As for her attire, that was flowered silk and fine lace, and some jewels on her arms and fingers in golden settings that glittered like the rays of sunrise when she moved them. There were buckles of gems on her slippers, and stockings of strangely netted silk where the ivory flesh shone through.
Jeanne dropped on her knees at the vision, and it smiled on her. No saint at the Recollet house was half as fair.
"This is the little voyager cast upon our shore, Miladi," explained Loudac with a bow and a touch of his hand to his head. "But Wanita did not wreck her, only left her in our safe keeping until she can be returned to her friends."
"Sit here, Mam'selle," and Miladi pointed to a cushion near her. Her French was musical and soft. "It is quite a story, and not such an unusual one either. Many maidens, I think, have been taken from home and friends, and have finally learned to be satisfied with a life they would not have chosen. You came from Detroit, Loudac says."
"Do not be afraid." The lady laughed with ripples like a little stream dropping over pebbly ways. "There is a story that my mother shared a like fate, only she had to grow content with strange people and a strange land. How was it? I have a taste for adventures."
Jeanne's girlish courage and spirits came back in a flash. Yet she told her story carefully, bridging the little space where so much was left out.
"Owaissa is a courageous maiden. It is said she carries a dagger which she would not be afraid to use. She has some strange power over the Indians. Her father was wronged out of his chieftaincy and then murdered. She demanded the blood price, and his enemies were given up to the tribe that took her under their protection. Yet I wonder a little that she should choose Louis Marsac. The White Chief, my husband, does not think him quite true in all his dealings, especially with women. But if he trifled with her there would be a tragedy."
Jeanne shuddered. The tragedy had come so near.
Miladi asked some questions hard for Jeanne to answer with truth; how she had come up the lake, and if her captors had treated her well.
Then they talked about Detroit, and Jeanne's past life, and Miladi was more puzzled than ever.
A slim young Indian woman brought in the baby, a dainty girl of two years old, who ran swiftly to her mother and began chattering in French with pretty broken words, and looking shyly at the guest. Then there was a great shout and a rush as of a flock of birds.