His wife. H'mm! _She_? That amazing one who had vanished within a few yards of his bazaar of "masques et costumes"? Though to Chester New Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim purse kept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grew rich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to stand behind counters. Yet no such plight could he imagine of that bewildering young--young luminary who, this second time, so out of time, had gleamed on him from mystery's cloud. His earlier hope came a third time: "Excepting only your wife, you say? Why not also your amateur expert?" "I am sorry, but"--the Latin shrug--"that is--that is not possible." "Have I ever seen your wife? She's not a tallish, slender young-----?" "No, my wife is neither. She's never in the street or shop. She has no longer the cap-acity. She's become so extraordinarily _un_-slender that the only way she can come down-stair' is backward. You'll see. Well,"--he waved--"till then--ah, a word: my close bargaining--I must explain you that--in confidence. 'Tis because my wife and me we are anxious to get every picayune we can get for the owners--of that manuscript." Chester thought to be shrewd: "Oh! is _she_ hard up? the owner?" "The owners are three," Castanado calmly said, "and two dip-end on the earnings of a third." He bowed himself away. A few hours later Chester received from him a note begging indefinite postponement of the evening appointment. Mme. Castanado had fever and probably _la grippe_. II Early one day some two weeks after the foregoing incident the young lawyer came out of his _pension francaise_, opposite his office, and stood a moment in thought. In those two weeks he had not again seen Mr. Castanado. Once more it was scant half past eight. He looked across to the windows of his office and of one bare third-story sleeping-room over it. Eloquent windows! Their meanness reminded him anew how definitely he had chosen not merely the simple but the solitary life. Yet now he turned toward Royal Street. But at the third or fourth step he faced about toward Chartres. The distance to the courthouse was the same either way, and its entrances were alike on both streets. Thought he as he went the Chartres Street way: "If I go _one more time_ by way of Royal I shall owe an abject apology, and yet to try to offer it would only make the matter worse." He went grimly, glad to pay this homage of avoidance which would have been more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequent failure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of _her_ and an itching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconied windows besides those of the unslender Mme. Castanado.