Page:A No-Account Creole by Kate Chopin.djvu/5

386 rich coloring and soft lines, that the well-clipped and groomed Offdean felt his astonishment to be more than half admiration when they shook hands. He knew that the Santiens had been the former owners of this plantation which he had come to look after, and naturally he expected some sort of cooperation or direct assistance from Placide in his efforts at reconstruction. But Placide proved non-committal, and exhibited an indifference and ignorance concerning the condition of affairs that savored surprisingly of affectation.

He had positively nothing to say so long as the talk touched upon matters concerning Offdean’s business there. He was only a little less taciturn when more general topics were approached, and directly after supper he saddled his horse and went away. He would not wait until morning, for the moon would be rising about midnight, and he knew the road as well by night as by day. He knew just where the best fords were across the bayous, and the safest paths across the hills. He knew for a certainty whose plantations he might traverse, and whose fences he might derail. But, for that matter, he would derail what he liked, and cross where he pleased.

Euphrasie walked with him to the shed when he went for his horse. She was bewildered at his sudden determination, and wanted it explained.

“I don’ like that man,” he admitted frankly; “I can’t stan’ him. Sen’ me word w’en he’s gone, Euphrasie.”

She was patting and rubbing the pony, which knew her well. Only their dim outlines were discernible in the thick darkness.

“You are foolish, Placide,” she replied in French. “You would do better to stay and help him. No one knows the place so well as you–”

“The place is n’t mine, and it’s nothing to me,” he answered bitterly. He took her hands and kissed them passionately, but, stooping, she pressed her lips upon his forehead.

“Oh!” he exclaimed rapturously, “you do love me, Euphrasie?” His arms were holding her, and his lips brushing her hair and cheeks as they eagerly but ineffectually sought hers.

“Of co’se I love you, Placide. Ain’t I going to marry you nex’ spring? You foolish boy!” she replied, disengaging herself from his clasp.

When he was mounted, he stooped to say, “See yere, Euphrasie, don’t have too much to do with that d Yankee.”

“But, Placide, he is n’t a– a– ‘d Yankee’; he’s a Southerner, like you–a New Orleans man.”

“Oh, well, he looks like a Yankee.” But Placide laughed, for he was happy since Euphrasie had kissed him, and he whistled softly as he went cantering away in the darkness.

The girl stood awhile with clasped hands, trying to understand a little sigh that rose in her throat, and that was not one of regret. When she regained the house, she went directly to her room, and left her father talking to Offdean in the quiet and perfumed night.

two weeks had passed, Offdean felt very much at home with old Pierre and his daughter, and found the business that had called him to the country so engrossing that he had given no thought to those personal questions he had hoped to solve in going there.

The old man had driven him around in the no-top buggy to show him how dismantled the fences and barns were. He could see for himself that the house was a constant menace to human life. In the evenings the three would sit out on the gallery and talk of the land and its strong points and its weak ones, till he came to know it as if it had been his own.

Of the rickety condition of the cabins he got a fair notion, for he and Euphrasie passed them almost daily on horseback, on their way to the woods. It was seldom that their appearance together did not rouse comment among the darkies who happened to be loitering about.

La Chatte, a broad black woman with ends of white wool sticking out from under her tignon, stood with arms akimbo watching them as they disappeared one day. Then she turned and said to a young woman who sat in the cabin door:

“Dat young man, ef he want to listen to me, he gwine quit dat ar caperin’ roun’ Miss ’Phrasie.”

The young woman in the doorway laughed, and showed her white teeth, and tossed her head, and fingered the blue beads at her throat, in a way to indicate that she was in hearty sympathy with any question that touched upon gallantry.

“Law! La Chatte, you ain’ gwine hinder a gemman f’om payin’ intentions to a young lady w’en he a mine to.”

“Dat all I got to say,” returned La Chatte, seating herself lazily and heavily on the doorstep. “Nobody don’ know dem Sanchun boys bettah ’an I does. Did n’ I done part raise ’em? Wat you reckon my ha’r all tu’n plumb w’ite dat a way ef it war n’t dat Placide w’at done it?”

“How come he make yo’ ha’r tu’n w’ite, La Chatte?”

“Dev’ment, pu’ dev’ment, Rose. Did n’ he come in dat same cabin one day, w’en he war n’t no biggah ’an dat Pres’dent Hayes w’at you sees gwine ’long de road wid dat cotton