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