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 gentlemen of London were her servitors. It is your good fortune to be in her service here. I think you do not sufficiently value your privilege."

"You are mistaken, Mam'selle," Lachlan muttered. "You—I am aware" He hesitated, his mind awhirl in the face of a new experience.

"Come," she said quietly, "I am hungry. The venison should be ready by now."

She chattered lightly of small matters as they walked the short distance to the camp. Lachlan answered briefly, his thoughts still in a maze. As for Jolie's thoughts, they were clear enough, yet led to no conclusion. The sense of them was this:

"Either he hates me as a monument of vanity, in which case all is well, or else I have stretched him at my feet."

At supper she found her answer. The pack-horse men supped apart. The others sat on the grass around an elk hide laid upon the ground, serving them as a table; and Jolie was aware that from beginning to end of the meal Lachlan scarcely glanced in her direction.

Later she led Almayne aside.

"I have done it," she told him.

"Done what, Mistress?" the hunter inquired curtly.

"This afternoon," she said, "you made it very clear to me that you regarded me as a peril to your young Muskogee Prince. To speak plainly, you have been afraid that he would fall in love with me."