Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days. Then, in the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they glided cityward. At Carrollton they turned toward the New Ca.n.a.l, and at West End took the lake sh.o.r.e eastward--but what matter their way?
Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two--three, counting Cupid--and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept themselves aware of the world about them while Aline"s story ran gently on. It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the reply:
"No, "twas easier to bear, I think, because I had _not_ more time and less work."
"What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now? Incidentally you keep books, but mainly you do--what?"
"Mainly--I"ll tell you. Papa, you know, he was, like _grandpere_, a true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of beautiful living. Like _grandpere_ he had that perception by three ways--occupation, education, talent. And he had it so abboundingly because he had also _the art_--of that beautiful life, h"m?"
"The art beyond the arts," suggested the listener; "their underlying philosophy."
The narrator glowed. Then, grave again, she said: "Mr. Chezter, I"ll tell you something. To you "twill seem very small, but to me "tis large. It muz" have been because of both together, those arts and that art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him--egcept in play--speak an exaggeration. "Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you that--while ad the same time papa he never rebuke" that in anybody else--egcept, of course--his daughter."
"But I ask about you, your work."
"Ah! and I"m telling you. Mamma she had the same connoisseur talent as papa, and even amongs" that people where she was raise", and under the shadow, as you would say, of that convent so famouz for all those weavings, laces, tapestries, embro"deries, she was thought to be wonderful with the needle."
Chester interrupted elatedly: "I see what you"re coming to. You, yourself, were born needle in hand--the embroidery-needle."
"Well, ad the least I can"t rimember when I learned it. "Twas always as if I couldn" live without it. But it was not the needle alone, nor embro"deries alone, nor alone the critical eye. Papa he had, pardly from _grand-pere_, pardly brought from France, a separate librarie abbout all those arts, and I think before I was five years I knew every picture in those books, and before ten every page. And always papa and mamma they were teaching me from those books--they couldn" he"p it! I was very naughty aboud that. I would bring them the books and if they didn" teach me I would weep. I think I wasn" ever so naughty aboud anything else. But in the en", with the businezz always diclining, that turn" out fortunate. By and by mamma she persuade" papa to let her take a part in the pursuanze of the businezz. But she did that all out of sight of the public----"
"Had you never a brother or sister?"
"Yes, long ago. We"ll not speak of that. A sizter, two brothers; but--scarlet-fever----"
The story did not pause, yet while it pressed on, its hearers musing lingered behind. Why were the long lost ones not to be spoken of? For fear of betraying some blame of the childlike aunts for the scarlet-fever? The unworthy thought was put aside and the hearer"s attention readjusted.
"Even mamma," the girl was saying, "she didn" escape that contagion, and by reason of that she was compelled to let papa put me in her place in the businezz; and after getting well she never was the same and I rittained the place till a year avter, when she pas" away, and I have it yet."
"And who filled M. Alexandre"s place?"
"Oh, that? Tis fil" partly by Mme. Alexandre and partly by that diminishing of the businezz--till the largez" part of it is ripairing--of old laces, embro"deries, and so forth. Madame"s shop is the chief place in the city for that. Of that we have all we can do.
"Tis a beautiful work.
"So tha"z all I have to tell, Mr. Chezter; and I"ve enjoyed to tell you that so you can see why we are so content and happy, my aunts and I--and Hector--and Marie Madeleine. H"m?"
"That"s all you have to tell?"
"That is all."
"But not all there is to tell, even of the past, mademoiselle."
"Ah! and why not?"
"Oh, impossible!" Chester softly laughed and had almost repeated the word when the girl blushed; whereupon he did the same. For he seemed all at once to have spoiled the whole heavenly day, until she smilingly restored it by saying:
"Oh, yes! One thing I was forgetting. Just for the laugh I"ll tell you that. You know, even in a life as quiet as mine, sometimes many things happening together, or even a few, will make you see bats instead of birds, eh?"
"I know, and mistake feelings for facts. I"ve done it often, in a moderate way."
"Yes? Me the same. But very badly, so that the sky seemed falling in, only once."
Chester thought that if the two aunts, just then telling the biography of their dolls, were his, his sky would have fallen in at least weekly.
"Tell me of that once," he said, and, knowing not why, called to mind those four soldiers in France, to her, for some reason, unmentionable.
"Well, first I"ll say that the archbishop he had been the true friend of papa, but now this time, this "once" when my sky seemed falling, both mamma and papa they were already gone. I don"t need to tell you what the trouble was about, because it never happened; it only threatened to happen. So when I saw there was only me to prevent it and to----"
"To hold the sky up?"
"Yes, seeing that, it seemed to me the best friend to go to was the archbishop.
""Well, my old and dear friend"s daughter," he said, "what is it?"
""Most reverend father in G.o.d, "tis my wish to become a nun."
""My child, that is a beautiful sentiment."
""But "tis more; even more than my wish; "tis my resolution. I must do that. "Tis as if I heard that call from heaven to me, Aline Chapdelaine!"
""Ah, but that"s not only your name. Your mamma, up yonder, she"s also Aline Chapdelaine."
""Yes, but I know that call is to me. Ah, your Grace, surely, surely, you will not forbid me?"
""No, my daughter. Yet at the same time that is not a thing to be done suddenly, or in desperation. I"ll appoint you a season for reflection and prayer, and after that if your resolution remains the same you shall become a nun."
""But, for the sake of others, will not that season be made short?"
""For your own sake, my daughter, as well as for others, I"ll make it the shortest possible. Let me see; I was going to say forty but I"ll make it only thirty-nine."
""Ah, your Grace, but in thirty-nine days----"
"He stopped me: "Not days, my child; years." What he said after, "tis no matter now; pretty soon I was kneeling and receiving his benediction."
"And the sky didn"t fall?"
"No, but--I can"t explain to you--"twas that very visit prevent" it falling."
x.x.xVIII
It was in keeping with the coterie"s spiritual make-up that they should know a restaurant in the _vieux carre_, which "that pewblic" knew not, and whose best merits were not music and fresco, but serenity, hospitality, and cuisine---a haven not yet "Ammericanize"."
Where it was they never told a philistine. The elect they informed under the voice, as one might betray a bird"s nest. It was but a step from the crumbling Hotel St. Louis, and but another or so from the spires of St. Louis Cathedral.
In it, at a round table, the joy-riders had pa.s.sed the evening of their holiday. As the cathedral clock struck nine they rose to part. At the board Chester had sat next the same joy-mate allowed him all day in the car. But with how reduced a share of her attention! Half of his own he had had to give, at his other elbow, to her aunt Yvonne; half of Aline"s had gone to Dubroca. The other half into half of his was but half a half and that had to be halved by a quarter coming from the two nearest across the table, one of whom was Mlle. Corinne, whose queries always required thought.
"Mr. Chezter," she said, when the purchase of an evening paper had made the great over-seas strife the general theme, "can you egsplain me why they don" stop that war, when "tis calculate" to projuce so much hard feeling?"