his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited him.
He was always intending to go to Mexico, but some way never got there.
Meanwhile he held on to his modest position in a mercantile house in
New Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English, French and Spanish
gave him no small value as a clerk and correspondent.

He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with his mother
at Grand Isle. In former times, before Robert could remember, "the
house" had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns. Now, flanked by its
dozen or more cottages, which were always filled with exclusive visitors
from the "Quartier Francais," it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the
easy and comfortable existence which appeared to be her birthright.

Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father's Mississippi plantation and her
girlhood home in the old Kentucky bluegrass country. She was an American
woman, with a small infusion of French which seemed to have been lost in
dilution. She read a letter from her sister, who was away in the East,
and who had engaged herself to be married. Robert was interested, and
wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters were, what the father
was like, and how long the mother had been dead.

When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her to dress for
the early dinner.

"I see Leonce isn't coming back," she said, with a glance in the
direction whence her husband had disappeared. Robert supposed he was
not, as there were a good many New Orleans club men over at Klein's.

When Mrs. Pontellier left him to enter her room, the young man descended
the steps and strolled over toward the croquet players, where,