“Mazarin’s interpretation of that would be a gibbet on Montfaucon.”

“I am offering you friendship, Monsieur.”  The hand remained extended.

The vicomte bowed, placed his hands behind his back and bowed again.  “Friendship and love; oil and water.  Madame, when they mix well, I will come in the guise of a friend.  Sometimes I’ve half a mind to tell the Chevalier who you are; for, my faith! it is humorous in the extreme.  I understand that you and he were affianced, once upon a time; and here he is, making violent love to you, not knowing your name any more than Adam knew Eve’s.”

“Very well, then, Monsieur.  Since there can be no friendship, there can be nothing.  Hereafter you will do me the kindness not to intrude into my affairs.”

“Madame, I am a part of your destiny.  I told you so long ago.”

“I am a woman, and women are helpless.”  Madame was discouraged.  What with that insane D’Herouville, the Chevalier, and this mocking suitor, her freedom was to prove but small.  France, France!  “And I am here in exile, Monsieur, innocent of any wrong.”

“You are guilty of beautiful eyes.”

“I should have thrown myself upon Mazarin’s mercy.”

“Which is like unto the flesh of the fish—­little blood and that cold.  You forget your beauty, Madame, and your wit.  Mazarin would have found you very guilty of these.  And is not Madame de Montbazon your mother?  Mazarin loves her not overwell.  Ah, but that paper!  What the devil did we sign it for?  I would give a year of my life could I but put my hands upon it.”

“Or the man who stole it.”

“Or the man who stole it,” repeated he.

“When I return to France, I shall have a deal to revenge,” her hands clenching.

“Let me be the sword of wrath, Madame.  You have but to say the word.  You love no one, you say.  You are young; I will devote my life to teaching you.”

Madame’s gesture was of protest and of resignation.  “Monsieur, if you address me again, I shall appeal to Father Le Mercier or Father Chaumonot.  I will not be persecuted longer.”

“Ah, well!” He moved aside for her and leaned against a tree, watching her till she disappeared within the palisade.  “Now, that is a woman!  She lacks not one attribute of perfection, save it be a husband, and that shall be found.  I wonder what that fool of a D’Herouville was doing this morning with those dissatisfied colonists and that man Pauquet?  I will watch.  Something is going on, and it will not harm to know what.”  He laughed silently.

Before the women entered the wilderness to create currents and eddies in the sluggish stream which flowed over the colonists, Victor began to compile a book on Indian lore.  He took up the work the very first night of his arrival; took it up as eagerly as if it were a gift from the gods, as indeed it was, promising as it did to while away many a long night.  He depended wholly upon Father Chaumonot’s knowledge of the tongue and the legends; and daring the first three nights he and Chaumonot divided a table between them, the one to scribble his lore and the other to add a page to those remarkable memoirs, the Jesuit Relations.  The Chevalier watched them both from a corner where he sat and gravely smoked a wooden pipe.