The Maid-At-Arms Part 17

"I don't know. Once Henry Stoner, the hunter, followed her, and they say no one but Jack Mount can outrun him; but she ran and ran, and he after her, till the day fell down, and he fell gasping like a foundered horse.

But she ran on."

"Oh, tally," I said; "do you believe that?"

"Why, I know it is true," she replied, ceasing her fanning to stare at me with calm, wide eyes. "Do you doubt it?"

"How can I?" said I, laughing. "Who is this busy hag, Catrine Montour?"

"They say," said Dorothy, waving her fan thoughtfully, "that her father was that Count Frontenac who long ago governed the Canadas, and that her mother was a Huron woman. Many believe her to be a witch. I don't know.

Milk curdles in the pans when she is running through the forest ... they say. Once it rained blood on our front porch."

"Those red drops fall from flocks of b.u.t.terflies," I said, laughing. "I have seen red showers in Florida."

"I should like to be sure of that," said Dorothy, musing. Then, raising her starry eyes, she caught me laughing.

"Tease me," she smiled. "I don't care. You may even make love to me if you choose."

"Make love to you!" I repeated, reddening.

"Why not? It amuses--and you're only a cousin."

Astonishment was followed by annoyance as she coolly disqualified me with a careless wave of her fan, wafting the word "cousin" into my very teeth.

"Suppose I paid court to you and gained your affections?" I said.

"You have them," she replied, serenely.

"I mean your heart?"

"You have it."

"I mean your--love, Dorothy?"

"Ah," she said, with a faint smile, "I wish you could--I wish somebody could."

I was silent.

"And I never shall love; I know it, I feel it--here!" She pressed her side with a languid sigh that nigh set me into fits o' laughter, yet I swallowed my mirth till it choked me, and looked at the stars.

"Perhaps," said I, "the gentle pa.s.sion might be awakened with patience ... and practice."

"Ah, no," she said.

"May I touch your hand?"

Indolently fanning, she extended her fingers. I took them in my hands.

"I am about to begin," I said.

"Begin," she said.

So, her hand resting in mine, I told her that she had robbed the skies and set two stars in violets for her eyes; that nature's one miracle was wrought when in her cheeks roses bloomed beneath the snow; that the frosted gold she called her hair had been spun from December sunbeams, and that her voice was but the melodies stolen from breeze and brook and golden-throated birds.

"For all those pretty words," she said, "love still lies sleeping."

"Perhaps my arm around your waist--"

"Perhaps."

"So?"

"Yes."

And, after a silence:

"Has love stirred?"

"Love sleeps the sounder."

"And if I touched your lips?"

"Best not."

"Why?"

"I'm sure that love would yawn."

Chilled, for unconsciously I had begun to find in this child-play an interest unexpected, I dropped her unresisting fingers.

"Upon my word," I said, almost irritably, "I can believe you when you say you never mean to wed."

"But I don't say it," she protested.

"What? You have a mind to wed?"

"Nor did I say that, either," she said, laughing.

"Then what the deuce do you say?"

"Nothing, unless I'm entreated politely."

"I entreat you, cousin, most politely," I said.

"Then I may tell you that, though I trouble my head nothing as to wedlock, I am betrothed."

"Betrothed!" I repeated, angrily disappointed, yet I could not think why.

"Yes--pledged."