“You were prepared for this journey,” he said.  “You were going to leave after you saw me on the rock.  I have been wondering why—­why you took enough interest in me—­”

He knew that he was blundering, and in the darkness his face turned red.  Jeanne’s tact was delightful.

“We were curious about you,” she said, with bewitching candor.  “Pierre is the most inquisitive creature in the world, and I wanted to thank you for returning my handkerchief.  I’m sorry you didn’t find a bit of lace which I lost at the same time!”

“I did!” exclaimed Philip.

He bit his tongue, and cursed himself at this fresh break.  Jeanne was silent.  After a moment she said: 

“Shall I make you some coffee?”

“Will you be able to do it?  Your foot—­”

“I had forgotten that,” she said.  “It doesn’t hurt any more.  But I can show you how.”

Her unaffected ingenuousness, the sweetness of her voice, the simplicity and ease of her manner delighted Philip, and at the same time filled him with amazement.  He had never met a forest girl like Jeanne.  Her beauty, her queen-like bearing, when she had stood with Pierre on the rock, had puzzled him and filled him with admiration.  But now her voice, the music of her words, her quickness of perception added tenfold to those impressions.  It might have been Miss Brokaw who was sitting there in the bow talking to him, only Jeanne’s voice was sweeter than Miss Brokaw’s; and even in the lightest of the words she had spoken there was a tone of sincerity and truth.  It flashed upon Philip that Jeanne might have stepped from a convent school, where gentle voices had taught her and language was formed in the ripe fullness of music.  In a moment he believed that something like this had happened.

“We will go ashore,” he said, searching for an open space.  “This must be tedious to you, if you are not accustomed to it.”

“Accustomed to it, M’sieur—­Philip!” exclaimed Jeanne, catching herself.  “I was born here!”

“In the wilderness?”

“At Fort o’ God.”

“You have not always lived there?”

For a brief space Jeanne was silent.

“Yes, always, M’sieur.  I am eighteen years old, and this is the first time that I have ever seen what you people call civilization.  It is my first visit to Fort Churchill.  It is the first time I have ever been away from Fort o’ God.”

Jeanne’s voice was low and subdued.  It rang with truth.  In it there was something that was almost tragedy.  For a breath or two Philip’s heart seemed to stop its beating, and he leaned far over, looking straight and questioningly into the beautiful face that met his own.  In that moment the world had opened and engulfed him in a wonder which at first his mind could not comprehend.

XII

The canoe ran among the reeds, with its bow to the shore.  Philip’s astonishment still held him motionless.