Drawing up to the levee, they became a part of the general bustle and confusion; hurriedly disembarked, rushed about for their luggage, because every one else was rushing; hastily entered carriages of which there was a limited supply, and were whisked off over the rough cobblestones which constituted the principal pavements of the city; catching momentary glimpses, between oscillations, of oyster saloons, fruit and old clothes' shops, and coffee stands, where the people ate in the open air. In every block were cafes or restaurants, and the sign "Furnished Rooms" appearing at frequent intervals along the thoroughfare through which they drove at headlong pace, bore evidence to the fact that the city harbored many strangers.

The hotel was finally reached—and what a unique hostelry it was! "Set the St. Charles down in St. Petersburg," commented a chronicler in 1846, "and you would think it a palace; in Boston, and ten to one, you would christen it a college; in London, and it would remind you of an exchange." It represented at that day the evolution of the American tavern, the primitive inn, instituted for passengers and wayfaring men; the development of the pot-house to the metropolitan hotel, of the rural ale-room to the palatial saloon.

"What a change from country hostelries!" soliloquized the manager, after the company were installed in commodious rooms. "No more inns where soap and towels are common property, and a comb, without its full complement of teeth, does service for all comers!" he continued, gazing around the apartment in which he found himself. "Think of real gas in your room, Barnes, and great chairs, easy as the arms of Morpheus! Are you comfortable, my dear?" he called out.

Constance's voice in an adjoining room replied affirmatively, and he added: "I'm going down stairs to look around a bit."

Beneath the porch and reception hall extended the large bar-room, where several score of men were enjoying their liquors and lunches, and the hum of conversation, the clinking of glasses and the noise made by the skilful mixer of drinks were as sweet music to the manager, when shortly after he strode to the bar. Wearing neither coat nor vest, the bartender's ruffled shirt displayed a glistening stone; the sleeves were ornamented with gold buttons and the lace collar had a Byronic roll.

"What will you have, sir?" he said in a well-modulated voice to a big Virginian, who had preceded Barnes into the room.

"A julep," was the reply, "and, while you are making it, a little whisky straight."

A bottle of bourbon was set before him, and he wasted no valuable time while the bartender manipulated the more complicated drink. Experiencing the felicity of a man who has entered a higher civilization, the manager ordered a bottle of iced ale, drank it with gusto, and, seating himself, was soon partaking of a palatable dish. By this time the Virginian, joined by a friend, had ordered another julep for the near future and a little "straight" for the immediate present.

"Happy days!" said the former.

"And yours happier!" replied the newcomer.

"Why, it's Utopia," thought Barnes. "Every one is happy!"

But even as he thus ruminated, his glance fell upon an old man at the next table whom the waiters treated with such deference the manager concluded he must be some one of no slight importance. This gentleman was thin, wrinkled and worn, with a face Voltairian in type, his hair scanty, his dress elegant, and his satirical smile like the "flash of a dagger in the sunlight." He was inspecting his bouillon with manifest distrust, adjusting his eye-glass and thrusting his head close to the plate. The look of suspicion deepened and finally a grimace of triumph illumined his countenance, as he rapped excitedly on the table.

"Waiter, waiter, do you see that soup?" he almost shouted.

"Yes, Monsieur le Marquis," was the humble response.

"Look at it well!" thundered the old gentleman. "Do you find nothing extraordinary about it?"

Again the bouillon was examined, to the amusement of the manager.

"I am sorry, Monsieur le Marquis; I can detect nothing unusual," politely responded the waiter, when he had concluded a pains-taking scrutiny with all the gravity and seriousness attending so momentous an investigation.

"You are blind!" exclaimed the old man. "See there; a spot of grease floating in the bouillon, and there, another and another! In fact, here is an 'Archipelago of Greece!'" This witticism was relieved by an ironical smile. "Take it away!"

The waiter hurried off with the offending dish and the old man looked immensely satisfied over the disturbance he had created.

"Well has it been said," thought the manager, "that the destiny of a nation depends upon the digestion of its first minister! I wonder what he'll do next?"

Course after course that followed was rejected, the guest keeping up a running comment:

"This sauce is not properly prepared. This salad is not well mixed. I shall starve in this place. These truffles; spoiled in the importation!"

"Oh, Monsieur le Marquis,"—clasping his hands in despair—"they were preserved in melted paraffin."

"What do I care about your paraffin? Never mind anything more, waiter. I could not eat a mouthful. What is the bill? Very well; and there is something for yourself, blockhead."

"Thank you, Monsieur le Marquis." Deferentially.

"The worst meal I've ever had! And I've been in Europe, Asia and Africa. Abominable—abominable—idiot of a waiter—miserable place, miserable—and this dyspepsia—"

Thus running on, with snatches of caustic criticism, the old gentleman shambled out, the waiter holding the door open for him and bowing obsequiously.

"An amiable individual!" observed Barnes to the waiter. "Is he stopping at the hotel?"

"No, Monsieur. He has an elegant house near by. The last time he was here he complimented the cook and praised the sauces. He is a little—what you call it?—whimsical!"

"Yes; slightly inclined that way. But is he here alone?"

"He is, Monsieur. He loses great sums in the gambling rooms. He keeps a box at the theater for the season. He is a prince—a great lord—?"

"Even if he calls you 'liar' and 'blockhead'?"

"Oh, Monsieur,"—displaying a silver dollar with an expressive shrug of the shoulders—"this is the—what you call it?—balm."

"And very good balm, too," said Barnes, heartily.

Still grumbling to himself, the marquis reached the main corridor, where the scene was almost as animated as in the bar and where the principal topic of conversation seemed to be horses and races that had been or were about to be run. "I'd put Uncle Rastus' mule against that hoss!" "That four-year-old's quick as a runaway nigger!" "Five hundred, the gelding beats the runaway nigger!" "Any takers on Jolly Rogers?" were among the snatches of talk which lent life and zest to the various groups.

Sitting moodily in a corner, with legs crossed and hat upon his knee, was a young man whose careless glance wandered from time to time from his cigar to the passing figures. As the marquis slowly hobbled along, with an effort to appear alert, the young man arose quickly and came forward with a conventional smile, intercepting the old nobleman near the door.

"My dear Monsieur le Marquis," he exclaimed, effusively, "it is with pleasure I see you recovered from your recent indisposition."

"Recovered!" almost shrieked the marquis. "I'm far from recovered; I'm worse than ever. I detest congratulations, Monsieur! It's what a lying world always does when you are on the verge of dissolution."

"You are as discerning as ever," murmured the land baron—for it was Edward Mauville.

"I'm not fit to be around; I only came out"—with a sardonic chuckle—"because the doctors said it would be fatal."

"Surely you do not desire—"

"To show them they are impostors? Yes."

"And does New Orleans continue to please you?" asked the other, with some of that pride Southerners entertained in those days for their queen city.

"How does the exile like the forced land of his adoption?" returned the nobleman, irritably. "My king is in exile. Why should I not be also? Should I stay there, herd with the cattle, call every shipjack 'Citizen' and every clod 'Brother'; treat every scrub as though she were a duchess?"

"There is, indeed, a regrettable tendency to deify common clay nowadays," assented the patroon, soothingly.

"Why, your 'Citizen' regards it as condescension to notice a man of condition!" said the marquis, violently. "When my king was driven away by the rabble the ocean was not too broad to separate me from a swinish civilization. I will never go back; I will live there no more!"

"That is good news for us," returned the land baron.

"Your politeness almost reconciles me to staying," said the old man, more affably. "But I am on my way to the club. What do you say to a rubber?"

The patroon readily assented. In front of the hotel waited the marquis' carriage, on the door of which was his coat-of-arms—argent, three mounts vert, on each a sable bird. Entering this conveyance, they were soon being driven over the stones at a pace which jarred every bone in the marquis' body and threatened to shake the breath of life from his trembling and attenuated figure. He jumped about like a parched pea, and when finally they drew up with a jerk and a jolt, the marquis was fairly gasping. After an interval to recover himself, he took his companion's arm, and, with his assistance, mounted the broad steps leading to the handsome and commodious club house.

"At least," said the nobleman, dryly, as he paused on the stairs, "our pavements are so well-kept in Paris that a drive there in a tumbril to the scaffold is preferable to a coach in New Orleans!"



CHAPTER II

"ONLY AN INCIDENT"

To the scattering of the anti-renters by the rescue party that memorable night at the manor the land baron undoubtedly owed his safety. Beyond reach of personal violence in a neighboring town, without his own domains, from which he was practically exiled, he had sought redress in the courts, only to find his hands tied, with no convincing clue to the perpetrators of these outrages. On the patroon lay the burden of proof, and he found it more difficult than he had anticipated to establish satisfactorily any kind of a case, for alibis blocked his progress at every turn.

