“Of course,” he hurried to interrupt her.  “I understand.  St. Pierre is a lucky man.  I congratulate you—­as well as him.  He is splendid, a man in whom you can place great faith and confidence.”

“He scolded me for running away from you as I did, M’sieu David.  He said I should have shown better courtesy than to leave like that one who was a guest in our—­home.  So I have returned, like a good child, to make amends.”

“It was not necessary.”

“But you were lonesome and in darkness!”

He nodded.  “Yes.”

“And besides,” she added, so quietly and calmly that he was amazed, “you know my sleeping apartment is also on the bateau.  And St. Pierre made me promise to say good night to you.”

“It is an imposition,” cried David, the blood rushing to his face.  “You have given up all this to me!  Why not let me go into that little room forward, or sleep on the raft and you and St. Pierre—­ "

“St. Pierre would not leave the raft,” replied Marie-Anne, turning from him toward the table on which were the books and magazines and her work-basket.  “And I like my little room forward.”

“St. Pierre—­”

He stopped himself.  He could see a sudden color deepening in the cheek of St. Pierre’s wife as she made pretense of looking for something in her basket.  He felt that if he went on he would blunder, if he had not already blundered.  He was uncomfortable, for he believed he had guessed the truth.  It was not quite reasonable to expect that Marie-Anne would come to him like this on the first night of St. Pierre’s homecoming.  Something had happened over in the little cabin on the raft, he told himself.  Perhaps there had been a quarrel—­at least ironical implications on St. Pierre’s part.  And his sympathy was with St. Pierre.

He caught suddenly a little tremble at the corner of Marie-Anne’s mouth as her face was turned partly from him, and he stepped to the opposite side of the table so he could look at her fairly.  If there had been unpleasantness in the cabin on the raft, St. Pierre’s wife in no way gave evidence of it.  The color had deepened to almost a blush in her cheeks, but it was not on account of embarrassment, for one who is embarrassed is not usually amused, and as she looked up at him her eyes were filled with the flash of laughter which he had caught her lips struggling to restrain.  Then, finding a bit of lace work with the needles meshed in it, she seated herself, and again he was looking down on the droop of her long lashes and the seductive glow of her lustrous hair.  Yesterday, in a moment of irresistible impulse, he had told her how lovely it was as she had dressed it, a bewitching crown of interwoven coils, not drawn tightly, but crumpled and soft, as if the mass of tresses were openly rebelling at closer confinement.  She had told him the effect was entirely accidental, largely due to carelessness and haste in dressing it.  Accidental or otherwise, it was the same tonight, and in the heart of it were the drooping red petals of a flower she had gathered with him early that afternoon.