She hesitated. "N-no," she said. "Ah, no! I couldn't bear that responsibility! Listen; Mr. Smith is going to tell a war story of the city." But no, that gentleman's story was yet another too long for the moment even when the men were left to their cigars. Instead he and Chester made further acquaintance. When they returned to the ladies, "I want you to talk with my wife," said Mr. Smith, and Chester obeyed. Yet soon he was at mademoiselle's side again and she was saying in a dropped voice: "To-morrow when you're at the Castanados' to read, so privately, would you be willing for Mme. De l'Isle to be there--just madame alone?" Oh, but men are dull! "I'd be honored!" he said. "They can modify the privacy as they please." Oh, but men are dull! There he had to give place to M. Prieur and presently accepted some kind of social invitation, seeing no way out of it, from the Smiths. So ended the evening. Mlle. Chapdelaine was taken to her home, "close by," as she said, in the Prieurs' carriage. "They are juz' arround in Bourbon Street, those Chapdelaines," said the De l'Isles to Chester, last to go. "Y'ought to see their li'l' flower-garden. Like those two aunt' that maintain it, 'tis unique. Y'ought to see that--and them." "I have mademoiselle's permission," he replied. "Ah, well, then!--ha, ha!" The pair exchanged a smile which seemed to the parting guest to say: "After all he's not so utterly deficient!" IX Again the Castanados' dainty parlor, more dainty than ever. No one there was in evening dress, though with its privacy "modified as the Castanados pleased," it had gathered a company of seven. Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth. Madame was in her special chair. And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l'Isle, Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau. The seventh was M. Placide Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic. Just entered, he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept away--by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that wonderful movie, "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when Chester came in and almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine's manuscript was in full coruscation. "In the firs' place," one said--though the best place he could seize was the seventeenth--"firs' place of all--competition! My frien's, we cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we are proud, a few of us yet, to _con_-tinue in the rue Royale. Every publisher----" Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait: "We got to be 'wise like snake' an' innocent like pigeon'!'" "Precizely! Every publisher approach' mus' know he's bidding agains' every other! Maybe they are honess men, and _if_ so they'll be rij-oice'!"