Several men went into the counting house where the old sign still obtained, "Maxent Laclede & Company," just as it still remained in New Orleans. It would look queer enough to-day, the small one-story log house with its rough inside wall built up to the ceiling with shelves, its great iron-bound boxes that served for seats as well as receptacles.
Andre Valbonais had a big buckskin bag full of papers and invoices, and he had much to say to his employers. Pierre Chouteau went in and out; he could hear the particulars afterward, and he was needed every few moments to tell where this and that should go.
There was a great commotion, to be sure. Millions of dollars in transactions could pass now without a tithe of excitement. But, then, when a town has been shut in all winter it is natural the outburst should stir like wine in the blood. The shops farther up in the town were deserted.
As for Renée de Longueville, she kept very tranquil.
"I suppose M'sieu André came up on this voyage?" Mère Lunde said as she was preparing dinner.
Renée had been working among her flowers; then she had kept in her room, busying herself with sewing.
"Perhaps so. There will be fleets in all the time now. And Indians and _voyageurs_ and piles of pelts and evil smells, and such a confusion in the streets it will hardly be safe to go out unless one is willing to be jostled and pushed hither and yon."
"And M'sieu Denys does not come home to dinner. It is all ready."
"Let us have ours, then," with cordial assent.
"Perhaps he may bring home M'sieu Valbonais."
"Well, there may be something left. I am hungry, but I cannot eat all this bountiful meal," with a gay laugh.
"It will be spoiled, ma'm'selle," complainingly.
"The more need that we eat ours while it is just right," she answered, with smiling emphasis. "Will it make them any happier to have ours less inviting?"
So she took her seat at the table with a merry audacity, and praised the cookery so heartily that Mère Lunde was good humored in a moment or two. Still there was no step on the path.
"They will not come," in a tone of disappointment.
"But, you know, there is enough to get at the market in such times as these," returned Renée, with a lightsome air. "Trust them for not starving."