The Chevalier stepped in and took the paddle, while Victor pushed the canoe into the water.  He and Anne followed presently.  Madame sat in the bow, her back to the Chevalier, her hands resting lightly on the sides.  The rings which the Chevalier had seen on those beautiful hands while in Quebec were gone, even to the wedding ring.  They were doubtless bedecking the pudgy digits of one Corn Planter’s wife, far away in the Seneca country.  The canoe quivered as the Chevalier’s strong arms swung the narrow-bladed paddle.  Past marshes went the painted canoes; they swam the singing shallows; they glided under shading willow; they sped by wild grape-vine and spreading elm.  The stream was embroidered with a thousand grasses, dying daisies, paling goldenrod, berry bushes, and wild-rose thorn.  A thousand elusive perfumes rose to greet them, a thousand changing scenes.  October, in all her gorgeous furbelows, sat upon her throne.  The Chevalier never uttered a word, but studied madame’s half-turned cheek.  Once he was conscious that the color on that cheek deepened, then faded.

“It is the wind,” he thought.  “She is truly the most beautiful woman in all the world; and fool that I am, I have vowed to her face that I shall make her love me!” He could hear Victor’s voice from time to time, coming with the wind.

“Monsieur,” madame said abruptly, when the silence Could no longer be endured, “since you are here . . .  Well, why do you not speak?”

The paddle turned so violently that the canoe came dangerously near upsetting.

“What shall I say, Madame?”

“Eh! must I think for you?” impatiently.

The fact that her eye was not upon him, gave him a vestige of courage.  “It is a far cry from the galleries of the Louvre, Madame, to this spot.”

“We have gone back to the beginning of the world.  No music save Nicot’s violin, which he plays sadly enough; no masks, no parties, no galloping to the hunt, no languishing in the balconies.  Were it not pregnant with hidden dangers, I should love this land.  I wonder who is the latest celebrity at the old Rambouillet; a poet possibly, a swashbuckler, more probably.”

“Move back a little, Madame.  We shall land on that stretch of sand by the willows.”

Madame did as he required, and with a dexterous stroke the Chevalier sent the craft upon the beach and jumped out.  This manoeuver to assist her did not pass, for she was up and out almost as soon as he.  In a moment Victor came to the spot.  The two canoes were hidden with a cunning which the Chevalier had learned from the Indian.

Above them was a hill which was almost split in twain by a gorge or gully, down through which a brook leaped and hounded and tumbled, rolling its musical “r’s.”  The four started up the long incline, the women gathering the belated flowers and the men picking up curious sticks or sending boulders hurtling down the hillside.  Higher and higher they mounted till the summit was reached.  Hill after hill rolled away to the east, to the south, to the west, while toward the north the lake glittered with all the brilliancy of a cardinal’s plate.