CHAPTER XVI
BIRTHDAYS
The big room was empty when Jan came quietly through the open door. Hestopped to listen, and caught a faint laugh from the other room, andthen another; and to give warning of his presence, he coughed loudlyand scraped a chair along the floor. A moment's silence followed. Thefarther door opened a little, and then it opened wide, and Melisse cameout.
"Now what do you think of me, brother Jan?" She stood in the light ofthe window through which came the afternoon sun, her hair piled inglistening coils upon the crown of her head, as they had seen them inthe pictures, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowing questioningly at Jan.
"Do I look--as you thought--I would, Jan?" she persisted, a littledoubtful at his silence. She turned, so that he saw the cluster of softcurls that fell upon her shoulder, with sprigs of bakneesh halfsmothered in them. "Do I?"
"You are prettier than I have ever seen you, Melisse," he repliedsoftly.
There was a seriousness in his voice that made her come to him in herold impulsive, half-childish way. She lifted her hands and rested themon his shoulders, as she had always done when inviting him to toss herabove his head.
"If I am prettier--and you like me this way--why don't you--"
She finished with a sweet, upturned pouting of her mouth, and, with asudden, laughing cry, Jan caught her in his arms and kissed the lipsshe held up to him. It was but an instant, and he freed her, a hotblush burning in his brown cheeks.
"My dear brother!" she laughed at him, gathering up the bakneesh on thetable. "I love to have you kiss me, and now I have to make you do it.Father kisses me every morning when he goes to the store. I rememberwhen you used to kiss me every time you came home, but now you forgetto do it at all. Do brothers love their sisters less as they growolder?"
"Sometimes they love the SISTER less and the OTHER GIRL more, ma belleMelisse," came a quick voice from the door, and Jean de Gravois boundedin like a playful cat, scraping and bowing before Melisse until hishead nearly touched the floor. "Lovely saints, Jan Thoreau, but she ISa woman, just as my Iowaka told me! And the cakes--the bread--the pies!You must delay the supper my lady, for the good Lord deliver me if Ihaven't spilled all the dough on the floor! Swas-s-s-s-h--such a mess!And my Iowaka did nothing but laugh and call me a clumsy dear!"
"You're terribly in love, Jean," cried Melisse, laughing until her eyeswere wet; "just like some of the people in the books which Jan and Iread."
"And I always shall be, my dear, so long as the daughter of a princessand the great-granddaughter of a chef de bataillon allows me to mix herdough!"
Melisse flung the red shawl over her head, still laughing.
"I will go and help her, Jean."
"Mon Dieu!" gasped Gravois, looking searchingly at Jan, when she hadleft. "Shall I give you my best wishes, Jan Thoreau? Does it signify?"
"Signify--what?"
The little Frenchman's eyes snapped.
"Why, when our pretty Cree maiden becomes engaged, she puts up her hairfor the first time, that is all, my dear Jan. When I asked my blessedIowaka to be my wife, she answered by running away from me, taunting meuntil I thought my heart had shriveled into a bit of salt blubber; butshe came back to me before I had completely died, with her braids doneup on the top of her head!"
He stopped suddenly, startled into silence by the strange look that hadcome into the other's face. For a full minute Jan stood as if the powerof movement had gone from him. He was staring over the Frenchman'shead, a ghastly pallor growing in his cheeks.
"No--it--means--nothing," he said finally, speaking as if the wordswere forced from him one by one.
He dropped into a chair beside the table like one whose senses had beendulled by an unexpected blow. With a great sighing breath that wasalmost a sob, he bowed his head upon his arms.
"Jan Thoreau," whispered Jean softly, "have you forgotten that it was Iwho killed the missioner for you, and that through all of these yearsJean de Gravois has never questioned you about the fight on themountain top?" There was in his voice, as gentle as a woman's, thevibrant note of a comradeship which is next to love--the comradeship ofman for man in a world where friendship is neither bought nor sold."Have you forgotten, Jan Thoreau? If there is anything Jean de Gravoiscan do?"
He sat down opposite Jan, his thin, eager face propped in his hands,and watched silently until the other lifted his head. Their eyes met,steady, unflinching, and in that look there were the oath and the sealof all that the honor of the big snows held for those two.
Still without words, Jan reached within his breast and drew forth thelittle roll which he had taken from his violin. One by one he handedthe pages over to Jean de Gravois.
"Mon Dieu!" said Jean, when he had finished reading. He spoke no otherwords. White-faced, the two men stared, Jan's throat twitching,Gravois' brown fingers crushing the rolls he held.
"That was why I tried to kill the missioner," said Jan at last. Hepointed to the more coarsely written pages under Jean's hand. "Andthat--that--is why it could not signify that Melisse has done up herhair." He rose to his feet, straining to keep his voice even, andgathered up the papers so that they shot back into the littlecylinder-shaped roll again. "Now do you understand?"
"I understand," replied Jean in a low voice, but his eyes glitteredlike dancing dragon-flies as he raised his elbows slowly from the tableand stretched his arms above his head. "I understand, Jan Thoreau, andI praise the blessed Virgin that it was Jean de Gravois who killed themissioner out upon the ice of Lac Bain!"
"But the other," persisted Jan, "the other, which says that I--"
"Stop!" cried Jean sharply. He came around the table and seized Jan'shands in the iron grip of his lithe, brown fingers. "That is somethingfor you to forget. It means nothing--nothing at all, Jan Thoreau! Doesany one know but you and me?"
"No one. I intended that some day Melisse and her father should know;but I waited too long. I waited until I was afraid, until the horror oftelling her frightened me. I made myself forget, burying it deeper eachyear, until to-day--on the mountain--"
"And to-day, in this cabin, you will forget again, and you will bury itso deep that it will never come back. I am proud of you, Jan Thoreau. Ilove you, and it is the first time that Jean de Gravois has ever saidthis to a man. Ah, I hear them coming!"
With an absurd bow in the direction of the laughing voices which theynow heard, the melodramatic little Frenchman pulled Jan to the door.Half-way across the open were Melisse and Iowaka, carrying a largeIndian basket between them, and making merry over the task. When theysaw Gravois and Jan, they set down their burden and waved an invitationfor the two men to come to their assistance.
"You should be the second happiest man in the world, Jan Thoreau,"exclaimed Jean. "The first is Jean de Gravois!"
He set off like a bolt from a spring-gun in the direction of the twowho were waiting for them. He had hoisted the basket upon his shoulderby the time Jan arrived.
"Are you growing old, too, Jan?" bantered Melisse, as she dropped a fewsteps behind Jean and his wife. "You come so slowly!"
"I think I'm twenty-nine."
"You think!" Her dancing eyes shot up to his, bubbling over with themischief which she had been unable to suppress that day. "Why, Jan--"
He had never spoken to Melisse as he did now.
"I was born some time in the winter, Melisse--like you. Perhaps it wasyesterday, perhaps it is to-morrow. That is all I know."
He looked at her steadily, the grief which he was fighting to keep backtightening the muscles about his mouth.
Like the quick passing of sunshine, the fun swept from her face,leaving her blue eyes staring up at him, filled with a pain which hehad never seen in them before. In a moment he knew that she hadunderstood him, and he could have cut out his tongue. Her hand reachedhis arm, and she stopped him, her face lifted pleadingly, the tearsslowly gathering in her eyes.
"Forgive me!" she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob. "Dear, dearJan, forgive me!" She caugh
t one of his hands in both her own, and foran instant held it so that he could feel the throbbing of her heart."To-day is your birthday, Jan--yours and mine, mine and yours--and wewill always have it that way--always--won't we, Jan?"