"True." It was gravely said, but not cordially. "Let us see what the young man is like. Renée, he never shall be any trouble to you."
"Oh, you will feel so sorry for him presently."
They walked to the porch--gallery, as every one called it. The young fellow had finished his food and wine again. He had eaten nothing since morning. He looked a little rested, but his eyes had a questioning glance.
He was not quite what Gaspard had looked for in a De Longueville. Barely medium size, though he was not yet twenty, refined and with a quiet dignity, he rather disarmed the critical eyes, and Gaspard experienced a touch of sympathy for him. Renée made him tell his pathetic story over again, which he did modestly enough. And when he would have gone, though whither he knew not, Denys bade him stay. There were no inns in the town.
He won André as well before the evening was over. And when they found he had no plans, only a vague desire to offer his services to the new government that in other days had aroused such an interest in France, they bade him remain with them. He had both seen and heard the Marquis de Lafayette after his return to France, when he had been full of enthusiasm for the new people.
"But, Monsieur Robert, you are French," said André. "And in the turns of fate we may some day have a French country here. Anyhow, a man may earn his bread; and from what I hear, the colonies are not overstocked with prosperity. Better wait awhile and cast in your lot with us."
Robert de Longueville was very glad to. He thought of the Reign of Terror with a shudder, and often wondered about Honoré, hearing at last that he was safe in an outlying district of northern France.
Once again the French flag waved over St. Louis and hearts beat high with joy. Not that they had been unhappy or discontented under the Spanish _régime_, though the place had remained stationery. Except for the fur trade and the energies of the house of Maxent Laclede & Co. with their _entrepot_, it would still have been a little French hamlet. Even now it had scarcely two hundred buildings and less than a thousand inhabitants. Yet perhaps few places could boast of forty years of content and happiness and such peaceful living.