Other boats were returning. Songs that were so gay an hour ago took on a certain pensiveness, akin to the purple and dun stealing over the river. It moved Jeanne Angelot strangely; it gave her a sense of exaltation, as if she could fly like a bird to some strange country where a mother loved her and was waiting for her.
When Louis Marsac spoke next to her she could have struck him in childish wrath. She wanted no one but the fragrant loneliness and the voices of nature.
"Don't talk to me!" she cried impatiently. "I want to think. I like what is in my own mind better."
Then the anger went slowly out of her face and it settled in lovely lines. Her mouth was a scarlet blossom, and her hair clung mistlike about brow and throat, softened by the warmth.
They came grating against the dock after having waited for their turn. Marsac caught her arm and let the others go before her, and she, still in a half dream, waited. Then he put his arm about her, turned her one side, and pressed a long, hot kiss on her lips. His breath was still tainted with the brandy he had been drinking earlier in the day.
She was utterly amazed at the first moment. Then she doubled up her small hand and struck the mouth that had so profaned her.
"Hah! knave," cried a voice beside her. "Let the child alone! And answer to me. What business had you with this canoe? Child, where are your friends?"
"My business with it was that I hired and paid for it," cried Marsac, angrily, and the next instant he felt for his knife.
"Paid for it?" repeated the other. "Then come and convict a man of falsehood. Put up your knife. Let us have fair play. I had hired the canoe in the morning and went up the river, and was to have it this afternoon, and he declared you took it without leave or license."
"That is a lie!" declared Marsac, passionately.
"Jeanne! Jeanne!" cried Pani in distress.
The stranger lifted her out. Jeanne looked back at Marsac, and then at the young man.
"You will not fight him?" she said to the stranger. Fights and brawls were no uncommon events.
"We shall have nothing to fight about if the man has lied to us both. But I wouldn't care to be in _his_ skin. Come along, my man."
"I am not your man," said Marsac, furiously angry.