Gently the little maid stroked the rough grey fur and scowled toward
the factory.
So intent was she with her thought that she did not hear the step
beside her, springing quickly up when a voice spoke, cool and amused,
behind. "Well said, little maid," it praised; "that was a neat turn."
The tall stranger, Maren Le Moyne, stood smiling down upon her.
Francette, sharpest of tongue in all the settlement, was at sudden loss
before this woman. She looked up into her face and stood silent,
searching it with the gaze of a child.
It was a wondrous face, dark as her own, its cheeks as dusky red, but
in it was a baffling something that held her quick tongue mute, a look
as of great depth, of wondrous strength, and yet of fitful tenderness,
--the one playing through the other as flame about black marble, and
with the rest a smile.
More than little Francette had beheld that baffling expression and
squirmed beneath its strangeness. Francette looked, and the scowl drew
deeper.
She saw again this woman leaning slightly forward, her eyes a-glitter
on the prostrate DesCaut, her strong hand doubled and flecked with
blood, with Loup at her feet,--and quick on the heels of it she saw the
look in the factor's eyes as he had commanded her to silence with a
motion.
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