Chester stole to where, by leaning
over, she could see his eyes they were closed. She hoped he slept, but
sat down in uncertainty rather than risk waking him. In the moonlit
garden Aline and Geoffry paced to and fro. To see them his mother
would have to stand and lean over the cot, and neither good mothers nor
good nurses do that. She kept her seat, anxiously hoping that the
moonlight out there would remain soft enough to veil the worn look
which daylight betrayed on her son's face whenever he fell into silence.

The talk of the pair was labored. Once they went clear to the bower
and turned, without a word. Then Geoffry said: "I know a story I'd
like to tell you, though how it would help us in our project--if we now
have a project at all--I don't see."

"'Tis of the _vieux carre_, that story?"

"It's of the _vieux carre_ of the world's heart."

"I think I know it."

"May I not tell it?"

"Yes, you may tell it--although--yes, tell it."

"Well, there was once a beautiful girl, as beautiful in soul as in
countenance, and worshipped by a few excellent friends, few only
because of conditions in her life that almost wholly exiled her from
society. Even so, she had suitors--good, gallant men; not of wealth,
yet with good prospects and with gifts more essential. But other
conditions seemed, to her, to forbid marriage."

"Yes," Aline interrupted. "Mr. Chester, have you gone in partnership
with Mr. Castanado--'Masques et Costumes'? Or would it not be maybe
better honor to me--and yourself--to speak----"

"Straight out? Yes, of course. Aline, I've been racking my brain--I
still am--and my heart--to divine what it is that separates us. I had
come to believe you loved me. I can't quite stifle the conviction yet.
I believe that in refusing me you're consciously refusing that which
seems to you yourself a worthy source of supreme happiness if it did
not threaten the happiness of others dearer than your own."

"Of my aunts, you think?"

"Yes, your aunts."

"Mr. Chester, even if I had no aunts----"

"Yes, I see. That's my new discovery: you've already had my assurance
that I'd study their happiness as I would yours, ours, mine; but you
think I could never make your aunts and myself happy in the same
atmosphere. You believe in me. You believe I have a future that must
carry me--would carry us--into a world your aunts don't know and could
never learn."

"'Tis true. And yet even if my aunts----"

"Had