Part 9 (1/2)

Agapit, at Vesper's entrance, abruptly pushed back his chair from the table and, rising, presented a red and angry face to his visitor.

”I have interrupted you, I fear,” said Vesper, smoothly. ”I will not detain you long. I merely wish to ask a question.”

”Will you sit down?” said Agapit, sulkily, and he forced himself to offer the most comfortable chair in the room to his caller.

Vesper did not seat himself until he saw that Agapit was prepared to follow his example. Then he looked into the black eyes of the Acadien, which were like two of the deep, dark pools in the forest, and said, ”A matter of business has brought me to this Bay. I may have some inquiries to make, in which I would find myself hampered by any prejudice among persons I might choose to question. I fancy that some of the people here look on me with suspicion. I am quite unaware of having given offence in any way. Possibly you can explain,--I am not bent on an explanation, you understand. If you choose to offer one, I shall be glad to listen.”

He spoke listlessly, tapping on the table with his fingers, and allowing his eyes to wander around the room, rather than to remain fixed on Agapit's face.

The young Acadien could scarcely restrain a torrent of words until Vesper had finished speaking.

”Since you ask, I will explain,--yes, I will not be silent. We are not rude here,--oh, no. We are too kind to strangers. Vipers have crept in among us. They have stolen heat and warmth from our bosoms”--he paused, choking with rage.

”And you have reason to suppose that I may prove a viper?” asked Vesper, indolently.

”Yes, you also are one. You come here, we receive you. You depart, you laugh in your sleeve,--a newspaper comes. We see it all. The meek and patient Acadiens are once more held up to be a laughing-stock.”

Vesper wrinkled his level eyebrows. ”Perhaps you will characterize this viperish conduct?”

Agapit calmed himself slightly. ”Wait but an instant. Control your curiosity, and I will give you something to read,” and he went on his knees, and rummaged among some loose papers in an open box. ”Look at it,” he said, at last, springing up and handing his caller a newspaper; ”read, and possibly you will understand.”

Vesper's quick eye ran over the sheet that he held up. ”This is a New York weekly paper. Yes, I know it well. What is there here that concerns you?”

”Look, look here,” said Agapit, tapping a column in the paper with an impatient gesture. ”Read the nonsense, the drivel, the insanity of the thing--”

”Ah,--'Among the Acadiens, Quaintness Unrivalled, Archaic Forms of Speech, A Dance and a Wedding, The Spirit of Evangeline, Humorous Traits, If You Wish a Good Laugh Go Among Them!'”

”She laughed in print, she screamed in black ink!” exclaimed Agapit.

”The silly one,--the witch.”

”Who was she,--this lady viper?” asked Vesper, briefly.

”She was a woman--a newspaper woman. She spent a summer among us. She gloomed about the beach with a shawl on her shoulders; a small dog followed her. She laid in bed. She read novels, and then,” he continued, with rising voice, ”she returned home, she wrote this detestability about us.”

”Why need you care?” said Vesper, coolly. ”She had to reel off a certain amount of copy. All correspondents have to do so. She only touched up things a little to make lively reading.”

”Not touching up, but manufacturing,” retorted Agapit, with blazing eyes. ”She had nothing to go on, nothing--nothing--nothing. We are just like other people,” and he ruffled his coal-black hair with both his hands, and looked at his caller fiercely. ”Do you not find us so?”

”Not exactly,” said Vesper, so dispa.s.sionately and calmly, and with such statuesque repose of manner, that he seemed rather to breathe the words than to form them with his lips.

”And you will express that in your paper. You will not tell the truth.

My countrymen will never have justice,--never, never. They are always misrepresented, always.”

”What a firebrand!” reflected Vesper, and he surveyed, with some animation, the inflamed, suspicious face of the Frenchman.

”You also will caricature us,” pursued Agapit; ”others have done so, why should not you?”

Vesper's lips parted. He was on the point of imparting to Agapit the story of his great-grandfather's letter. Then he closed them. Why should he be browbeaten into communicating his private affairs to a stranger?