At war with his neighbors, and with little taste for the monotony of a northern winter, he bethought him of his native city, determined to leave the locality and at a distance wait for the turmoil to subside. His brief dream of the rehabilitation of the commonwealth brought only memories stirring him to restlessness. He made inquiries about the strollers, but to no purpose. The theatrical band had come and gone like gipsies.

Saying nothing to any one, except Scroggs, to whom he entrusted a load of litigation, he at length quietly departed in the regular stage, until he reached a point where two strap rails proclaimed the new method of conveyance. Wedged in the small compartment of a little car directly behind a smoking monster, with an enormous chimney, fed with cord-wood, he was borne over the land, and another puffing marvel of different construction carried him over the water. Reaching the Crescent City some time before the strollers—his progress expedited by a locomotive that ran full twenty miles an hour!—the land baron found among the latest floating population, comprised of all sorts and conditions, the Marquis de Ligne. The blood of the patroons flowed sluggishly through the land baron's veins, but his French extraction danced in every fiber of his being. After learning the more important and not altogether discreditable circumstances about the land baron's ancestors—for if every gentleman were whipped for godlessness, how many striped backs would there be!—the marquis, who declined intimacy with Tom, Dick and Harry, and their honest butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers of forefathers, permitted an acquaintance that accorded with his views governing social intercourse.

"This is a genuine pleasure, Monsieur le Marquis," observed the land baron suavely, when the two found themselves seated in a card room with brandy and soda before them. "To meet a nobleman of the old school is indeed welcome in these days when New Orleans harbors the refugees of the world, for, strive as we will, outsiders are creeping in and corrupting our best circles."

"Soon we shall all be corrupt," croaked the old man. "France—but what can you expect of a nation that exiles kings!"

"Ah, Louis Philippe! My father once entertained him here in New Orleans," said Mauville.

"Indeed?" remarked the marquis with interest.

"It was when he visited the city in 1798 with his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of Beaujolais. New Orleans then did not belong to America. France was not so eager to sell her fair possessions in those days. I remember my father often speaking of the royal visit. The king even borrowed money, which"—laughing—"he forgot to pay!"

The marquis' face was a study, as he returned stiffly: "Sir, it is a king's privilege to borrow."

"It is his immortal prerogative," answered Mauville easily. "I only mentioned it to show how highly he honored my father."

The nobleman lifted his eyebrows, steadily regarding his companion.

"It was a great honor," he said softly. "One does not lend to a king. When Louis Philippe borrowed from your father he lent luster to your ancestry."

"Yes; I doubt not my father regarded himself as the debtor. Again, we had another distinguished compatriot of yours at our house—General Lafayette."

"Lafayette!" repeated the marquis. "Ah, that's another matter! A man, born to rank and condition, voluntarily sinking to the level of the commonalty! A person of breeding choosing the cause of the rout and rabble! How was he received?"

"Like a king!" laughed Mauville. "A vast concourse of people assembled before the river when he embarked on the 'Natchez' for St. Louis."

Muttering something about "bourgeoisie!—epicier!" the nobleman partook of the liquid consolation before him, which seemed to brighten his spirits.

"If my doctors could see me now! Dolts! Quacks!"

"It's a good joke on them," said Mauville, ironically.

"Isn't it? They forbid me touching stimulants. Said they would be fatal! Impostors! Frauds! They haven't killed me yet, have they?"

"If so, you are a most agreeable and amiable ghost," returned Mauville.

"An amiable ghost!" cackled the old man. "Ha! Ha! you must have your joke! But don't let me have such a ghastly one again. I don't like"—in a lower tone—"jests about the spirits of the other world."

"What! A well-seasoned materialist like you!"

"An idle prejudice!" answered the marquis. "Only when you compared me to a ghost"—in a half whisper—"it seemed as though I were one, a ghost of myself looking back through years of pleasure—years of pleasure!"

"A pleasant perspective such memories make, I am sure," observed the land baron.

"Memories," repeated the marquis, wagging his head. "Existence is first a memory and then a blank. But you have been absent from New Orleans, Monsieur?"

"I have been north to look after certain properties left me by a distant relative—peace to his ashes!"

"Only on business?" leered the marquis. "No affair of the heart? You know the saying: 'Love makes time pass—'"

"'And time makes love pass,'" laughed Mauville, somewhat unnaturally, his cynicism fraught with a twinge. "Nothing of the kind, I assure you! But you, Marquis, are not the only exile."

The nobleman raised his brows interrogatively.

"You fled from France; I fled from the ancestral manor. The tenants claimed the farms were theirs. I attempted to turn them out and—they turned me out! I might as well have inherited a hornet's nest. It was a legacy-of hate! The old patroon must have chuckled in his grave! One night they called with the intention of hanging me."

"My dear sir, I congratulate you!" exclaimed the nobleman enthusiastically.

"Thanks!" Dryly.

"It is the test of gentility. They only hang or cut off the heads of people of distinction nowadays."

"Gad! then I came near joining the ranks of the well-born angels. But for an accident I should now be a cherub of quality."

"And how, Monsieur, did you escape such a felicitous fate?"

The land baron's face clouded. "Through a stranger—a Frenchman—a silent, taciturn fellow—more or less an adventurer, I take it. He called himself Saint-Prosper—"

"Saint-Prosper!"

The marquis gazed at Mauville with amazement and incredulity. He might even have flushed or turned pale, but such a possible exhibition of emotion was lost beneath an artificial bloom, painted by his valet. His eyes, however, gleamed like candles in a death's head.

"This Saint-Prosper you met was a soldier?" he asked, and his voice trembled. "Ernest Saint-Prosper?"

"Yes; he was a soldier; served in Africa, I believe. You knew him?" Turning to the marquis in surprise.

"Knew him! He was my ward, the rascal!" cried the other violently. "He was, but now—ingrate!—traitor!—better if he were dead!"

"You speak bitterly, Monsieur le Marquis?" said the patroon curiously.

"Bitterly!—after his conduct!—he is no longer anything to me! He is dead to me—dead!"

"How did he deviate from the line of duty?" asked Mauville, with increasing interest, and an eagerness his light manner did not disguise. "A sin of omission or commission?"

"Eh? What?" mumbled the old nobleman, staring at his questioner, and, on a sudden, becoming taciturn. "A family affair!" he added finally, with dignity. "Not worth repeating! But what was he doing there?"

"He had joined a strolling band of players," said the other, concealing his disappointment as best he might at his companion's evasive reply.

"A Saint-Prosper become an actor!" shouted the marquis, his anger again breaking forth. "Has he not already dragged an honored name in the dust? A stroller! A player!" The marquis fairly gasped at the enormity of the offense; for a moment he was speechless, and then asked feebly: "What caused him to take such a humiliating step?"

"He is playing the hero of a romance," said the land baron, moodily. "I confess he has excellent taste, though! The figure of a Juno—eyes like stars on an August night—features proud as Diana—the voice of a siren—in a word, picture to yourself your fairest conquest, Monsieur le Marquis, and you will have a worthy counterpart of this rose of the wilderness!"

"My fairest conquest!" piped the listener. With lack-luster eyes he remained motionless like a traveler in the desert who gazes upon a mirage. "You have described her well. The features of Diana! It was at a revival of Vanbrugh's 'Relapse' I first met her, dressed after the fashion of the Countess of Ossory. Who would not worship before the figures of Lely?"

He half closed his eyes, as though gazing in fancy upon the glossy draperies and rosy flesh of those voluptuous court beauties.

"The wooing, begun in the wings, ended in an ivy-covered villa—a retired nook—solitary walks by day—nightingales and moonshine by night. It was a pleasing romance while it lasted, but joy palls on one. Nature abhors sameness. The heart is like Mother Earth—ever varying. I wearied of this surfeit of Paradise and—left her!"

"A mere incident in an eventful life," said his companion, thoughtfully.

"Yes; only an incident!" repeated the marquis. "Only an incident! I had almost forgotten it, but your conversation about players and your description of the actress brought it to mind. It had quite passed away; it had quite passed away! But the cards, Monsieur Mauville; the cards!"



CHAPTER III

AT THE RACES

For several days, after rehearsals were over, the strollers were free to amuse themselves as they pleased. Their engagement at the theater did not begin for about a week, and meanwhile they managed to combine recreation with labor in nearly equal proportions. Assiduously they devoted themselves to a round of drives and rambles: through pastures and wood-land to Carrolton; along the shell road to Lake Pontchartrain; to Biloxi, the first settlement of the French; and to the battle grounds, once known as the plains of Chalmette, where volunteer soldiers were now encamped, awaiting orders to go to the front in the Mexican campaign. For those who craved greater excitement, the three race-courses—the Louisiana, the Metairie and the Carrolton offered stimulating diversion.

