For many seconds that seemed like minutes David stood where she had
left him, while Nepapinas rose gruntingly to his feet, and gathered up
his belongings, and hobbled sullenly to the bateau door and out. He was
scarcely conscious of the Indian's movement, for his soul was aflame
with a red-hot fire. Deliberately--with that ravishing glory of
something in her eyes--St. Pierre's wife had kissed him! On her
tiptoes, her cheeks like crimson flowers, she had given her still
redder lips to him! And his own lips burned, and his heart pounded
hard, and he stared for a time like one struck dumb at the spot where
she had stood by the window. Then suddenly, he turned to the door and
flung it wide open, and on his lips was the reckless cry of
Marie-Anne's name. But St. Pierre's wife was gone, and Nepapinas was
gone, and at the tail of the big sweep sat only Joe Clamart, guarding
watchfully.
The two canoes were drawing near, and in one of them were two men, and
in the other three, and David knew that--like Joe Clamart--they were
watchers set over him by St. Pierre. Then a fourth canoe left the far
shore, and when it had reached mid-stream, he recognized the figure in
the stern as that of Andre, the Broken Man. The other, he thought, must
be St. Pierre.
He went back into the cabin and stood where Marie-Anne had stood--at
the window. Nepapinas had not taken away the basins of water, and the
bandages were still there, and the pile of medicated cotton, and the
suspiciously made-up bed. After all, he was losing something by not
occupying the bed--and yet if St. Pierre or Bateese had messed him up
badly, and a couple of fellows had lugged him in between them, it was
probable that Marie-Anne would not have kissed him. And that kiss of
St. Pierre's wife would remain with him until the day he died!
He was thinking of it, the swift, warm thrill of her velvety lips, red
as strawberries and twice as sweet, when the door opened and St. Pierre
came in. The sight of him, in this richest moment of his life, gave
David no sense of humiliation or shame. Between him and St. Pierre rose
swiftly what he had seen last night--Carmin Fanchet in all the lure of
her disheveled beauty, crushed close in the arms of the man whose wife
only a moment before had pressed her lips close to his; and as the eyes
of the two met, there came over him a desire to tell the other what had
happened, that he might see him writhe with the sting of the two-edged
thing with which he was playing. Then he saw that even that would not
hurt St. Pierre, for the chief of the Boulains, standing there with the
big lump over his eye, had caught sight of the things on the table and
the nicely turned down bed, and his one good eye lit up with sudden
laughter, and his white teeth flashed in an understanding smile.
"TONNERRE, I said she would nurse you with gentle hands," he rumbled.
"See what you have missed, M'sieu Carrigan!"
"I received something which I shall remember longer than a fine
nursing," retorted David. "And yet right now I have a greater interest
in knowing what you think of the fight, St. Pierre--and if you have
come to pay your wager."
St. Pierre was chuckling mysteriously in his throat. "It was
splendid--splendid," he said, repeating Marie-Anne's words. "And Joe
Clamart says she ran out, blushing like a red rose in August, and that
she said no word, but flew like a bird into the white-birch ashore!"
"She was dismayed because I beat you, St. Pierre."
"Non, non--she was like a lark filled with joy."
Suddenly his eyes rested on the binoculars.