Marianson | Page 3

cave
gloom. She rose from her bearskin and spread it for him, when he
finished eating.
"You cannot go out now," he whispered, when he saw her intention.
"The Sioux is somewhere in the woods watching for me. The Indians
came on this island for scalps. You will not be safe, even in the fort,
until the fight is over, or until night comes again."
Marianson, standing convinced by what he said, was unable to take her
eyes off him. Mass seemed always irksome to her in spite of the
frequent changes of posture and her conviction that it was good for her
soul. She was at her happiest plunging through woods or panting up
cliffs which squaws dared not scale. Yet enforced hiding with a
stranger all day in the cave was assented to by this active sylvan
creature. She had not a word to say against it, and the danger of going
out was her last thought. The cavern's mouth was a very awkward
opening to crawl through, especially if an Indian should catch one in
the act. There was nothing to do but to sit down and wait.

A sigh of pleasure, as at inhaling the spirit of a flower, escaped her lips.
This lad, whose presence she knew she would feel without seeing if he
came into church behind her, innocent of the spell he was casting, still
sat guarding the entrance, though the droop of utter weariness relaxed
every posture. Marianson bade him lie down on the fur robe, and
imperiously arranged her lap to hold his head.
"I am maman to you. I say to you sleep, and you shall sleep."
The appealing and thankful eyes of the boy were closed almost as soon
as he crept upon the robe and his head sunk in its comfortable pillow.
Marianson braced her back against the wall and dropped her hands at
her sides. Occasionally she glanced at the low rim of light. No Indian
could enter without lying flat. She had little dread of the Sioux.
Every globule which fell in darkness from the rock recorded, like the
sand grain of an hour-glass, some change in Marianson.
"I not care for anybody, me," had been her boast when she tantalized
soldiers on the village street. Her gurgle of laughter, and the hair
blowing on her temples from under the blanket she drew around her
face, worked havoc in Mackinac. To her men were merely useful
objects, like cows, or houses, or gardens, or boats. She hugged the
social liberty of a woman who had safely passed through matrimony
and widowhood. Married to old André Chenier by her parents, that he
might guard her after their death, she loathed the thought of another
wearisome tie, and called it veneration of his departed spirit. He left her
a house, a cow, and a boat. Accustomed to work for him, she found it
much easier to work for herself when he was gone, and resented having
young men hang around desiring to settle in her house. She laughed at
every proposal a father or mother made her. No family on the island
could get her, and all united in pointing her out as a bad pattern for
young women.
A bloom like the rose flushing of early maidenhood came over
Marianson with her freedom. Isolated and daring and passionless, she
had no conception of the scandal she caused in the minds of those who
carried the burdens of the community, but lived like a bird of the air.

Wives who bore children and kept the pot boiling found it hard to see
her tiptoeing over cares which swallowed them. She did not realize that
maids desired to marry and she took their lovers from them.
But knowledge grew in her as she sat holding the stranger's head in her
lap, though it was not a day on which to trouble one's self with
knowledge. There was only the forest's voice outside, that ceaseless
majestic hymn of the trees, accompanied by the shore ripple, which was
such a little way off. Languors like the sweet languors of spring came
over her. She was happier than she had ever been before in her life.
"It is delicious," she thought. "I have been in the cave many times, but
it will never be like this again."
And it was a strange joy to find the touch of a human being something
to delight in. There was sweet wickedness in it; penance might have to
follow. What would the curé say if he saw her? To amuse one's self
with soldiers and islanders was one thing; to sit tranced all day in a
cave with a stranger must be another.
There was a rough innocence in his relaxed body--beautiful as the
virgin softness of