Within sight of the Metairie were the old dueling grounds, under the oaks, where, it is related, on one Sunday in '39 ten duels occurred; where the contestants frequently fought on horseback with sabers; and, where the cowherds, says a chronicler, became so accustomed to seeing honor satisfied in this manner that they paid little attention to these meetings, pursuing their own humble duties, indifferent to the follies of fashionable society. The fencing schools flourished—what memories cluster around that odd, strange master of the blade, Spedella, a melancholy enigma of a man, whose art embodied much of the finest shading and phrasing peculiar to himself; from whom even many of Bonaparte's discarded veterans were not above acquiring new technique and temperament! Men in those days were most punctilious about reputation, but permitted a sufficiently wide latitude in its interpretation not to hamper themselves or seriously interfere with their desires or pleasures. Thus, virtue did not become a burden, nor honor a millstone. Both, like epaulets or tassels, were worn lightly and befittingly.

Shortly after the players' arrival began the celebrated Leduc matches, attracting noted men and women from all over the South. The hotels were crowded, the lodging-houses filled, while many of the large homes hospitably opened their doors to visiting friends. The afternoons found the city almost deserted; the bartenders discontentedly smoked in solitude; the legion of waiters in the hotels and resorts became reduced to a thinly scattered array; while even the street venders had "folded their tents" and silently stolen to the races. On one such memorable occasion most of the members of Barnes' company repaired to the Metairie.

Below the grand stand, brilliant with color, strutted the dandies attending to their bets; above they played a winning or losing game with the fair sex. Intrigue and love-making were the order of the hour, and these daughters of the South beguiled time—and mortals!—in a heyday of pleasure. In that mixed gathering burly cotton planters from the country rubbed elbows with aristocratic creoles, whose attire was distinguishable by enormous ruffles and light boots of cloth. The professional follower of these events, the importunate tout, also mingled with the crowd, plainly in evidence by the pronounced character of his dress, the size of his diamond studs or cravat pin, and the massive dimensions of his finger rings. No paltry, scrubby track cadger was this resplendent gentleman, but a picturesque rogue, with impudence as pronounced as his jewels!

Surrounded by a bevy of admirers, Susan, sprightly and sparkling, was an example of that "frippery one of her sex is made up with, a pasticcio of gauzes, pins and ribbons that go to compound that multifarious thing, a well-dressed woman." Ever ready with a quick retort, she bestowed her favors generously, to the evident discomfiture of a young officer in her retinue whom she had met several days before, and who, ever since, had coveted a full harvest of smiles, liking not a little the first sample he had gathered. However, it was not Susan's way to entrust herself fully to any one; it was all very interesting to play one against another; to intercept angry gleams; to hold in check clashing suitors—this was exciting and diverting—but she exercised care not to transgress those bounds where she ceased to be mistress of the situation. Perhaps her limits in coquetry were further set than most women would have ventured to place them, but without this temerity and daring, the pastime would have lost its charm for her. She might play with edged tools, but she also knew how to use them.

Near her was seated Kate, indolent as of yore, now watching her sister with an indulgent, enigmatic expression, anon permitting a scornful glance to stray toward Adonis, who, for his part, had eyes only for his companion, a distinct change from country hoidens, tavern demoiselles and dainty wenches, with their rough hands and rosy cheeks. This lady's hands were like milk; her cheeks, ivory, and Adonis in bestowing his attentions upon her, had a two-fold purpose: to return tit for tat for Kate's flaunting ways, and to gratify his own ever-fleeting fancy.

In a box, half the length of the grand stand removed, some distance back and to the left of Susan's gay party, Constance, Mrs. Adams and the soldier were also observers of this scene of animation.

Since the manager's successful flight from the landlord and the constables, the relations of the young girl and Saint-Prosper had undergone little change. At first, it is true, with the memory of the wild ride to the river fresh in her mind, and the more or less disturbing recollections of that strange, dark night, a certain reticence had marked her manner toward the soldier; but, as time went by, this touch of reserve wore off, and was succeeded by her usual frankness or gaiety. In her eyes appeared, at times, a new thoughtfulness, but for no longer period than the quick passing of a summer cloud over a sunny meadow. This half-light of brief conjecture or vague retrospection only mellowed the depths of her gaze, and Barnes alone noted and wondered.

But to-day no partial shadows lay under the black, shading lashes; the exhilarating scene, the rapidly succeeding events, the turbulence and flutter around her, were calculated to dispel the most pronounced abstraction. Beneath a protecting parasol—for the sunlight shot below the roof at the back and touched that part of the grand stand—a faint glow warmed her cheeks, while her eyes shone with the gladness of the moment. Many of the dandies, regarding her with marked persistency, asked who she was, and none knew, until finally Editor-Rhymster Straws was appealed to. Straws, informed on all matters, was able to satisfy his questioners.

"She is an actress," said Straws. "So we are told. We shall find out next week. She is a beauty. We can tell that now."

"You're right, Straws!" exclaimed a pitch-and-toss youngster. "If she shows as well at the wire—"

"You'd take a long chance on her winning?" laughed the philosopher.

"I'll play you odds on it!" cried the juvenile. "Four to one, damme! I'll risk that on her eyes."

"Four to one on a lady's eyes, child! Say forty to one, and take the hazard of the die."

Standing near the rhymster, story-writer and journalist, was a tall young man, dressed in creole fashion. He followed the glances of Straws' questioners and a pallor overspread his dark complexion as he looked at the object of their attention.

"The stroller!" he exclaimed half audibly. "Her counterpart doesn't exist."

He stepped back where he could see her more plainly. In that sea of faces, her features alone shone before him, clearly, insistently.

"Do you know her, Mr. Mauville?" asked the rhymster, observing that steadfast glance.

"Know her?" repeated the land baron, starting. "Oh, I've seen her act."

"Tip me off her points and I'll tip my readers."

"She is going to play here then?" said the patroon.

"Yes. What is she like? Does tragedy or comedy favor her most? You see," he added apologetically, "when people begin to talk about anybody, we Grubstreet hacks thrive on the gossip. It is deplorable"—with regret—"but small talk and tattle bring more than a choice lyric or sonnet. And, heaven help us!"—shaking his head—"what a vendible article a fine scandal is! It sells fast, like goods at a Dutch auction. Penny a line? More nearly six pence! If I could only bring myself to deal in such merchandise! If I were only a good rag picker, instead of a bad poet!" And Straws walked away, forgetting the questions he had asked in his own more interesting cogitations.

Without definite purpose, the patroon, who had listened with scant attention to the poet, began to move slowly toward the actress, and at that moment, the eyes of the soldier, turning to the saddling paddock, where the horses were being led out, fell upon the figure drawing near, recognizing in him the heir to the manor, Edward Mauville. Construing in his approach a deliberate intention, a flush of quick anger overspread Saint-Prosper's face and he glanced at the girl by his side. But her manner assured him she had not observed the land baron, for at that moment she was looking in the opposite direction, endeavoring to discover Barnes or the others of the company in the immense throng.

Murmuring some excuse to his unconscious companion and cutting short the wiry old lady's reminiscences of the first public trotting race in 1818, the soldier left the box, and, moving with some difficulty through the crowd, met Mauville in the aisle near the stairway. The latter's face expressed surprise, not altogether of an agreeable nature, at the encounter, but he immediately regained his composure.

"Ah, Monsieur Saint-Prosper," he observed easily, "I little thought to see you here."

"Nor I you!" said the other bluntly.

The patroon gazed in seeming carelessness from the soldier to the young girl. Saint-Prosper's presence in New Orleans could be accounted for; he had followed her from the Shadengo Valley across the continent; the drive begun at the country inn—he looking down from the dormer window to witness the start—had been a long one; very different from his own brief flight, with its wretched end. These thoughts coursed rapidly through the land baron's brain; her appearance rekindled the ashes of the past; the fire in his breast flamed from his eyes, but otherwise he made no display of feeling. He glanced out upon the many faces below them, bowing to one woman and smiling at another.

"Oh, I couldn't stand a winter in the North," resumed the patroon, turning once more to the soldier. "Although the barn-burners promised to make it warm for me!"

Offering no reply to this sally, Saint-Prosper's gaze continued to rest coldly and expectantly upon the other. Goaded by that arbitrary regard, an implied barrier between him and the young girl, the land baron sought to press forward; his glittering eyes met the other's; the glances they exchanged were like the thrust and parry of swords. Without wishing to address the actress—and thereby risk a public rebuff—it was, nevertheless, impossible for the hot-blooded Southerner to submit to peremptory restraint. Who had made the soldier his taskmaster? He read Saint-Prosper's purpose and was not slow to retaliate.

"If I am not mistaken, yonder is our divinity of the lane," said the patroon softly. "Permit me." And he strove to pass.

The soldier did not move.

