; I shall need you presently.”

Breakfast over, I got a team for the ladies, and, mounting my own horse, rode before them.  I began to consider a very odd thing in this love experience.  While they were in captivity I had begun to think less of Louison and more of Louise.  In truth, one face had faded a little in my memory; the other, somehow, had grown clearer and sweeter, as if by a light borrowed from the soul behind it.  Now that I saw Louison, her splendid face and figure appealed to me with all the power of old.  She was quick, vivacious, subtle, aggressive, cunning, aware and proud of her charms, and ever making the most of them.  She, ah, yes, she could play with a man for the mere pleasure of victory, and be very heartless if—­if she were not in love with him.  This type of woman had no need of argument to make me feel her charms.  With her the old doubt had returned to me; for how long?  I wondered.  Her sister was quite her antithesis—­thoughtful, slow, serious, even-tempered, frank, quiet, unconscious of her beauty, and with that wonderful thing, a voice tender and low and sympathetic and full of an eloquence I could never understand, although I felt it to my finger-tips.  I could not help loving her, and, indeed, what man with any life in him feels not the power of such a woman?  That morning, on the woods-pike, I reduced the problem to its simplest terms:  the one was a physical type, the other a spiritual.

“M’sieur le Capitaine,” said Louison, as I rode by the carriage, “what became of the tall woman last night?”