ng you both, yet; and as for that darkey who has had the
impudence to try to make a commercial white gentleman of himself--it may
not be I that ought to say it, but--he will get his deserts--sure!"

"There are a great many Americans that think as you do," said
Frowenfeld, quietly.

"But," said the little doctor, "what did that fellow mean by your Creole
partner? Mandarin is in charge of your store, but he is not your
partner, is he? Have you one?"

"A silent one," said the apothecary

"So silent as to be none of my business?"

"No."

"Well, who is it, then?"

"It is Mademoiselle Nancanou."

"Your partner in business?"

"Yes."

"Well, Joseph Frowenfeld,--"

The insinuation conveyed in the doctor's manner was very trying, but
Joseph merely reddened.

"Purely business, I suppose," presently said the doctor, with a ghastly
ironical smile. "Does the arrangem'--" his utterance failed him--"does
it end there?"

"It ends there."

"And you don't see that it ought either not to have begun, or else ought
not to have ended there?"

Frowenfeld blushed angrily. The doctor asked:

"And who takes care of Aurora's money?"

"Herself."

"Exclusively?"

They both smiled more good-naturedly.

"Exclusively."

"She's a coon;" and the little doctor rose up and crawled away,
ostensibly to see another friend, but really to drag himself into his
bedchamber and lock himself in. The next day--the yellow fever was bad
again--he resumed the practice of his profession.

"'Twill be a sort of decent suicide without the element of
pusillanimity," he thought to himself.

CHAPTER LII

LOVE LIES A-BLEEDING

When Honore Grandissime heard that Doctor Keene had returned to the city
in a very feeble state of health, he rose at once from the desk where he
was sitting and went to see him; but it was on that morning when the
doctor was sitting and talking with Joseph, and Honore found his chamber
door locked. Doctor Keene called twice, within the following two days,
upon Honore at his counting-room; but on both occasions Honore's chair
was empty. So it was several days before they met. But one hot morning
in the latter part of August,--the August days were hotter before the
cypress forest was cut down between the city and the lake than they are
now,--as Doctor Keene stood in the middle of his room breathing
distressedly after a sad fit of coughing, and looking toward one of his
windows whose closed sash he longed to see