"You are blocking my way, Monsieur," continued the other, sharply.

"Not if it lies the other way."

"This way, or that way, how does it concern you?" retorted the land baron.

"If you seek further to annoy a lady whom you have already sufficiently wronged, it is any man's concern."

"Especially if he has followed her across the country," sneered Mauville. "Besides, since when have actresses become so chary of their favors?" In his anger the land baron threw out intimations he would have challenged from other lips. "Has the stage then become a holy convent?"

"You stamped yourself a scoundrel some time ago," said the soldier slowly, as though weighing each word, "and now show yourself a coward when you malign a young girl, without father, brother—"

"Or lover!" interrupted the land baron. "Perhaps, however, you were only traveling to see the country! A grand tour, enlivened with studies of human nature, as well as glimpses of scenery!"

"Have you anything further with me?" interjected Saint-Prosper, curtly.

The patroon's blood coursed, burning, through his veins; the other's contemptuous manner stung him more fiercely than language.

"Yes," he said, meaningly, his eyes challenging Saint-Prosper's. "Have you been at Spedella's fencing rooms? Are you in practice?"

Saint-Prosper hesitated a moment and the land baron's face fell. Was it possible the other would refuse to meet him? But he would not let him off easily; there were ways to force—and suddenly the words of the marquis recurring to him, he surveyed the soldier, disdainfully.

"Gad! you must come of a family of cowards and traitors! But you shall fight or—the public becomes arbiter!" And he half raised his arm threateningly.

The soldier's tanned cheek was now as pale as a moment before it had been flushed; his mouth set resolutely, as though fighting back some weakness. With lowering brows and darkening glance he regarded the land baron.

"I was thinking," he said at length, with an effort, "that if I killed you, people would want to know the reason."

The patroon laughed. "How solicitous you are for her welfare—and mine! Do you then measure skill only by inches? If so, I confess you would stand a fair chance of despatching me. But your address? The St. Charles, I presume." The soldier nodded curtly, and, having accomplished his purpose, Mauville had turned to leave, when loud voices, in a front box near the right aisle, attracted general attention from those occupying that part of the grand stand. The young officer who had accompanied Susan to the races was angrily confronting a thick-set man, the latest recruit to her corps of willing captives. The lad had assumed the arduous task of guarding the object of his fancy from all comers, simply because she had been kind. And why should she not have been?—he was only a boy—she was old enough to be—well, an adviser! When, after a brief but pointed altercation, he flung himself away with a last reproachful look in the direction of his enslaver, Susan looked hurt. That was her reward for being nice to a child!

"A fractious young cub!" said the thick-set man, complacently.

"Well, I like cubs better than bears!" retorted Susan, pointedly.

Not long, however, could the interest of the spectators be diverted from the amusement of the day and soon all eyes were drawn once more to the track where the horses' hoofs resounded with exciting patter, as they struggled toward the wire, urged by the stimulating voices of the jockeys.

But even when Leduc won the race, beating the best heat on record; when the ladies in the grand stand arose in a body, like a thousand butterflies, disturbed by a sudden footfall in a sunlit field; when the jockey became the hero of the hour; when the small boys outside nearly fell from the trees in their exuberance of ecstasy, and the men threw their hats in the air and shouted themselves hoarse—even these exhilarating circumstances failed to reawaken the land baron's concern in the scene around him. His efforts at indifference were chafing his inmost being; the cloak of insouciance was stifling him; the primeval man was struggling for expression, that brute-like rage whose only limits are its own fury and violence.

A quavering voice, near at hand, recalled him to himself, and turning, he beheld the marquis approaching with mincing manner, the paint and pigments cracked by the artificial smiles wreathing his wrinkled face. In that vast assemblage, amid all the energy, youth and surfeit of vitality, he seemed like a dried and crackling leaf, tossed helplessly, which any foot might crush to dust. The roar of the multitude subsided, a storm dying in the distance; the ladies sank in their seats—butterflies settling once more in the fields—and Leduc, with drooping head, was led to the paddock, followed by a few fair adorers.

"I placed the winner, Monsieur Mauville," piped the marquis. "Though the doctors told me the excitement would kill me! What folly! Every new sensation adds a day to life."

"In your case, certainly, Marquis, for I never saw you looking younger," answered the land baron, with an effort.

"You are too amiable, my dear friend! The ladies would not think so," he added, mournfully wagging his head with anile melancholy.

"Nonsense!" protested the other. "With your spirit, animation—"

"If I thought you were right," interrupted the delighted marquis, taking his young friend's arm, "I would ask you to present me to the lady over there—the one you just bowed to."

"The deuce!" said Mauville to himself. "The marquis is becoming a bore."

"You rascal! I saw the smile she gave you," continued the other playfully. "And you ran away from her. What are the young men made of nowadays? In the old days they were tinder; women sparks. But who is she?"

"You mean Susan Duran, the actress?"

"An actress!" exclaimed the nobleman. "A charming creature at any rate!"

"All froth; a bubble!" added Mauville impatiently.

"How entertaining! Any lovers?" leered the nobleman.

"A dozen; a baker's dozen, for all I know!"

"What is her history?" said the marquis eagerly.

"I never inquired."

"Sometimes it's just as well," murmured the other vaguely. "How old is she?"

"How can you tell?" answered Mauville.

"In Paris I kept a little book wherein was entered the passe-parole of every pretty woman; age; lovers platonic! When a woman became a grandmother, I put a black mark against her name, for I have always held," continued the nobleman, wagging his head, "that a woman who is a grandmother has no business to deceive a younger generation of men. But present me to Miss Susan at once, my dear friend. I am all impatience to meet her."

His eagerness permitted no refusal; besides, Mauville was not in the mood to enjoy the nobleman's society, and was but too pleased to turn him over to the tender care of Susan.

"How do you do, Miss Duran," he said, having made his way to her box.

"Where did you drop from?" she asked, in surprise, giving him her hand.

"The skies," he returned, with forced lightness.

"A fallen angel!" commented Susan.

"Good! Charming!" cried the marquis, clapping his withered hands.

"Miss Duran, the Marquis de Ligne has requested the pleasure of meeting you."

She flashed a smile at him. He bent over her hand; held it a moment in his icy grasp.

"The pleasure," said Susan, prettily, not shirking the ordeal, "is mine."

"In which case," added Mauville, half ironically, "I will leave you together to enjoy your happiness."

Eagerly availing himself of the place offered at her side, soon the marquis was cackling after the manner of a senile beau of the old school; relating spicy anecdotes of dames who had long departed this realm of scandal; and mingling witticism and wickedness in one continual flow, until like a panorama another age was revived in his words—an age when bedizened women wore patches and their perfumed gallants wrote verses on the demise of their lap-dogs; when "their virtue resembled a statesman's religion, the Quaker's word, the gamester's oath and the great man's honor—but to cheat those that trusted them!"

The day's events, however, were soon over; the city of pleasure finally capitulated; its people began rapidly to depart. That sudden movement resembled the migration of a swarm of bees to form a new colony, when, if the day be bright, the expedition issues forth with wondrous rapidity. So this human hive commenced to empty itself of queens, drones and workers. It was an outgoing wave of such life and animation as is apparent in the flight of a swarm of cell-dwellers, giving out a loud and sharp-toned hum from the action of their wings as they soar over the blooming heather and the "bright consummate flowers." And these human bees had their passions, too! their massacres; their tragedies; their "Rival Queens"; their combats; their sentinels; their dreams of that Utopian form of government realized in the communistic society of insects.

"How did you enjoy it, my dear?" asked Barnes, suddenly reappearing at Constance's box. "A grand heat, that! Though I did bet on the wrong horse! But don't wait for us, Saint-Prosper. Mrs. Adams and I will take our time getting through the crowd. I will see you at the hotel, my dear!" he added, as the soldier and Constance moved away.

Only the merry home-going remained, and the culmination, a dinner at Moreau's, Victor's, or Miguel's, the natural epilogue to the day's pastime, the tag to the comedy! In the returning throng were creoles with sky-blue costumes and palmetto hats; the Lafourche or Attakapas planter; representatives of the older regime and the varied newer populace. Superb equipages mingled in democratic confusion with carts and wagons; the broken-winded nag and spavined crowbait—veterans at the bugle call!—pricked up their ears and kicked up their heels like colts in pasture, while the delighted darkies thumped their bony shanks to encourage this brief rejuvenescence.

Those who had lost felt the money well spent; those who had won would be the more lavish in the spending. They had simply won a few more pleasures. "Quick come; quick go!" sang the whirling wheels. "The niggard in pound and pence is a usurer in happiness; a miser driving a hard bargain with pleasure. Better burn the candle at both ends than not burn it at all! In one case, you get light; in the other nothing but darkness. Laughter is cheap at any price. A castle in the air is almost as durable as Solomon's temple. How soon—how soon both fade away!"

