Louizon felt that inward breaking up which proved to him that he could
not stand before the tongue of this woman. Groping for expression, he
declared,--

"If thou wert sickly or blind, I would be just as good to thee as when
thou wert a bride. I am not the kind that changes if a woman loses her
fine looks."

"No doubt you would like to see me with the smallpox," suggested
Archange. "But it is never best to try a man too far."

"You try me too far,--let me tell you that. But you shall try me no
further."

The Indian appeared distinctly on his softer French features, as one
picture may be stamped over another.

"Smoke a pipe, Louizon," urged the thorn in his flesh. "You are always
so much more agreeable when your mouth is stopped."

But he left the room without looking at her again. Archange remarked
to herself that he would be better natured when his mother had given
him his supper; and she yawned, smiling at the maladroit creatures
whom she made her sport. Her husband was the best young man in the
settlement. She was entirely satisfied with him, and grateful to
him for taking the orphan niece of a poor post commandant, without
prospects since the conquest, and giving her sumptuous quarters and
comparative wealth; but she could not forbear amusing herself with his
masculine weaknesses.