"Oh, no," replied Pani, amused at the child's waywardness. "I dare say the soldiers know nothing about it. And your great general and the ladies who give dinners. After all it is just a few people. And, little one, the Church wants these things all right. Then the husbands cannot run away and leave the poor wives to sit and cry."
"I wouldn't cry," said the child with determination in her voice, and a color flaming up in her face.
Yet she had come very near crying over a man who was nothing to her. She was feeling hurt and neglected. One day out in her dainty canoe she had seen a pleasure party on the river and her hero was among them. There were ladies in beautiful garments and flying ribbons and laces. Oh, she could have told him among a thousand! And he sat there so grandly, smiling and talking. She went home with a throbbing heart and would eat no supper; crawled into her little bed and thrust her face down in the fragrant pillow, but her fist was doubled up as if she could strike some one. She would not let the tears steal through her lids but kept swallowing over a big lump in her throat.
"Mam'selle," said the tailor's wife, who was their next door neighbor, "yesterday, no, it was the day before when you and Pani were out--you know you are out so much," and she sighed to think how busily she had to ply her needle to suit her severe taskmaster--"there came a gentleman down from the Fort who was dreadfully disappointed not to find you. He was grand looking, with a fine white beard, and his horse was all trapped off with shining brass. I can't recall his name but it had a Saint to it."
"Yes, that was it. Mademoiselle, I did not know you had any such fine friends."
"Thank you. I must go and tell Pani," and she skipped away, knowing that Pani was not in the house, but she wanted to give vent to her joy.
She danced about the old room and her words had a delight that was like music. "He has not forgotten me! he has not forgotten me!" was her glad song. The disappointment that she had missed him came afterward.
For although Detroit was not very large at this time, one might have wandered about a good deal and not seen the one person it would have been a pleasure to meet. And Jeanne was much more at home outside the palisade. The business jostling and the soldiers gave her a slight sense of fear and the crowding was not to her taste. She liked the broad, free sweep outside. And whether she had inherited a peculiar pride and delicacy from the parents no one knew; certain it was she would put herself in no one's way. Others came to her, she felt then every one must.