Thus ran the song of the wheels before them and behind them, as the soldier and Constance joined the desultory fag-end of the procession. On either side of the road waved the mournful cypress, draped by the hoary tillandsia, and from the somber depths of foliage came the chirp of the tree-crickets and the note of the swamp owl. Faint music, in measured rhythm, a foil to disconnected wood-sound, was wafted from a distant plantation.

"Wait!" said Constance.

He drew in the horses and silently they listened. Or, was he listening? His glance seemed bent so moodily—almost!—on space she concluded he was not. She stole a sidelong look at him.

"A penny for your thoughts!" she said gaily.

He started. "I was thinking how soon I might leave New Orleans."

"Leave New Orleans!" she repeated in surprise. "But I thought you intended staying here. Why have you changed your mind?"

Did he detect a subtle accent of regret in her voice? A deep flush mounted to his brow. He bent over her suddenly, eagerly.

"Would it matter—if I went?"

She drew back at the abruptness of his words.

"How unfair to answer one question with another!" she said lightly.

A pause fell between them. Perhaps she, too, felt the sudden repulse of her own answer and the ensuing constraint. Perhaps some compunction moved her to add in a voice not entirely steady:

"And so you think—of going back to France?"

"To France!" he repeated, quickly. "No"—and stopped.

Looking up, a half-questioning light in her eyes took flight to his, until suddenly arrested by the hard, set expression of his features. Abruptly chilled by she knew not what, her lashes fell. The horses champed their bits and tugged at the reins, impatient of the prolonged pause.

"Let us go!" she said in a low, constrained voice.

At her words he turned, the harshness dropping from his face like a discarded mask; the lines of determination wavering.

"Let us go!" she said again, without looking up.

He made no motion to obey, until the sound of a vehicle behind them seemed to break the spell and mechanically he touched the horses with the whip.



CHAPTER IV

LEAR AND JULIET

Susan dismissed her admirers at the races with some difficulty, especially the tenacious marquis, who tenderly squeezed her hand, saying:

"Were I twenty years younger, I would not thus be set aside."

"Fie, Marquis!" she returned. "These other people are dull, while you are charmingly wicked."

"You flatter me," he cackled, detaining her, to the impatience of the thick-set man who was waiting to escort the young woman back to town. "But do you notice the gentleman over there with the medals?"

"The distinguished-looking man?" asked Susan.

"Yes; that is the Count de Propriac. It was he who was one of the agents of Louis Philippe in the Spanish double marriage plot. It was arranged the queen should marry her cousin, and her sister the son of Louis Philippe. The queen and her cousin were not expected to have children—but had them, to spite us all, and Louis Philippe's projects for the throne of Spain failed disastrously."

"How inconsiderate of the queen! Good afternoon, marquis! I have been vastly entertained."

"And I"—kissing her hand—"enamored!" Then, chuckling: "A week ago my stupid doctors had me laid out in funereal dignity, and now I am making love to a fine woman. Pretty pouting lips!"—tapping her chin playfully—"Like rose-buds! Happy the lover who shall gather the dew! But we meet again, Mistress Susan?"

"That will depend upon you, marquis," answered Susan, coquettishly, as a thought flashed through her mind that it would not be unpleasant to be called "Marquise," or "Marchioness"—she did not quite know which would be the proper title. It was nearly vesper-time with the old nobleman; he seemed but a procrastinating presence in the evening of mortal life; a chateau and carriage—

"Then we will meet again," said the marquis, interrupting these new-born ambitions.

"In that case you would soon get tired of me," laughed Susan.

"Never!" Tenderly. "When may I see you?"

"How importunate you are! Call when you will."

"But if you are out"—he insisted.

"That will make it the more delightfully uncertain," she said gaily.

"So it will!" Rubbing his hands. "Delightfully uncertain!" he repeated. And he departed with many protestations, taking no more notice of the thick-set man than if he were a block of wood.

"What an old ape!" growled the latter, viciously, as the marquis ambled from their stall.

"Do you think so?" answered Susan, tossing her head. "He has that air of distinction which only persons of rank and title can command."

"Distinction!" said the other, who was but a well-to-do merchant. "I should call it bad manners."

"Because he never noticed you!" laughed Susan, spitefully. "But why are we standing here? I believe you expect to take me home, don't you?"

Although she chattered like a magpie on the road, he was silent and sullen, nursing his injured pride and wounded self-sufficiency. Susan, who was interested in him for the novel reason she disliked him so heartily, parted from him with the air of a duchess, and entered the hotel, holding her head so high that he swore under his breath as he drove away. And, as a result of the quarrel with the lad, he would probably have to risk being "pinked" for this jade! Susan, on the other hand, was as happy as a lark when she entered the dining-room of the St. Charles, that great eating-place and meeting-place of all classes of people.

As she seated herself at a table, a smile lurked around the corners of her mouth and flickered faintly upon the waiter who forthwith became a Mercury for expedition and a prodigal for variety. Her quarrel on the road with her companion had in nowise interfered with that appetite which the fresh air and the lateness of the hour had provoked, nor were her thoughts of a character to deter from the zest of eating.

From the present to the past was but an instant's flight of the mind—thus may the once august years swiftly and unceremoniously be marshaled by!—and she dwelt in not unpleasing retrospection on an endless field of investigation and discovery and the various experiences which had befallen her in arriving at the present period of mature knowledge; a proficiency which converted her chosen researches into an exact science.

Thus meditating and dining—counting on her fingers twice over the fair actresses who had become titled ladies, and enviously disbelieving she would join that triumphant company—Susan was still seated at the table some time later when the soldier glanced in. Imperatively she motioned him to her side and he obeyed with not entirely concealed reluctance, and was so preoccupied, she rallied him upon his reserve.

"I believe you and Constance had a quarrel on the road." Maliciously. "I hope you were more amiable than my companion. He hardly spoke a word, and, when I left him"—her voice sank to a whisper—"I heard him swear."

"He pleased you so much earlier in the day that a duel will probably be the outcome."

Susan laughed gaily.

"A duel! Then my fortune is made. All the newspapers will contain paragraphs. It is too good to be true." And she clapped her hands. "When is it to take place? Tell me about it!"

Then noting his manner, she continued with an assumption of plaintiveness: "Now you are cross with me! You think me heartless. Is it my fault? I care nothing for either of them and I am not to be blamed if they are so foolish. It might be different if either had touched my heart." And she assumed a coquettish demeanor, while Saint-Prosper coolly studied her through the wreaths of smoke from his weed.

"You are wondering what sort of a person I am!" she continued, merrily, raising her glass of wine with: "To unrequited passion!"

Her roguish face sparkled as he asked; "Whose?"

She drained the glass and set it down demurely. "Mine!"

The cigar was suspended; the veil cleared between them.

"For whom?" he said.

"You!" Offering him the limpid depths of her blue eyes. "Is my liking returned?"

"Liking? Perhaps!"

"My love?"

"Love? No." Coldly.

"You do not fear a woman scorned?" Her lips curved in a smile, displaying her faultless teeth.

"Not when the avenging angel is so charming and so heartless!" he added satirically.

Her lashes veiled the azure orbs.

"You think to disarm her with a compliment? How well you understand women!" And, as he rose, the pressure of the hand she gave him at parting was lingering.

* * * * *

Above in his room, Barnes, with plays and manuscripts scattered around him, was engaged in writing in his note and date book, wherein autobiography, ledger and journal accounts, and such miscellaneous matter mingled indiscriminately. "To-day she said to me: 'I am going to the races with Mr. Saint-Prosper.' What did I say? 'Yes,' of course. What can there be in common between Lear and Juliet? Naturally, she sometimes turns from an old fellow like me—now, if she were only a slip of a girl again—with her short frock—her disorder of long ringlets—running and romping—

"A thousand details pass through my mind, reminiscences of her girlhood, lightening a lonesome life like glimmerings of sunshine in a secluded wood; memories of her mother and the old days when she played in my New York theater—for Barnes, the stroller, was once a metropolitan manager! Her fame had preceded her and every admirer of histrionic art eagerly awaited her arrival.

"But the temple of art is a lottery. The town that had welcomed her so wildly now went Elssler-mad. The gossamer floatings of this French danseuse possessed everyone. People courted trash and trumpery. Greatness gave way to triviality. This pitiful condition preyed upon her. The flame of genius never for a moment became less dim, but her eyes grew larger, brighter, more melancholy. Sometimes she would fall into a painful reverie and I knew too well the subject of her thoughts. With tender solicitude she would regard her daughter, thinking, thinking! She was her only hope, her only joy!

"'The town wants dancers, not tragedians, Mr. Barnes,' she said sadly one day.

