Part 14 (1/2)

Two men came through the Place d'Armes on conspicuously fine horses. One it is not necessary to describe. The other, a man of perhaps thirty-three or thirty-four years of age, was extremely handsome and well dressed, the martial fas.h.i.+on of the day showing his tall and finely knit figure to much advantage. He sat his horse with an uncommon grace, and, as he rode beside his companion, spoke and gave ear by turns with an easy dignity sufficient of itself to have attracted popular observation. It was the apothecary's unknown friend. Frowenfeld noticed them while they were yet in the middle of the grounds. He could hardly have failed to do so, for some one close beside his bench in undoubted allusion to one of the approaching figures exclaimed:

”Here comes Honore Grandissime.”

Moreover, at that moment there was a slight unwonted stir on the Place d'Armes. It began at the farther corner of the square, hard by the Princ.i.p.al, and spread so quickly through the groups near about, that in a minute the entire company were quietly made aware of something going notably wrong in their immediate presence. There was no running to see it. There seemed to be not so much as any verbal communication of the matter from mouth to mouth. Rather a consciousness appeared to catch noiselessly from one to another as the knowledge of human intrusion comes to groups of deer in a park. There was the same elevating of the head here and there, the same rounding of beautiful eyes. Some stared, others slowly approached, while others turned and moved away; but a common indignation was in the breast of that thing dreadful everywhere, but terrible in Louisiana, the Majority. For there, in the presence of those good citizens, before the eyes of the proudest and fairest mothers and daughters of New Orleans, glaringly, on the open Plaza, the Creole whom Joseph had met by the graves in the field, Honore Grandissime, the uttermost flower on the topmost branch of the tallest family tree ever transplanted from France to Louisiana, Honore,--the wors.h.i.+ped, the magnificent,--in the broad light of the sun's going down, rode side by side with the Yankee governor and was not ashamed!

Joseph, on his bench, sat contemplating the two parties to this scandal as they came toward him. Their horses' flanks were damp from some pleasant gallop, but their present gait was the soft, mettlesome movement of animals who will even submit to walk if their masters insist. As they wheeled out of the broad diagonal path that crossed the square, and turned toward him in the highway, he fancied that the Creole observed him. He was not mistaken. As they seemed about to pa.s.s the spot where he sat, M. Grandissime interrupted the governor with a word and, turning his horse's head, rode up to the bench, lifting his hat as he came.

”Good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld.”

Joseph, looking brighter than when he sat unaccosted, rose and blushed.

”Mr. Frowenfeld, you know my uncle very well, I believe--Agricole Fusilier--long beard?”

”Oh! yes, sir, certainly.”

”Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I shall be much obliged if you will tell him--that is, should you meet him this evening--that I wish to see him.

If you will be so kind?”

”Oh! yes, sir, certainly.”

Frowenfeld's diffidence made itself evident in this reiterated phrase.

”I do not know that you will see him, but if you should, you know--”

”Oh, certainly, sir!”

The two paused a single instant, exchanging a smile of amiable reminder from the horseman and of bashful but pleased acknowledgment from the one who saw his precepts being reduced to practice.

”Well, good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld.”

M. Grandissime lifted his hat and turned. Frowenfeld sat down.

”_Bou zou, Miche Honore!_” called the _marchande_.

”_Comment to ye, Clemence?_”

The merchant waved his hand as he rode away with his companion.

”_Beau Miche, la_,” said the _marchande_, catching Joseph's eye.

He smiled his ignorance and shook his head.

”Da.s.s one fine gen'leman,” she repeated. ”_Mo pa'le Angle_,” she added with a chuckle.

”You know him?”

”Oh! ya.s.s, sah; Mawse Honore knows me, ya.s.s. All de gen'lemens knows me.

I sell de _calas;_ mawnin's sell _calas_, evenin's sell zinzer-cake.

_You_ know me” (a fact which Joseph had all along been aware of). ”Dat me w'at pa.s.s in rue Royale ev'y mawnin' holl'in' '_Be calas touts chauds_,' an' singin'; don't you know?”