The Benson signal., 1917-03-31
CHAPTER. XVI.
The Poison Lingers.

David stayed behind in Vincennes,
going back to his work at the trading
house of Francois Vigo. But he stayed
there only a week or two before his
loneliness made existence without a
sight Of Toinette an existence not to
be endured. He hated the sight of the
ill-smelling store, with it's heaps Of
green skins, it's cracking bundles of
furs, hated the sight Of the cheerful
Hoosiers and French who thronged the
streets of the old capital, and loathed
the wretehed Piankeshaw Indians who
slept in the doorway. Suddenly, one
morning, he told old Vigo that he
must leave; and the next day found
him once more in Corydon, where Ike
welcomed him with beaming face.
Still the breach was open 1t is so
hard for young men and 1naidens to
lay down their pride!
To Toinette the days were almost
unbearable. David acted like a bear
with sore head, she thought. 1t was
Just what she might have expected,
she told herself. 1t is perfectly silly
to be so big and f1inty, she was sure.
David had never spoken ten words to
her at any one time, since the day he
had knocked everything into cooked
hat by telling her he loved her. Peo-
pie who loved each other didn't act as
they did, she knew; why, whenever
they had been together she felt as
though something tremendous, some
thing bigger than she was, was in the
very air around and on the point of
exploding. She didn't approve of ex-
plosions, still less of things, nameless
forces, that were bigger than she was.
When she had talked to David in the
old days it was like talking to the heart
of one of. those terrible creatures of
steel, about which Mr.. Livingston had
written her father-that great thrOb-
being caldron which they fed with logs
and which palpitated with fury and
drove a boat from Pittsburgh to New
Orleans in a month. 1t was bigger
than she was and unmanageable and
it was not at all her idea of love.
Whenever she thought about it, that is
to say about the atmosphere which was
Immediately and mysteriOusly evolved
out of common day whenever David
and she encountered, her eyes filled
with tears of vexation. AS for being
sorry, that was another matter. If Da-
vid wished to be flint, she was perfect
ly capable of being steel. Yet she
thought about him every day.
Her father, for the first time in her
experience, failed to be of any help to
her. At home, in New Orleans, she
had gone to him with the story of
each boy who had danced attendance
upon her and he had seen them as she
did and together they had laughed each
cavalier into oblivion; but she found it
impossible to discuss this new problem
with him. 1t was no use telling her
father that she was afraid of some
thing she couldn't name. If it was
true that she had trembled from head
to foot when she felt that the sparks
which flashed back and forth from her
steel and David's flint were danger
ously near a powder mine somewhere
inside her, that was her affair and
she would have to drown it with her
own contempt as best she might.
Accordingly, the little old gentleman,
who was sincerely troubled by the evil
dent breach between his daughter and
David, got small satisfaction from
Toinette when he stuck a cautious fin
ger into the difficulty. There was
nothing wrong and she was perfectly
happy and if David chose to be
bear with a sore head that was his