"Only this: that I've met her so often by pure--by chance, on that square you speak of, I bound for the court-house, she for I can't divine where--for I've never looked behind me!--that I've had to take another street to show I'm a gentleman. This very morn'--oh!--and now! here! How can I explain--or go unexplained?" Ovide lifted a hand: "Will you leave that to my wife, so unlearned yet so wise and good? For the young lady's own sake my wife, _without_ explaining, will see that you are not misjudged." "Good! Right! Any explanation would simply belie itself. Yes, let her do it! But, Landry----" "Yes?" "For heaven's sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven't got this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge. But in this thing--I say it only to you--I'm making none. I'm neither a marrying man, a villain, nor an ass." Ovide smiled: "My wife can manage that. Maybe it's good you came here. It may well be that the young lady herself would be glad if some one explained her to you." "Hoh! does an angel need an explanation?" "I should say, in Royal Street, yes." "Then for mercy's sake give it! right here! you! come!" The youth laughed. "Mercy to me, I mean. But--wait! Tell me; couldn't Castanado have given it, as easily as you?" "You never gave Castanado this chance." "How do you know that? Oh, never mind, go ahead--full speed." "Well, she's an orphan, of a fine old family----" "Obviously! Creole, of course, the family?" "Yes, though always small in Louisiana. Creole except one New England grandmother. But for that one she would not have been here just now." "Humph! that's rather obscure but--go on." "Her parents left her without a sou or a relation except two maiden aunts as poor as she." "Antiques?" "Yes. She earns their living and her own." "You don't care to say how?" "She wouldn't like it. 'Twould be to say where." "She seems able to dress exquisitely." "Mr. Chester, a woman would see with what a small outlay that is done. She has that gift for the needle which a poet has for the pen." "Ho! that's _charmingly_ antique. But now tell me how having a Yankee grandmother caused her to drop in here just now. Your logic's dim." "You are soon to go to Castanado's to see that manuscript story, are you not?" "Oh, is it a story? Have you read it?" "Yes, I've read it, 'tis short. They wanted my opinion. And 'tis a story, though true." "A story! Love story? very absorbing?" "No, it is not of love--except love of liberty. Whether 'twill absorb you or no I cannot say. Me it absorbed because it is the story of some of my race, far from here and in the old days, trying, in the old vain way, to gain their freedom." "Has--has mademoiselle read it?" "Certainly. It is her property; hers and her two aunts'. Those two, they bought it lately, of a poor devil--drinking man--for a dollar. They had once known his mother, from the West Indies." "He wrote it, or his mother?"