"'Nonsense,' I replied. 'The town wants a change of bill. We will put on a new piece next week.'

"'It will be but substituting one tragedy for another,' she retorted. 'One misfortune for a different one! You should import a rival dancer. You are going down; down hill! I will leave you; perhaps you will discover your dancer, and your fortune is made!'

"'And you? What would you do?' I demanded. 'And your child?'

"At this her eyes filled and she could not answer. 'And now, Madam,' I said firmly, 'I refuse once and for all to permit you to break your contract. Pooh! The tide will change. Men and women are sometimes fools; but they are not fools all the time. The dancer will have had her day. She will twirl her toes to the empty seats and throw her kisses into unresponsive space. Our patrons will gradually return; they will grow tired of wriggling and twisting, and look again for a more substantial diet.'

"Matters did, indeed, begin to mend somewhat, when to bring the whole fabric tumbling down on our heads, this incomparable woman fell ill.

"'You see? I have ruined you,' she said sadly.

"'I am honored, Madam,' was all I could reply.

"She placed her hand softly on mine and let her luminous eyes rest on me.

"'Dear old friend!' she murmured.

"Then she closed her eyes and I thought she was sleeping. Some time elapsed when she again opened them.

"'Death will break our contract, Mr. Barnes,' she said softly.

"I suppose my hand trembled, for she tightened her grasp and continued firmly: 'It is not so terrible, after all, or would not be, but for one thing.'

"'You will soon get well, Madam,' I managed to stammer.

"'No! Do you care? It is pleasant to have one true, kind friend in the world; one who makes a woman believe again in the nobility of human nature. My life has been sad as you know. I should not regret giving it up. Nor should I fear to die. I can not think that God will be unkind to one who has done her best; at least, has tried to. Yet there is one thing that makes me crave for life. My child—what will she do—poor, motherless, fatherless girl—all alone, all alone—.

"'Madam, if I may—will you permit me to care for her? If I might regard her as my child!'

"How tightly she held my hand at that! Her eyes seemed to blaze with heavenly fire. But let me not dwell further upon the sad events that led to the end of her noble career. Something of her life I had heard; something, I surmised. Unhappy as a woman, she was majestic as an actress; the fire of her voice struck every ear; its sweetness had a charm, never to be forgotten. But only to those who knew her well were revealed the unvarying truth and simplicity of her nature. Even as I write, her spirit, tender and steadfast, seems standing by my side; I feel her eyes in the darkness of night, and, when the time comes—and often of late, it has seemed not far—to go from this mere dressing-room, the earth, into the higher life—"

A knock at the door rudely dispelled these memories. For a moment the manager looked startled, as one abruptly called back to his immediate surroundings; then the pen fell from his hand, and he pushed the book from him to the center of the table.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened and Saint-Prosper entered.

"Am I interrupting you?" asked the soldier, glancing at the littered table.

"Not at all," answered the manager, recovering himself, and settling back in his chair. "Make yourself at home. You'll find some cigars on the mantel, or if you prefer your pipe, there's a jar of tobacco on the trunk. Do you find it? I haven't had time yet to bring order out of chaos. A manager's trunks are like a junk-shop, with everything from a needle to an anchor."

Filling his pipe from the receptacle indicated, which lay among old costumes and wigs, the soldier seated himself near an open window that looked out upon a balcony. Through a door at the far end of the balcony a light streamed from a chandelier within, playing upon the balustrade. Once the figure of the young actress stepped for a moment out upon the balcony; she leaned upon the balustrade, looked across the city, breathed the perfume of the flowers, and then quickly vanished.

"Can you spare me a little time to-morrow morning—early—before rehearsal?" said Saint-Prosper, finally.

"Yes," returned the manager, in surprise. "What is it?"

"A foolish piece of business! The patroon is in New Orleans."

Barnes uttered an exclamation of annoyance and apprehension. "Here! What is he doing here?" he said. "I thought we had seen the last of him. Has he followed—Constance?"

"I don't know. We met yesterday at the races."

"It is strange she did not tell me about it," remarked the manager, without endeavoring to conceal the anxiety this unexpected information afforded him.

"She does not know he is here." And Saint-Prosper briefly related the circumstances of his meeting with the land baron, to which the manager listened attentively.

"And so she must be dragged into it?" exclaimed Barnes at length, resentfully. "Her name must become public property in a broil?"

A frown darkened the soldier's face, but he replied quickly: "Need any one know? The land baron has not been seen with her."

"No; but you have," returned the manager, suddenly pausing and looking down at the other.

The silence between them lasted for some moments. Barnes stood with his hands in his pockets, his face downcast and moody. He felt that events were happening over which he had no control, but which were shaping the destiny of all he loved best. In the dim light the rugged lines of his countenance were strongly, decisively outlined. Turning to the trunk, with a quick, nervous step, he filled a pipe himself. After he had lighted it, he once more contemplated the soldier, thinking deeply, reviewing the past.

"We have been together for some time, Mr. Saint-Prosper," he said, at length. "We have gone through fair and rough weather, and"—he paused a moment before continuing—"should understand each other. You asked me when you came in if you were interrupting me, and I told you that you were not. As a matter of fact, you were."

And, walking to a table, Barnes took up the notebook.

"A garrulous, single man must tell his little secrets somewhere," he continued. "Will you look at the pages I was writing when you came in?"

Saint-Prosper took the book, and, while he was turning the leaves that were hardly dry, the manager relighted his pipe, over which he glanced nervously from time to time at his companion. Finally, when the soldier had finished the perusal of the diary, Barnes turned to him expectantly, but the other silently laid down the little volume, and, after waiting some moments for him to speak, the manager, as though disappointed by his reticence, breathed a sigh. Then, clearing his throat, in a voice somewhat husky, he went on, simply:

"You will understand now why she is so much to me. I have always wanted to keep her from the world as much as possible; to have her world, her art! I have tried to keep the shadow of the past from her. An actress has a pretty face; and there's a hue and cry! It is not notoriety she seeks, but fame; fame, bright and pure as sunlight!"

"The land baron will not cry abroad the cause of the meeting," said the soldier, gravely. "These fashionable affairs need but flimsy pretexts."

"Flimsy pretexts!" cried Barnes. "A woman's reputation—her good name—"

"Hush!" said Saint-Prosper.

From the door at the far end of the balcony Constance had again emerged and now approached their room. A flowing gown of an early period surrounded her like a cloud as she paused before Barnes' apartment. At the throat a deep-falling collar was closely fastened; the sleeves were gathered in at elbow and wrist, and from a "coverchief," set upon the dusky hair, fell a long veil of ample proportions. With the light shimmering on the folds of her raiment, she stood looking through the open door, regarding the manager and Saint-Prosper.

"Oh, you are not alone?" she said to the former. "You look as though you were talking together very seriously?" she added, turning to Saint-Prosper.

"Nothing of consequence, Miss Carew!" he replied, flushing beneath her clear eyes.

"Only about some scenery!" interposed the manager, so hastily that she glanced, slightly surprised, from the one to the other. "Some sets that are—"

"'Flimsy pretexts!' I caught that much! I only wanted to ask you about this costume. Is it appropriate, do you think, for the part we were talking about?" Turning around slowly, with arms half-raised.

"Charming, my dear; charming!" he answered, enthusiastically.

"If I only thought that an unbiased criticism!" Her dark lashes lowered; she looked toward the soldier, half shyly, half mockingly. "What do you think, Mr. Saint-Prosper?"

At that moment her girlish grace was irresistible.

"I think it is not only appropriate, but"—looking at her and not at the costume—"beautiful!"

A gleam like laughter came into her eyes; nor did she shun his kindling gaze.

"Thank you!" she said, and courtesied low.

* * * * *

That same evening Spedella's fencing rooms were fairly thronged with devotees of the ancient art of puncturing. The master of the place was a tall Italian, lank and lean, all bone and muscle, with a Don Quixote visage, barring a certain villainous expression of the eyes, irreconcilable with the chivalrous knight-errant of distressed Dulcineas. But every man with a bad eye is not necessarily a rascallion, and Spedella, perhaps, was better than he looked. With a most melancholy glance he was now watching two combatants, novices in feats of arms. Dejection sat upon his brow; he yawned over a clumsy feinte seconde, when his sinister eyes fell on a figure that had just entered the hall. Immediately his melancholy vanished, and he advanced to meet the newcomer with stately cordiality.

"Well met, Mr. Mauville," he exclaimed, extending a bony hand that had fingers like the grip of death. "What good fortune brought you here?"

"An ill wind, Spedella, rather!"

"It's like a breath of the old days to see you; the old days before you began your wanderings!"

"Get the foils, Spedella; I'll have a bout with the master. Gad, you're as ill-looking as ever! It's some time since I've touched a foil. I want to test myself. I have a little affair to-morrow. Hark you, my old brigand; I wish to see if I can kill him!"

