Part 12 (1/2)

”Let's have one more roaring good time,” he said, ”that's what life is for.”

CHAPTER VII

THE MAYOR'S PARTY

Beverley was so surprised and confused in his mind by the ease with which he had been mastered at swordplay by a mere girl, that he felt as if just coming out of a dream. In fact the whole affair seemed unreal, yet so vivid and impressive in all its main features, that he could not emerge from it and look it calmly over from without. His experience with women had not prepared him for a ready understanding and acceptance of a girl like Alice. While he was fully aware of her beauty, freshness, vivacity and grace, this Amazonian strength of hers, this boldness of spirit, this curious mixture of frontier crudeness and a certain adumbration--so to call it--of patrician sensibilities and aspirations, affected him both pleasantly and unpleasantly. He did not sympathize promptly with her semi-barbaric costume; she seemed not gently feminine, as compared with the girls of Virginia and Maryland.

He resented her muscular development and her independent disposition.

She was far from coa.r.s.eness, however, and, indeed, a trace of subtle refinement, although not conventional, imbued her whole character.

But why was he thinking so critically about her? Had his selfishness received an incurable shock from the b.u.t.ton of her foil? A healthy young man of the right sort is apt to be jealous of his physical prowess--touch him there and he will turn the world over to right himself in, his own admiration and yours. But to be beaten on his highest ground of virility by a dimple-faced maiden just leaving her teens could not offer Beverley any open way to recoupment of damages.

He tried to shake her out of his mind, as a bit of pretty and troublesome rubbish, what time he pursued his not very exacting military duties. But the more he shook the tighter she clung, and the oftener he went to see her.

Helm was a good officer in many respects, and his patriotism was of the best; but he liked jolly company, a gla.s.s of something strong and a large share of ease. Detroit lay many miles northeastward across the wilderness, and the English, he thought, would scarcely come so far to attack his little post, especially now that most of the Indians in the intervening country had declared in favor of the Americans. Recently, too, the weather had been favoring him by changing from wet to dry, so that the upper Wabash and its tributaries were falling low and would soon be very difficult to navigate with large batteaux.

Very little was done to repair the stockade and dilapidated remnant of a blockhouse. There were no sufficient barracks, a mere shed in one angle serving for quarters, and the old cannon could not have been used to any effect in case of attack. As for the garrison, it was a nominal quant.i.ty, made up mostly of men who preferred hunting and fis.h.i.+ng to the merest pretense of military duty.

Gaspard Roussillon a.s.sumed to know everything about Indian affairs and the condition of the English at Detroit. His optimistic eloquence lulled Helm to a very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was not so easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military discipline and a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse and stockade were treated with dilatory geniality by his superior officer. The soft wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified land, river and sky. Why not dream and bask? Why not drink exhilarating toddies?

Meantime the entertainment to be given by Gaspard Roussillon occupied everybody's imagination to an unusual extent. Rene de Ronville, remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former attempt, went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire; but she flatly refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations to little Adrienne Bourcier. He would not be convinced.

”You are bound to me,” he said, ”you promised before, you know, and the party was but put off. I hold you to it; you are my partenaire, and I am yours, you can't deny that.”

”No you are not my partenaire,” she firmly said; then added lightly, ”Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried as my partner at that dance.”

He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said:

”It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose.”

She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly into one of her tantalising smiles.

”Do you imagine that?” she demanded.

”Imagine it! I know it,” he said with a hot flush. ”Have I no sense?”

”Precious little,” she replied with a merry laugh.

”You think so.”

”Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him what he thinks,” she said in a calm, even tone, her face growing serious.

There was an awkward silence.

She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret had taught him.

The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant, has a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents. No grip is so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions. The still, small voice coming down from the times ”When shepherds watched their flocks by night,” in old Judea, pa.s.ses through the priest, the minister, the preacher; it echoes in cathedral, church, open-air meeting; it gently and mysteriously imparts to human life the distinctive quality which is the exponent of Christian civilization.

Upon the receptive nature of children it makes an impress that forever afterward exhales a fragrance and irradiates a glory for the saving of the nations.