Moreover, he was
fond of Father Beret and had done a great deal for the little
church of St. Xavier and the mission it represented; but he
distinctly desired to be let alone while he pursued his own
course; and he had promised the dying woman who gave Alice to him
that the child should be left as she was, a Protestant, without
undue influence to change her from the faith of her parents. This
promise he had kept with stubborn persistence and he meant to keep
it as long as he lived. Perhaps the very fact that his innermost
conscience smote him with vague yet telling blows at times for
this departure from the strict religion of his fathers, may have
intensified his resistance of the influence constantly exerted
upon Alice by Father Beret and Madame Roussillon, to bring her
gently but surely to the church. Perverseness is a force to be
reckoned with in all original characters.
A few weeks had passed after M. Roussillon's return, when that
big-hearted man took it into his head to celebrate his successful
trading ventures with a moonlight dance given without reserve to
all the inhabitants of Vincennes. It was certainly a democratic
function that he contemplated, and motley to a most picturesque
extent.
Rene de Ronville called upon Alice a day or two previous to the
occasion and duly engaged her as his partenaire; but she insisted
upon having the engagement guarded in her behalf by a condition so
obviously fanciful that he accepted it without argument.
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