"A lad of spirit!" chuckled the master, a gleam of interest illumining his cavernous eyes. "Young!—frisky!—an affair of honor to-day is but nursery sport. Two children with tin swords are more diverting. The world goes backward! A counter-jumper thinks he can lunge, because he is spry, that he can touch a button because he sells them. And I am wasting my genius with ribbon-venders—"

"I see the wolf growls as much as ever!" said the patroon. "Here's a quiet corner. Come; tell me what I've forgotten."

"Good!" returned the other. "You can tell me about your travels as we fence."

"Hang my travels!" replied the patroon, as they leisurely engaged. "They've brought me nothing but regrets."

"Feinte flanconnade—well done!" murmured Spedella. "So it was not honey you brought home from your rambles? Feinte seconde and decisive tierce! It's long since I've touched a good blade. These glove-sellers and perfume-dealers—"

"You are bitter against trade, my bravo," remarked the land baron.

"I was spoiling with languor when you came. Not bad, that feint—but dangerous, because of the possibility of misjudging the attack. Learn the paroles he affects to-morrow by quick, simple thrusts, and then you will know what feints to attack him with. Time in octave—you quitted the blade in a dangerous position. Cluck; cluck, my game cock! Intemperance has befogged your judgment; high-living has dimmed your—"

"You have it!" laughed the land baron.

The button of his foil touched the old bravo's breast; the steel was bent like a bow.

Spedella forgot his English and swore in soft and liquid Italian. "I looked around to see how those ribbon-venders were getting on," he said after this euphonious, foreign prelude. "They pay me; I have to keep an eye on them. All the same," he added, generously, "there isn't another man in New Orleans could have stopped that stroke—except myself!"

"Will I do—for to-morrow?" asked the patroon, moodily.

The master cocked his head quizzically; his deep-set eyes were soft and friendly.

"The devil's with him, if you don't put your spur in him, my bantam!"



CHAPTER V

THE MEETING BENEATH THE OAKS

The mist was lifting from the earth and nature lay wrapped in the rosy peace of daybreak as the sun's shafts of gold pierced the foliage, illumining the historic ground of the Oaks. Like shining lances, they gleamed from the interstices in the leafy roof to the dew-bejeweled sward. From this stronghold of glistening arms, however, the surrounding country stretched tranquil and serene. Upon a neighboring bank sheep were browsing; in the distance cow-bells tinkled, and the drowsy cowherds followed the cattle, faithful as the shepherds who tended their flocks on the Judean hills.

Beneath the spreading trees were assembled a group of persons variously disposed. A little dapper man was bending over a case of instruments, as merry a soul as ever adjusted a ligature or sewed a wound. Be-ribboned and be-medaled, the Count de Propriac, acting for the land baron, and Barnes, who had accompanied the soldier, were consulting over the weapons, a magnificent pair of rapiers with costly steel guards, set with initials and a coronet. Member of an ancient society of France which yet sought to perpetuate the memory of the old judicial combat and the more modern duel, the count was one of those persons who think they are in honor bound to bear a challenge, without questioning the cause, or asking the "color of a reason."

"A superb pair of weapons, count!" observed the doctor, rising.

"Yes," said the person addressed, holding the blade so that the sunlight ran along the steel; "the same Jacques Legres and I fought with!"

Here the count smiled in a melancholy manner, which left no doubt regarding the fate of the hapless Jacques. But after a moment he supplemented this indubitable assurance by adding specifically:

"The left artery of the left lung!"

"Bless my soul!" commented the medical man. "But what is this head in gold beneath the guard?"

"Saint Michael, the patron saint of duelists!" answered the count.

"Patron!" exclaimed the doctor. "Well, all I have to say is, it is a saintless business for Michael."

The count laughed and turned away with a business-like air.

"Are you ready, gentlemen?"

At his words the contestants immediately took their positions. The land baron, lithe and supple, presented a picture of insolent and conscious pride, his glance lighted by disdain, but smoldering with fiercer passions as he examined and tested his blade.

"Engage!" exclaimed the count.

With ill-concealed eagerness, Mauville began a vigorous, although guarded attack, as if asserting his supremacy, and at the same time testing his man. The buzzing switch of the steel became angrier; the weapons glinted and gleamed, intertwining silently and separating with a swish. The patroon's features glowed; his movements became quicker, and, executing a rapid parry, he lunged with a thrust so stealthy his blade was beaten down only as it touched the soldier's breast.

Mauville smiled, but Barnes groaned inwardly, feeling his courage and confidence fast oozing from him. Neither he nor the other spectators doubted the result. Strength would count but little against such agility; the land baron was an incomparable swordsman.

"Gad!" muttered the count to himself. "It promises to be short and sweet."

As if to demonstrate the verity of this assertion, Mauville suddenly followed his momentary advantage with a dangerous lunge from below. Involuntarily Barnes looked away, but his wandering attention was immediately recalled. From the lips of the land baron burst an exclamation of mingled pain and anger. Saint-Prosper had not only parried the thrust, but his own blade, by a rapid riposte, had grazed the shoulder of his foe.

Nor was the manager's surprise greater than that of the count. The latter, amazed this unusual strategem should have failed when directed by a wrist as trained and an eye as quick as Mauville's, now interposed.

"Enough!" he exclaimed, separating the contestants. "Demme! it was superb. Honor has been satisfied."

"It is nothing!" cried the land baron, fiercely. "His blade hardly touched me." In his exasperation and disappointment over his failure, Mauville was scarcely conscious of his wound. "I tell you it is nothing," he repeated.

"What do you say, Mr. Saint-Prosper?" asked the count.

"I am satisfied," returned the young man, coldly.

"But I'm not!" reiterated the patroon, restraining himself with difficulty. "It was understood we should continue until both were willing to stop!"

"No," interrupted the count, suavely; "it was understood you should continue, if both were willing!"

"And you're not!" exclaimed the land baron, wheeling on Saint-Prosper. "Did you leave the army because—"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! let us observe the proprieties!" expostulated the count. "Is it your intention, sir"—to Saint-Prosper—"not to grant my principal's request?"

A fierce new anger gleamed from the soldier's eyes, completely transforming his expression and bearing. His glance quickly swept from the count to Mauville at the studied insult of the latter's words; on his cheek burned a dark red spot.

"Let it go on!"

The count stepped nimbly from his position between the two men. Again the swords crossed. The count's glance bent itself more closely on the figure of the soldier; noting now how superbly poised was his body; what reserves of strength were suggested by the white, muscular arm! His wrist moved like a machine, lightly brushing aside the thrusts. Had it been but accident that Mauville's unlooked-for expedient had failed?

"The devil!" thought the count, watching the soldier. "Here is a fellow who has deceived us all."

But the land baron's zest only appeared to grow in proportion to the resistance he encountered; the lust for fighting increased with the music of the blades. For some moments he feinted and lunged, seeking an opening, however slight. Again he appeared bent upon forcing a quick conclusion, for suddenly with a rush he sought to break over Saint-Prosper's guard, and succeeded in wounding the other slightly in the forehead. Now sure of his man, Mauville sprang at him savagely.

But dashing the blood from his eyes with his free hand, and without giving way, Saint-Prosper met the assault with a wrist of iron, and the land baron failed to profit by what had seemed a certain advantage. The wound had the effect of making the soldier more cautious, and eye, foot and hand were equally true. Mauville was breathing heavily from his exertions, but the appearance of both men, the supple movements of the one contrasting with the perfect precision of the other, would have delighted those members of the count's society, who regarded these matches as leading to a renaissance of chivalry.

In his fury that his chance had slipped away, after wounding, and, as he supposed, blinding his opponent, Mauville, throwing prudence to the winds, recklessly attempted to repeat his rash expedient, and this time the steel of his antagonist gleamed like quicksilver, passing beneath his arm and inflicting a slight flesh wound. Something resembling a look of apprehension crossed the land baron's face. "I have underestimated him!" he thought. "The next stroke will be driven nearer home."

He felt no fear, however; only mute, helpless rage. In the soldier's hand the dainty weapon was a thing of marvelous cunning; his vastly superior strength made him practically tireless in this play. Not only tireless; he suddenly accelerated the tempo of the exercise, but behind this unexpected, even passionate, awakening, the spectators felt an unvarying accuracy, a steely coldness of purpose. The blades clicked faster; they met and parted more viciously; the hard light in Saint-Prosper's eyes grew brighter as he slowly thrust back his antagonist.

