pocket which Mr.
Pontellier had presented him with, and he was saving it for his
after-dinner smoke.

This seemed quite proper and natural on his part. In coloring he was
not unlike his companion. A clean-shaved face made the resemblance more
pronounced than it would otherwise have been. There rested no shadow of
care upon his open countenance. His eyes gathered in and reflected the
light and languor of the summer day.

Mrs. Pontellier reached over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on the porch
and began to fan herself, while Robert sent between his lips light puffs
from his cigarette. They chatted incessantly: about the things around
them; their amusing adventure out in the water-it had again assumed its
entertaining aspect; about the wind, the trees, the people who had gone
to the Cheniere; about the children playing croquet under the oaks, and
the Farival twins, who were now performing the overture to "The Poet and
the Peasant."

Robert talked a good deal about himself. He was very young, and did not
know any better. Mrs. Pontellier talked a little about herself for the
same reason. Each was interested in what the other said. Robert spoke of
his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited him.
He was always intending to go to Mexico, but some way never got there.
Meanwhile he held on to his modest position in a mercantile house in
New Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English, French and Spanish
gave him no small value as a clerk and correspondent.

He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with his mother
at Grand Isle. In former times, before Robert could remember, "the
house" had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns. Now, flanked by its
dozen or more cottages, which were always filled with exclusive visitors
from the "Quartier Francais," it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the
easy and comfortable existence which appeared to be her birthright.

Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father's Mississippi plantation and her
girlhood home in the old Kentucky bluegrass country. She was an American
woman, with a small infusion of French which seemed to have been lost in
dilution. She read a letter from her sister, who was away in the East,
and who had engaged herself to be married. Robert was interested, and
wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters were, what the father
was like, and how long the mother had been dead.

When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her