ig sto'!_ An'
listen! You think Honore di'n' bitrayed' 'is family? Madame Nancanou an'
heh daughtah livin' upstair an' rissy-ving de finess soci'ty in de
Province!--an' _me?_--downstair' meckin' pill! You call dat justice?"

But Doctor Keene, without waiting for this question, had asked one:

"Does Frowenfeld board with them?"

"Psh-sh-sh! Board! Dey woon board de Marquis of Casa Calvo! I don't
b'lieve dey would board Honore Grandissime! All de king' an' queen' in
de worl' couldn' board dare! No, sir!--'Owever, you know, I think dey
are splendid ladies. Me an' my wife, we know them well. An' Honore--I
think my cousin Honore's a splendid gen'leman, too." After a moment's
pause he resumed, with a happy sigh, "Well, I don' care, I'm married. A
man w'at's married, 'e don' care.

"But I di'n' t'ink Honore could ever do lak dat odder t'ing."

"Do he and Joe Frowenfeld visit there?"

"Doctah Keene," demanded Raoul, ignoring the question, "I hask you now,
plain, don' you find dat mighty disgressful to do dat way, lak Honore?"

"What way?"

"W'at? You dunno? You don' yeh 'ow 'e gone partner' wid a nigga?"

"What do you mean?"

Doctor Keene drew the handkerchief off his face and half lifted his
feeble head.

"Yesseh! 'e gone partner' wid dat quadroon w'at call 'imself Honore
Grandissime, seh!"

The doctor dropped his head again and laid the handkerchief back on his
face.

"What do the family say to that?"

"But w'at _can_ dey say? It save dem from ruin! At de sem time, me, I
think it is a disgress. Not dat he h-use de money, but it is dat name
w'at 'e give de h-establishmen'--Grandissime Freres! H-only for 'is
money we would 'ave catch' dat quadroon gen'leman an' put some tar and
fedder. Grandissime Freres! Agricole don' spik to my cousin Honore no
mo'. But I t'ink dass wrong. W'at you t'ink, Doctah?"

That evening, at candle-light, Raoul got the right arm of his slender,
laughing wife about his neck; but Doctor Keene tarried all night in
suburb St. Jean. He hardly felt the moral courage to face the results of
the last five months. Let us understand them better ourselves.

CHAPTER XLVIII

AN INDIGNANT FAMILY AND A SMASHED SHOP

It was indeed a fierce storm that had passed over the head of Honore
Grandissime. Taken up and carried by it, as it seemed to him, without
volition, he had felt himself thrown here and there, wrenched, torn,
gasping for moral breath, speaking the right word as if in delirium,