Mauville became aware his own vigor was slowly failing him; instead of pressing the other he was now obliged to defend himself. He strove to throw off the lethargy irresistibly stealing over him; to shake the leaden movements from his limbs. He vainly endeavored to penetrate the mist falling before his eyes and to overcome the dizziness that made his foeman seem like a figure in a dream. Was it through loss of blood, or weariness, or both?—but he was cognizant his thrusts had lost force, his plunges vitality, and that even an element of chance prevailed in his parries. But he uttered no sound. When would that mist become dark, and the golden day fuse into inky night?

Before the mist totally eclipsed his sight he determined to make one more supreme effort, and again sprang forward, but was driven back with ease. The knowledge that he was continuing a futile struggle smote him to the soul. Gladly would he have welcomed the fatal thrust, if first he could have sent his blade through that breast which so far had been impervious to his efforts. Now the scene went round and round; the golden day became crimson, scarlet; then gray, leaden, somber. Incautiously he bent his arm to counter an imaginary lunge, and his antagonist thrust out his rapier like a thing of life, transfixing Mauville's sword arm. He stood his ground bravely for a moment, playing feebly into space, expecting the fatal stroke! When would it come? Then the slate-colored hues were swallowed in a black cloud. But while his mind passed into unconsciousness, his breast was openly presented to his antagonist, and even the count shuddered.

With his blade at guard, Saint-Prosper remained motionless; the land baron staggered feebly and then sank softly to the earth. That fatal look, the expression of a duelist, vanished from the soldier's face, and, allowing the point of his weapon to drop to the ground, he surveyed his prostrate antagonist.

"Done like a gentleman!" cried the count, breathing more freely. "You had him at your mercy, sir"—to Saint-Prosper—"and spared him."

A cold glance was the soldier's only response, as without a word he turned brusquely away. Meanwhile the doctor, hastening to Mauville's side, opened his shirt.

"He is badly hurt?" asked Barnes, anxiously, of the surgeon.

"No; only fainted from loss of blood," replied that gentleman, cheerfully. "He will be around again in a day or two."

The count put away his blades as carefully as a mother would deposit her babe in the cradle.

"Another page of history, my chicks!" he observed. "Worthy of the song of Pindar!"

"Why not Straws or Phazma?" queried the surgeon, looking up from his task.

"Would you have the press take up the affair? There are already people who talk of abolishing dueling. When they do they will abolish reputation with it. And what's a gentleman got but his honor—demme!" And the royal emissary carefully brushed a crimson stain from the bespattered saint.

By this time the land baron had regained consciousness, and, his wounds temporarily bandaged, walked, with the assistance of the count, to his carriage. As they were about to drive away the sound of a vehicle was heard drawing near, and soon it appeared followed by another equipage. Both stopped at the confines of the Oaks and the friends of the thick-set man—Susan's admirer—and the young lad, on whom she had smiled, alighted.

"Ha!" exclaimed the doctor, who had accompanied the count and his companion to the carriage. "Number two!"

"Yes," laughed the count, as he leaned back against the soft cushions, "it promises to be a busy day at the Oaks! Really"—as the equipage rolled on—"New Orleans is fast becoming a civilized center—demme!"



CHAPTER VI

A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON

The land baron's injuries did not long keep him indoors, for it was his pride rather than his body that had received deep and bitter wounds. He chafed and fumed when he thought how, in all likelihood, the details of his defeat could not be suppressed in the clubs and cafes. This anticipated publicity he took in ill part, fanning his mental disorder with brandy, mellow and insidious with age. But beneath the dregs of indulgence lay an image which preyed upon his mind more than his defeat beneath the Oaks: a figure, on the crude stage of a country tavern; in the manor window, with an aureole around her from the sinking sun; in the grand stand at the races, the gay dandies singling her out in all that seraglio of beauty.

"I played him too freely," he groaned to the Count de Propriac, as the latter sat contemplatively nursing the ivory handle of his cane and offering the land baron such poor solace as his company afforded. "I misjudged the attack, besides exposing myself too much. If I could only meet him again!"

The visitor reflectively took the handle of the stick from his lips, thrust out his legs and yawned. The count was sleepy, having drowned dull care the night before, and had little sympathy with such spirited talk so early in the day. His lack-luster gaze wandered to the pictures on the wall, the duel between two court ladies for the possession of the Duc de Richelieu and an old print of the deadly public contest of Francois de Vivonne and Guy de Jarnac and then strayed languidly to the other paraphernalia of a high-spirited bachelor's rooms—foils, dueling pistols and masks—trappings that but served to recall to the land baron his defeat.

"It would be like running against a stone wall," said the count, finally; "demme if it wouldn't! He could have killed you!"

"Why didn't he do it, then?" demanded the land baron, fiercely.

The count shrugged his shoulders, drank his brandy, and handed the bottle to his companion, who helped himself, as though not averse to that sort of medicine for his physical and mental ailments.

"What's the news?" he asked abruptly, sinking back on his pillow.

"The levees are flooded."

"Hanged if I care if it's another deluge!" said Mauville. "I mean news of the town, not news of the river."

"There's a new beauty come to town—a brunette; all the bloods are talking about her. Where did she come from? Who is she? These are some of the questions asked. But she's a Peri, at any rate! shy, hard to get acquainted with—at first! An actress—Miss Carew!"

The glass trembled in the patroon's hand. "Do you know her?" he asked unsteadily.

Smiling, the visitor returned the cane to his lips and gazed into vacancy, as though communing with agreeable thoughts.

"I have met her," he said finally. "Yes; I may say I have met her. Ged! Next to a duel with rapiers is one with eyes. They thrust at you; you parry; they return, and, demme! you're stabbed! But don't ask me any more—discretion—you understand—between men of the world—demme!"—and the count relapsed into a vacuous dream.

"What a precious liar he is!" commented the land baron to himself. But his mind soon reverted to the duel once more. "If I had only followed Spedella's advice and studied his favorite parades!" he muttered, regretfully.

"It would have been the same," retorted the count, brutally. "When you lost your temper, you lost your cause. Your work was brilliant; but he is one of the best swordsmen I ever saw. Who is he, anyway?"

"All I know is, he served in Algiers," said Mauville, moodily.

"A demmed adventurer, probably!" exclaimed the other.

"I'd give a good deal to know his record," remarked the patroon, contemplatively. "You should be pretty well acquainted with the personnel of the army?"

"It includes everybody nowadays," replied the diplomat. "I have a large acquaintance, but I am not a directory. A person who knows everybody usually knows nobody—worth knowing! But it seems to me I did know of a Saint-Prosper at the military college at Saumur; or was it at the Ecole d'application d'etat-major? Demmed scapegrace, if I am not mistaken; sent to Algiers; must be the same. A hell-rake hole!—full of German and French outcasts! Knaves, adventureres, ready for plunder and loot!"

Here the count, after this outburst, closed his eyes and seemed almost on the point of dropping off, but suddenly straightened himself.

"Let's get the cards, or the dice, Mauville," he said, "or I'll fall into a doze. Such a demmed sleepy climate!"

Soon the count was shuffling and the land baron and he were playing bezique, but in spite of the latter's drowsiness, he won steadily from his inattentive companion, and, although the noble visitor had some difficulty in keeping his eyes open, what there was of his glance was vigilantly concentrated on his little pile of the coin of the realm. His watchfulness did not relax nor his success desert him, until Mauville finally threw down the cards in disgust, weary alike of such poor luck and the half-nodding automaton confronting him; whereupon the count thrust every piece of gold carefully away in his pocket, absently reached for his hat, drawled a perfunctory farewell and departed in a brown study.

The count's company, of which he had enjoyed a good deal during the past forty-eight hours, did not improve Mauville's temper, and he bore his own reflections so grudgingly that inaction became intolerable. Besides, certain words of his caller concerning Saint-Prosper had stimulated his curiosity, and, in casting about for a way to confirm his suspicions, he had suddenly determined in what wise to proceed. Accordingly, the next day he left his rooms, his first visit being to a spacious, substantial residence of stone and lime, with green veranda palings and windows that opened as doors, with a profusion of gauzy curtains hanging behind them. This house, the present home of the Marquis de Ligne, stood in the French quarter, contrasting architecturally with the newer brick buildings erected for the American population. The land baron was ushered into a large reception room, sending his card to the marquis by the neat-appearing colored maid who answered the door.

If surroundings indicate the man, the apartments in which the visitor stood spoke eloquently of the marquis' taste. Eschewing the stiff, affected classicalism of the Empire style, the furniture was the best work of Andre Boule and Riesener; tables, with fine marquetry of the last century, made of tulip wood and mahogany; mirrors from Tourlaville; couches with tapestry woven in fanciful designs after Fragonard, in the looms of Beauvais—couches that were made for conversation, not repose; cabinets exemplifying agreeable disposition of lines and masses in the inlaid adornment, containing tiny drawers that fitted with old-time exactness, and, without jamming, opened and shut at the touch. The marquis' character was stamped by these details; it was old, not new France, to which he belonged.