She seemed not at all embarrassed because he was her prisoner, nor uncomfortably restrained because of the message she had sent to him by Bateese.  She was warmly and gloriously human.  In her apparent unconcern at his presence he found himself sweating inwardly.  A bit nervously he struck a match to light his pipe, then extinguished it.

She noticed what he had done.  “You may smoke,” she said, with that little note in her throat which he loved to hear, like the faintest melody of laughter that did not quite reach her lips.  “St. Pierre smokes a great deal, and I like it.”

She opened a drawer in the dressing-table and came to him with a box half filled with cigars.

“St. Pierre prefers these—­on occasions,” she said, “Do you?”

His fingers seemed all thumbs as he took a cigar from the proffered box.  He cursed himself because his tongue felt thick.  Perhaps it was his silence, betraying something of his mental clumsiness, that brought a faint flush of color into her cheeks.  He noted that; and also that the top of her shining head came just about to his chin, and that her mouth and throat, looking down on them, were bewitchingly soft and sweet.

And what she said, when her eyes opened wide and beautiful on him again, was like a knife cutting suddenly into the heart of his thoughts.

“In the evening I love to sit at St. Pierre’s feet and watch him smoke,” she said.  “I am glad it doesn’t annoy you, because—­I like to smoke,” he replied lamely.

She placed the box on the little reading table and looked at his breakfast things.  “You like muffins, too.  I was up early this morning, making them for you!”

“You made them?” he demanded, as if her words were a most amazing revelation to him.

“Surely, M’sieu David.  I make them every morning for St. Pierre.  He is very fond of them.  He says the third nicest thing about me is my muffins!”

“And the other two?” asked David.

“Are St. Pierre’s little secrets, m’sieu,” she laughed softly, the color deepening in her cheeks.  “It wouldn’t be fair to tell you, would it?”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t,” he said slowly.  “But there are one or two other things, Mrs.—­Mrs. Boulain—­”

“You may call me Jeanne, or Marie-Anne, if you care to,” she interrupted him.  “It will be quite all right.”

She was picking up the breakfast dishes, not at all perturbed by the fact that she was offering him a privilege which had the effect of quickening his pulse for a moment or two.

“Thank you,” he said.  “I don’t mind telling you it is going to be difficult for me to do that—­because—­well, this is a most unusual situation, isn’t it?  In spite of all your kindness, including what was probably your good-intentioned endeavor to put an end to my earthly miseries behind the rock, I believe it is necessary for you to give me some kind of explanation.  Don’t you?”

“Didn’t Bateese explain to you last night?” she asked, facing him.