By a tremendous effort Baptiste concentrated his will. Rising, he left his untasted supper with the determination to crush his rival’s pretensions, plead his own suit, or perish in the attempt! At the impassioned utterance of her name the girl quickly turned her head. When he felt the sharp, bright glance of his beloved resting upon him, the giant’s courage oozed away. With a long drawn sigh he sank back on his chair disconsolately. “If you please, Bras de Fer?” Nanon inquired politely. Baptiste shook his head with the most helpless and mournful resignation; both ideas and words had escaped him; he felt himself turning hot and cold all over as he gazed at her deprecatingly. Nanon shrugged her plump shoulders with an air of amused amazement. “What wouldst thou say, Bras de Fer? Surely thou wouldst not make sugar-plum compliments like those of Jean? Is it the week of the three Thursdays, that thou shouldst attempt to make compliments? Even Balaam’s ass had the power of speech conferred upon it at times, but thine eloquence is overpowering. Ta, ta, ta! there would be no peace in Paradise if thou wert there, unless thou couldst contrive to mend thy manners, my friend.” Nanon’s brown face dimpled with coquettish smiles, and Jean indulged in a malicious grin for which the Canadian could have found it in his heart to slay him. “It was constancy to thy attractions, it was disinclination to marriage with another, that prevented me from entering the forest, engaging in warfare against the Iroquois, becoming a renowned fighter, and making my fortune in the fur trade,” pursued the imperturbable Jean. “Think, then, and is it truly so?” Nanon interposed with exasperating simplicity, “and I had really believed that it was thine own cowardice that made thee prefer the ease of home to ranging the woods with the savages and wild beasts.” “Indeed, yes, such is really the case. A cow, a pair of swine, a pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in good money have my own constancy and thine hard-heartedness cost me. Surely some recompense may be considered my due. And during all these long years I have been pursued by a frightful nightmare, a dream of awakening to find myself a husband against my will. Consider how sad a fate, my good Nanon; and when once the ceremony is performed, no redress, for when the Church binds she ties fast; one fastens a knot with the tongue which the hands cannot untie.” Nanon smiled complacently upon all this, until Baptiste, who felt that he had reached the extreme limit of endurance, rushed out. Then the girl promptly gathered up her work and prepared to ascend to her mistress’s apartment. Jean made another attempt to detain her. “And Nanon, I have observation, me. I see many things. I would tell a secret but between ourselves. It is the blonde English demoiselle whom the Sieur du Chesne adores, and not the most noble the demoiselle de Monesthrol.”