Part 49 (2/2)

”Well,” said the mortgager, presently rising, ”you will make up your mind and let me know, will you?”

The chance repet.i.tion of those words ”make up your mind” touched Honore Grandissime like a hot iron. He rose with the visitor.

”Well, sir, what would you give us for our t.i.tle in case we should decide to part with it?”

The two men moved slowly, side by side, toward the door, and in the half-open doorway, after a little further trifling, the t.i.tle was sold.

”Well, good-day,” said M. Grandissime. ”M. de Brahmin will arrange the papers for us to-morrow.”

He turned back toward his private desk.

”And now,” thought he, ”I am acting without resolving. No merit; no strength of will; no clearness of purpose; no emphatic decision; nothing but a yielding to temptation.”

And M. Grandissime spoke truly; but it is only whole men who so yield--yielding to the temptation to do right.

He pa.s.sed into the counting-room, to M. De Brahmin, and standing there talked in an inaudible tone, leaning over the upturned spectacles of his manager, for nearly an hour. Then, saying he would go to dinner, he went out. He did not dine at home nor at the Veau-qui-tete, nor at any of the clubs; so much is known; he merely disappeared for two or three hours and was not seen again until late in the afternoon, when two or three Brahmins and Grandissimes, wandering about in search of him, met him on the levee near the head of the rue Bienville, and with an exclamation of wonder and a look of surprise at his dusty shoes, demanded to know where he had hid himself while they had been ransacking the town in search of him.

”We want you to tell us what you will do about our t.i.tles.”

He smiled pleasantly, the picture of serenity, and replied:

”I have not fully made up my mind yet; as soon as I do so I will let you know.”

There was a word or two more exchanged, and then, after a moment of silence, with a gentle ”Eh, bien,” and a gesture to which they were accustomed, he stepped away backward, they resumed their hurried walk and talk, and he turned into the rue Bienville.

CHAPTER XLII

AN INHERITANCE OF WRONG

”I tell you,” Doctor Keene used to say, ”that old woman's a thinker.”

His allusion was to Clemence, the _marchande des calas_. Her mental activity was evinced not more in the cunning aptness of her songs than in the droll wisdom of her sayings. Not the melody only, but the often audacious, epigrammatic philosophy of her tongue as well, sold her _calas_ and gingercakes.

But in one direction her wisdom proved scant. She presumed too much on her insignificance. She was a ”study,” the gossiping circle at Frowenfeld's used to say; and any observant hearer of her odd aphorisms could see that she herself had made a life-study of herself and her conditions; but she little thought that others--some with wits and some with none--young hare-brained Grandissimes, Mandarins and the like--were silently, and for her most unluckily, charging their memories with her knowing speeches; and that of every one of those speeches she would ultimately have to give account.

Doctor Keene, in the old days of his health, used to enjoy an occasional skirmish with her. Once, in the course of chaffering over the price of _calas_, he enounced an old current conviction which is not without holders even to this day; for we may still hear it said by those who will not be decoyed down from the mountain fastnesses of the old Southern doctrines, that their slaves were ”the happiest people under the sun.” Clemence had made bold to deny this with argumentative indignation, and was courteously informed in retort that she had promulgated a falsehood of magnitude.

”W'y, Mawse Chawlie,” she replied, ”does you s'pose one po' n.i.g.g.a kin tell a big lie? No, sah! But w'en de whole people tell w'at ain' so--if dey know it, aw if dey don' know it--den dat _is_ a big lie!” And she laughed to contortion.

”What is that you say?” he demanded, with mock ferocity. ”You charge white people with lying?”

”Oh, sakes, Mawse Chawlie, no! De people don't mek up dat ah; de debble pa.s.s it on 'em. Don' you know de debble ah de grett cyount'-feiteh?

Ev'y piece o' money he mek he tek an' put some debblemen' on de under side, an' one o' his pootiess lies on top; an' 'e gilt dat lie, and 'e rub dat lie on 'is elbow, an' 'e s.h.i.+ne dat lie, an' 'e put 'is bess licks on dat lie; entel ev'ybody say: 'Oh, how pooty!' An' dey tek it fo' good money, ya.s.s--and pa.s.s it! Dey b'lieb it!”

”Oh,” said some one at Doctor Keene's side, disposed to quiz, ”you n.i.g.g.e.rs don't know when you are happy.”

”Da.s.s so, Mawse--_c'est vrai, oui_!” she answered quickly: ”we donno no mo'n white folks!”

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