"To sit? Why, in your room, mistress. Tut, tut, you are too bold.
If I did not know your father was coming soon to bear you off, new orders
should be issued. Yes, yes, e'en as I say," he added, as he saw the
laughter in her eyes.

She knew that she could wind the big-mannered soldier about her finger.
She had mastered his household; she was the idol of the settlement,
her flexible intelligence, the flush of the first delicate bounty of
womanhood had made him her slave. In a matter of vexing weight he would
not have let her stay, but such deliberatings as he would have with
Iberville could well bear her scrutiny. He reached out to pinch her
cheek, but she deftly tipped her head and caught his outstretched
fingers. "But where am I to sit?" she persisted. "Anywhere, then, but
at the council-table," was his response, as he wagged a finger at her and
sat down. Going over she perched herself on a high stool in the window
behind Iberville. He could not see her, and, if he thought at all about
it, he must have supposed that she could not see him. Yet she could; for
against the window-frame was a mirror, and it reflected his face and the
doings at the board. She did not listen to the rumble of voices. She
fell to studying Iberville. Once or twice she laughed softly to herself.

As she turned to the window a man passed by and looked in at her. His
look was singular, and she started. Something about his face was
familiar. She found her mind feeling among far memories, for even the
past of the young stretches out interminably. She shuddered, and a
troubled look came into her eyes. Yet she could not remember. She
leaned slightly forward, as if she were peering into that by-gone world
which, maybe, is wider than the future for all of us--the past. Her eyes
grew deep and melancholy. The sunset seemed to brighten around her all
at once, and enmesh her in a golden web, burnishing her hair, and it fell