“To-morrow, in D’Arcambal House, you may call her Otille, Philip.  But to-night we are in Fort o’ God.  Oh, Jeanne, Jeanne, what a witch you are!”

“An angel!” breathed Philip, but no one heard him.

“And this witch,” added the old man, “you are to take in to supper, M’sieur Philip.  To night I suppose that I must call you m’sieur, but to-morrow, when I have on my leather leggings and my skin cap, I will call you Phil, or Tom, Dick, or Harry, just as I please.  This is the first time, sir, that my Jeanne has ever gone in to dinner on another arm than mine or Pierre’s.  And so I may be a little jealous.  Proceed.”

As Jeanne’s hand rested in his arm, and they went into the hall, Philip could not restrain himself from whispering: 

“I am glad—­of that.”

“And the dress, M’sieur Philip!” exclaimed D’Arcambal behind them, in the voice of a happy boy.  “It is an honor to escort that, to say nothing of the silly girl that’s in it.  That dress, sir, belonged to a beautiful lady who was called Camille, and who died over a century ago.”

“Father, please do be good!” protested Jeanne.  “Remember!”

“Ah, so I will,” said her father.  “I had forgotten that you were to tell M’sieur Philip these things.”

They entered another room illuminated by a single huge lamp suspended above a table spread with silver and fine linen.  The room was as great a surprise as the other two had been.  It contained no chairs.  What Philip mentally designated as benches, with deep cushion seats of greenish leather, were arranged about the table.  These same curious seats furnished other parts of the room.  From the pictures on the walls to the ancient helmet and cuirass that stood up like a legless sentinel in one corner, this room, like the others, breathed of extreme age.  Over a big open fireplace, in which half a dozen birch logs were burning, hung a number of old-fashioned weapons; a flintlock, a pair of obsolete French dueling pistols, a short rapier similar to that which Pierre wore, and two long swords.  Philip noticed that about each of the dueling pistols was tied a bow of ribbon, dull and faded, as though the passing of generations had robbed them of beauty and color, to be replaced by the somberness of age.

During the meal Philip could not but observe that Jeanne was laboring under some mysterious strain.  Her cheeks were brilliantly flushed, and her eyes were filled with a lustrous brightness that he had never seen in them before.  Their beauty was almost feverish.  Several times he caught a strange little tremor of her white shoulders, as though a sudden chill had passed through her.  He discovered, too, that Pierre was observing these things, and that there was something forced in the half-breed’s cheerfulness.  But D’Arcambal and Otille seemed completely oblivious of any change.  Their happiness overflowed.  Philip thought of his last supper at Churchill, with Eileen Brokaw and her father.  Miss Brokaw had acted strangely then, and had struggled to hide some secret grief or excitement, as Jeanne was struggling now.