As he gazed at the slim, graceful figure of the white prisoner in her neat but faded black dress, it seemed to him that he had never realised how beautiful and perfect a thing was the human form.  He had only in a crude way imagined possibilities in the somewhat squat figures of the Indian girls.  There was a distinction in the poise of Dorothy’s proud shapely head that he had never seen before in any woman.  When she turned and saw him, her face lighting up with welcome and her hands going out in front of her, he experienced something that came in the light of a revelation.  He wondered how it was he could have ever said, “she will not do.”

CHAPTER XXV

A PROPOSAL FROM PEPIN

Dorothy approached Pepin as if to shake hands, but the dwarf artfully pretended that there was something the matter with Antoine’s leading-rein, and ignored her.  He had never before realised how really dangerous a despised female could he.

“Pepin Quesnelle,” said Dorothy, “it was asking a great deal when I sent for you, but I knew you would come.  You saved the life of Sergeant Pasmore when Riel was going to shoot him, and I want to—­”

“Bah, Mam’selle!  But it is nonsense you talk like that, so!  The right—­that is the thing.  What is goodness after all if one can only be good when there is nothing that pulls the other way—­no temptations, no dangers?  It is good to pray to God, but what good is prayer without the desire deep down in the heart to do, and the doing?  The good deed—­that is the thing.  So!  As for that Pasmore, villain that he is—­”

“He is a good man.  Why do you say such a thing?”

“Bah! he is coquin blockhead, pudding-head; still, I love him much”—­Dorothy visibly relented—­“and he is brave man, and to be brave is not to be afraid of the devil, and that is much, nest ce pas? But what is it you want me for to do?  The good mother is down at Croisettes and sends her love—­Bah! what a foolish thing it is that women send!”

“Your mother is a good woman, Pepin, and I am glad to have her love; as for you—­”

“Mam’selle, Mam’selle!  Pardon! but I am not loving—­you will please confine your remarks to my mother”—­there was visible alarm in Pepin’s face; he did not know what this forward girl might not be tempted to say—­“What I can do for to serve you, that is the question?  I have hear that your father and Sergeant Pasmore—­that pudding-head—­and the others are all right.  The thing is for you to get ’way.”

Pepin, who in reality had a sincere regard for Sergeant Pasmore, had merely spoken of him in an uncomplimentary fashion because he saw it would annoy Dorothy.  He must use any weapon he could to repel the attacks of the enemy.  As for Dorothy, the delusion that the dwarf was labouring under was now obvious, and she hardly knew whether to be amused or annoyed; it was such an absurd situation.  She must hasten to disillusion him.