The Flower of the Chapdelaines | Page 3

black cupid was at her side, tiny even for nine years. They
disappeared conversing together. With his heart in his throat Chester
turned away, resumed his walk, and passed into the marble halls where
justice dreamt she dwelt. Up and down one of these, little traversed so
early, he paced, with a question burning in his breast, which every new
sigh of mortification fanned hotter: _Had she seen him_?--this time?
those other times? And did those Castanados suspect? Was that why
Mme. Castanado had the grippe, and the manuscript was yet unread?
A voice spoke his name and he found himself facing the very black
dealer in second-hand books.
"I was yonder at Toulouse Street," said Ovide Landry, "coming
up-town, when I saw you at Conti coming down. I have another map of
the old city for you. At that rate, Mr. Chester, you'll soon have as good
a collection as the best."
The young man was pleased: "Does it show exactly where Maspero's
Exchange stood?" he asked.
Ovide said come to the shop and see.
"I will, to-day; at six." Another man came up, "Ah, Mr. Castanado!
How--how is your patient?"
"Madame"--the costumer smiled happily--"is once more well. I was
looking for you. You didn't pass in Royal Street this morning."
[Ah, those eyes behind those windows behind those balconies!]
"No, I--oh! going, Landry? Good day. No, Mr. Castanado, I----"
"Madame hopes Mr. Chezter can at last, this evening, come at home for
that reading."
"Mr. Castanado, I can't! I'm mighty sorry! My whole evening's engaged.
So is to-morrow's. May I come the next evening after? . . . Thank
you. . . . Yes, at seven. Just the three of us, of course? Yes."

III
Six o'clock found Chester in Ovide's bookshop.
Had its shelves borne law-books, or had he not needed for law-books
all he dared spend, he might have known the surprisingly informed and
refined shopman better. Ovide had long been a celebrity. Lately a brief
summary of his career had appeared incidentally in a book, a book

chiefly about others, white people. "You can't write a Southern book
and keep us out," Ovide himself explained.
Even as it was, Chester had allowed himself that odd freedom with
Landry which Southerners feel safe in under the plate armor of their
race distinctions. Receiving his map he asked, as he looked along a
shelf or two: "Have you that book that tells of you--as a slave? your
master letting you educate yourself; your once refusing your freedom,
and your being private secretary to two or three black
lieutenant-governors?"
"I had a copy," Landry said, "but I've sold it. Where did you hear of it?
From Réné Ducatel, in his antique-shop, whose folks 'tis mostly
about?"
"Yes. An antique himself, in spirit, eh? Yet modern enough to praise
you highly."
"H'mm! but only for the virtues of a slave."
Chester smiled round from the shelves: "I noticed that! I'm afraid we
white folks, the world over, are prone to do that--with you-all."
"Yes, when you speak of us at all."
"Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even
more interesting."
"Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the tourist
trade is every day killing even in Royal Street."
"That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young man
said.
"And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dry
land left of it--of that spirit of art--is----"
"Castanado's shop, I dare say."
"Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every day
without discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer."
"Not so very. What are the other three?"
"First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of Scipion
Beloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next
below Ducatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La
Porte, perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all."
"Not the watchmaker on the square above?"
"Ah! distantly he's of them: and there was old Manouvrier, taxidermist;
but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin."

Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From an
inner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife,
came the little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what
perfection in how many points! As she returned to Ovide an old
magazine, at last he heard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She
thanked the bookman for his loan and, with the child, went out.
It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but
he saw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that
that young lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!"
Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here
by business appointment.