Old Kaskaskia | Page 5

the people made her close her eyes to keep the tears from running out. The separation of the sick from all healthy mankind had never so hurt her. Something was expected of her, and she was not equal to it. She felt death's mark branding in, and her family spoke of her recovery! What folly it was to come into this gay little world where she had no rights at all! Maria Jones wondered why she had not died at sea. To be floating in that infinity of blue water would be better than this. She pictured herself in the weighted sack,--for we never separate ourselves from our bodies,--and tender forgiveness covering all her mistakes as the multitude of waters covered her.
"I will not dance again," laughed Maria. Her brother Rice could feel her little figure tremble against him. "It is ridiculous to try."
"We must have you at Elvirade," said the governor's wife soothingly. "I will not let the young people excite you to too much dancing there."
"Oh, Mrs. Edwards!" exclaimed Peggy Morrison. "I never do dance quite as much anywhere else, or have quite as good a time, as I do at Elvirade."
"Hear these children slander me when I try to set an example of sobriety in the Territory!"
"You shall not want a champion, Mrs. Edwards," said Rice Jones. "When I want to be in grave good company, I always make a pilgrimage to Elvirade."
"One ought to be grave good company enough for himself," retorted Peggy, looking at Rice Jones with jealous aggressiveness. She was a lean, sandy girl, at whom he seldom glanced, and her acrid girlhood fought him. Rice Jones was called the handsomest man in Kaskaskia, but his personal beauty was nothing to the ambitious force of his presence. The parted hair fitted his broad, high head like a glove. His straight nose extended its tip below the nostrils and shadowed the long upper lip. He had a long chin, beautifully shaped and shaven clean as marble, a mouth like a scarlet line, and a very round, smooth throat, shown by his flaring collar. His complexion kept a cool whiteness which no exposure tanned, and this made striking the blackness of his eyes and hair.
"Please will you all go back into the drawing-room?" begged Maria. "My brother will bring me a shawl, and then I shall need nothing else."
"But may I sit by you, mademoiselle?"
It was Ang��lique Saucier leaning down to make this request, but Peggy Morrison laughed.
"I warn you against Ang��lique, Miss Jones. She is the man-slayer of Kaskaskia. They all catch her like measles. If she stays out here, they will sit in a row along the gallery edge, and there will be no more dancing."
"Do not observe what Peggy says, mademoiselle. We are relations, and so we take liberties."
"But no one must give up dancing," urged Maria.
They arranged for her in spite of protest, however. Rice muffled her in a shawl, Mademoiselle Saucier sat down at her right side and Peggy Morrison at her left, and the next dance began.
Maria Jones had repressed and nestling habits. She curled herself into a very small compass in the easy gallery chair, and looked off into the humid mysteries of the June night. Colonel Menard's substantial slave cabins of logs and stone were in sight, and up the bluff near the house was a sort of donjon of stone, having only one door letting into its base.
"That's where Colonel Menard puts his bad Indians," said Peggy Morrison, following Maria's glance.
"It is simply a little fortress for times of danger," said Mademoiselle Saucier, laughing. "It is also the colonel's bureau for valuable papers, and the dairy is underneath."
"Well, you French understand one another's housekeeping better than we English do; and may be the colonel has been explaining these things to you."
"But are there any savage men about here now?"
"Oh, plenty of them," declared Peggy. "We have some Pottawatomies and Kickapoos and Kaskaskias always with us,--like the poor. Nobody is afraid of them, though. Colonel Menard has them all under his thumb, and if nobody else could manage them he could. My father says they will give their furs to him for nothing rather than sell them to other people. You must see that Colonel Menard is very fascinating, but I don't think he charms Ang��lique as he does the Indians."
Mademoiselle Saucier's smile excused anything Peggy might say. Maria thought this French girl the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The waist of her clinging white gown ended under the curve of her girlish breasts, and face, neck, and arms blossomed out with the polish of flower-petals. Around her throat she wore gold beads suspending a cross. Her dark hair, which had an elusive bluish mist, like grapes, was pinned high with a gold comb. Her oval