Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where
she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.
As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she way
afraid.
She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men
around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this
crumbled. The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had
insulted her father in her very presence;--for this she was angry.
He had insulted herself;--for this she was afraid. He had demanded
that she meet him again; but this--at least in the manner he had
suggested--should not happen. And yet she confessed to herself a
delicious wonder as to what he would do next, and a vague desire to
see him again in order to find out. That she could not
successfully combat this feeling made her angry at herself. And so
in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing she remained until
Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her for the dinner
whose formality she and her father consistently maintained. She
fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the conversation
forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm.
Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to
occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell
her of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own
tribe; of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had
taunted him; of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the
east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had
been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of
something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet
vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate
gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her
breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would
pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless
delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh
anticipation of the immediate future, though both delight and
anticipation were based on something without her knowledge. That
would come later.
The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a
whistle ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit;
"J'ai perdu ma maitresse,
Sans l'avoir merite,
Pour un bouquet de roses
Que je lui refusai.
Li ya longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"
She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to
the council-room where the table was now spread for dinner.
Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for
her when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn,
rude chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the
service. Galen Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the
other. On either side were Doctor and Mrs. Cockburn; McDonald, the
Chief Trader; Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of
the Church of England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the
order of importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the
doctor, his wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On
entering a room the same precedence would have held good. Thus
these people, six hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest
settlement, maintained their shadowy hold on civilization.
The glass was fine, the silver massive, the linen dainty, Matthews
waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the
wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the
howling of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes,
and beans; for at this season the game was poor, and the fish
hardly yet running with regularity.
Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No
conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she
seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters.
When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time
she studied her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were
already evident which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised
pain to the breast of a child--the droop of the mouth, the
wrinkling of the temples, the patient weariness of the eyes.
Virginia's own eyes filled with tears. The subjective passive
state into which a newly born but not yet recognized love had cast
her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted facts as they came
to her. For the moment she forgot the mere happenings of the day,
and lived only in the resulting mood of them all. The new-comer
inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow, attraction nor fear.
Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated dreamily on the clouds
of a new estate.
This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of
the others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted
himself with Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his
way across to his infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. Cockburn
entered the drawing-room and seated themselves near the piano.
Virginia hesitated, then threw a shawl over her head and stepped
out on the broad veranda.
At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over
her soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and
palpitated the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the
zenith; the next it had broken and rippled back like a brook of
light to its arch over the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it
still. Its restlessness stole away the quiet of the evening; but
left it magnificent.
In comparison with this coruscating dome of the infinite the earth
had shrunken to a narrow black band of velvet, in which was nothing
distinguishable until suddenly the sky-line broke in calm
silhouettes of spruce and firs. And always the mighty River of the
Moose, gleaming, jewelled, barbaric in its reflections, slipped by
to the sea.
So rapid and bewildering was the motion of these two great
powers--the river and the sky--that the imagination could not
believe in silence. It was as though the earth were full of
shoutings and of tumults. And yet in reality the night was as
still as a tropical evening. The wolves and the sledge-dogs
answered each other undisturbed; the beautiful songs of the
white-throats stole from the forest as divinely instinct as ever
with the spirit of peace.
Virginia leaned against the railing and looked upon it all. Her
heart was big with emotions, many of which she could not name; her
eyes were full of tears. Something had changed in her since
yesterday, but she did not know what it was. The faint wise stars,
the pale moon just sinking, the gentle south breeze could have told
her, for they are old, old in the world's affairs. Occasionally a
flash more than ordinarily brilliant would glint one of the bronze
guns beneath the flag-staff. Then Virginia's heart would glint
too. She imagined the reflection startled her.
She stretched her arms out to the night, embracing its glories,
sighing in sympathy with its meaning, which she did not know. She
felt the desire of restlessness; yet she could not bear to go. But
no thought of the stranger touched her, for you see as yet she did
not understand.
Then, quite naturally, she heard his voice in the darkness close to
her knee. It seemed inevitable that he should be there; part of
the restless, glorious night, part of her mood. She gave no start
of surprise, but half closed her eyes and leaned her fair head
against a pillar of the veranda. He sang in a sweet undertone an
old chanson of voyage.
"Par derrier ches man pere,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Par derrier' chez mon pere
Li-ya-t-un, pommier doux."
"Ah lady, lady mine," broke in the voice softly, "the night too is
sweet, soft as thine eyes. Will you not greet me?"
The girl made no sign. After a moment the song went on,
"Trois filles d'un prince,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Trois filles d'un prince
Sont endormies dessous."
"Will not the princess leave her sisters of dreams?" whispered the
voice, fantastically, "Will she not come?"
Virginia shivered, and half-opened her eyes, but did not stir. It
seemed that the darkness sighed, then became musical again.
"La plus jeun' se reveille,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
La plus jeun' se reveille
--Ma Soeur, voila le jour!
The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl
opened her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at
the singer.
"--Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile
Qu' eclaire nos amours!"
The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and
died into silence.
"Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of
command.
She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and
frightened, her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to
face with him she swayed and almost fell.
"What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob.
The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an
every-day, matter-of-fact voice:
"Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a
boating song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and
talk."
"Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again!
Please don't. I do not understand it! You must not!"
He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and
took her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last
couplet of his song:
"Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Qu'eclaire nos amours!"