words "make up your mind" touched Honore
Grandissime like a hot iron. He rose with the visitor.

"Well, sir, what would you give us for our title in case we should
decide to part with it?"

The two men moved slowly, side by side, toward the door, and in the
half-open doorway, after a little further trifling, the title was sold.

"Well, good-day," said M. Grandissime. "M. de Brahmin will arrange the
papers for us to-morrow."

He turned back toward his private desk.

"And now," thought he, "I am acting without resolving. No merit; no
strength of will; no clearness of purpose; no emphatic decision; nothing
but a yielding to temptation."

And M. Grandissime spoke truly; but it is only whole men who so
yield--yielding to the temptation to do right.

He passed into the counting-room, to M. De Brahmin, and standing there
talked in an inaudible tone, leaning over the upturned spectacles of his
manager, for nearly an hour. Then, saying he would go to dinner, he went
out. He did not dine at home nor at the Veau-qui-tete, nor at any of the
clubs; so much is known; he merely disappeared for two or three hours
and was not seen again until late in the afternoon, when two or three
Brahmins and Grandissimes, wandering about in search of him, met him on
the levee near the head of the rue Bienville, and with an exclamation of
wonder and a look of surprise at his dusty shoes, demanded to know
where he had hid himself while they had been ransacking the town in
search of him.

"We want you to tell us what you will do about our titles."

He smiled pleasantly, the picture of serenity, and replied:

"I have not fully made up my mind yet; as soon as I do so I will let you
know."

There was a word or two more exchanged, and then, after a moment of
silence, with a gentle "Eh, bien," and a gesture to which they were
accustomed, he stepped away backward, they resumed their hurried walk
and talk, and he turned into the rue Bienville.

CHAPTER XLII

AN INHERITANCE OF WRONG

"I tell you," Doctor Keene used to say, "that old woman's a thinker."
His allusion was to Clemence, the _marchande des calas_. Her mental
activity was evinced not more in the cunning aptness of her songs than
in the droll wisdom of her sayings. Not the melody only, but the often
audacious, epigrammatic philosophy of her tongue as well, sold her
_calas_ and gingercakes.

But in one direction her wisdom proved scant. She presumed too much on
her insignif