to do that--with you-all."

"Yes, when you speak of us at all."

"Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even more
interesting."

"Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the tourist
trade is every day killing even in Royal Street."

"That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young man
said.

"And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dry
land left of it--of that spirit of art--is----"

"Castanado's shop, I dare say."

"Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every day
without discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer."

"Not so very. What are the other three?"

"First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of Scipion
Beloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next below
Ducatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La Porte,
perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all."

"Not the watchmaker on the square above?"

"Ah! distantly he's of them: and there _was_ old Manouvrier, taxidermist;
but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin."

Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From an
inner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife, came
the little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what perfection in
how many points! As she returned to Ovide an old magazine, at last he
heard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She thanked the bookman for
his loan and, with the child, went out.

It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but he
saw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that that
young lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!"

Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here by
business appointment. And what of it if you have seen her, or she seen
you, here--or anywhere?"

"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