The Grandissimes Part 59

"I do not think so," he quietly said.

"'Ow you know dat?"

She, too, spoke quietly, but under a fearful strain. She had thrown herself forward, but, as she spoke, forced herself back into her seat.

"He told me so himself."

The tall figure of Palmyre rose slowly and silently from her chair, her eyes lifted up and her lips moving noiselessly. She seemed to have lost all knowledge of place or of human presence. She walked down the drawing-room quite to its curtained windows and there stopped, her face turned away and her hand laid with a visible tension on the back of a chair. She remained so long that Frowenfeld had begun to think of leaving her so, when she turned and came back. Her form was erect, her step firm and nerved, her lips set together and her hands dropped easily at her side; but when she came close up before the apothecary she was trembling. For a moment she seemed speechless, and then, while her eyes gleamed with pa.s.sion, she said, in a cold, clear tone, and in her native patois:

"Very well: if I cannot love I can have my revenge." She took the letter from him and bowed her thanks, still adding, in the same tongue, "There is now no longer anything to prevent."

The apothecary understood the dark speech. She meant that, with no hope of Honore's love, there was no restraining motive to withhold her from wreaking what vengeance she could upon Agricola. But he saw the folly of a debate.

"That is all I can do?" asked he.

"_Oui, merci, Miche_" she said; then she added, in perfect English, "but that is not all _I_ can do," and then--laughed.

The apothecary had already turned to go, and the laugh was a low one; but it chilled his blood. He was glad to get back to his employments.

CHAPTER LI

BUSINESS CHANGES

We have now recorded some of the events which characterized the five months during which Doctor Keene had been vainly seeking to recover his health in the West Indies.

"Is Mr. Frowenfeld in?" he asked, walking very slowly, and with a cane, into the new drug-store on the morning of his return to the city.

"If Professo' Frowenfel' 's in?" replied a young man in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, speaking rapidly, slapping a paper package which he had just tied, and sliding it smartly down the counter. "No, seh."

A quick step behind the doctor caused him to turn; Raoul was just entering, with a bright look of business on his face, taking his coat off as he came.

"Docta Keene! _Teck_ a chair. 'Ow you like de noo sto'? See? Fo'

counters! T'ree clerk'! De whole interieure paint undre mie h-own direction! If dat is not a beautiful! eh? Look at dat sign."

He pointed to some lettering in harmonious colors near the ceiling at the farther end of the house. The doctor looked and read:

MANDARIN, AG'T, APOTHECARY.

"Why not Frowenfeld?" he asked.

Raoul shrugged.

"'Tis better dis way."

That was his explanation.

"Not the De Brahmin Mandarin who was Honore's manager?"

"Yes. Honore was n' able to kip 'im no long-er. Honore is n' so rich lak befo'."

"And Mandarin is really in charge here?"

"Oh, yes. Profess-or Frowenfel' all de time at de ole corner, w'ere 'e _con_tinue to keep 'is private room and h-use de ole shop fo' ware'ouse.

'E h-only come yeh w'en Mandarin cann' git 'long widout 'im."

"What does he do there? _He's_ not rich."

Raoul bent down toward the doctor's chair and whispered the dark secret:

"Studyin'!"

Doctor Keene went out.

Everything seemed changed to the returned wanderer. Poor man! The changes were very slight save in their altered relation to him. To one broken in health, and still more to one with a broken heart, old scenes fall upon the sight in broken rays. A sort of vague alienation seemed to the little doctor to come like a film over the long-familiar vistas of the town where he had once walked in the vigor and complacency of strength and distinction. This was not the same New Orleans. The people he met on the street were more or less familiar to his memory, but many that should have recognized him failed to do so, and others were made to notice him rather by his cough than by his face. Some did not know he had been away. It made him cross.

He had walked slowly down beyond the old Frowenfeld corner and had just crossed the street to avoid the dust of a building which was being torn down to make place for a new one, when he saw coming toward him, unconscious of his proximity, Joseph Frowenfeld.

"Doctor Keene!" said Frowenfeld, with almost the enthusiasm of Raoul.

The doctor was very much quieter.

"h.e.l.lo, Joe."

They went back to the new drug-store, sat down in a pleasant little rear corner enclosed by a railing and curtains, and talked.

"And did the trip prove of no advantage to you?"

"You see. But never mind me; tell me about Honore; how does that row with his family progress?"

"It still continues; the most of his people hold ideas of justice and prerogative that run parallel with family and party lines, lines of caste, of custom and the like they have imparted their bad feeling against him to the community at large; very easy to do just now, for the election for President of the States comes on in the fall, and though we in Louisiana have little or nothing to do with it, the people are feverish."

"The country's chill-day," said Doctor Keene; "dumb chill, hot fever."

"The excitement is intense," said Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not to be granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes in their mind. For example, they have voted Honore Grandissime a traitor; they have voted me an enc.u.mbrance; I hear one of them casting that vote now."

Some one near the front of the store was talking excitedly with Raoul:

"An'--an'--an' w'at are the consequence? The consequence are that we smash his shop for him an' 'e 'ave to make a noo-start with a Creole partner's money an' put 'is sto' in charge of Creole'! If I know he is yo' frien'? Yesseh! Valuable citizen? An' w'at we care for valuable citizen? Let him be valuable if he want; it keep' him from gettin' the neck broke; but--he mus'-tek-kyeh--'ow--he--talk'! He-mus'-tek-kyeh 'ow he stir the 'ot blood of Louisyanna!"

"He is perfectly right," said the little doctor, in his husky undertone; "neither you nor Honore is a bit sound, and I shouldn't wonder if they would hang you both, yet; and as for that darkey who has had the impudence to try to make a commercial white gentleman of himself--it may not be I that ought to say it, but--he will get his deserts--sure!"

"There are a great many Americans that think as you do," said Frowenfeld, quietly.

"But," said the little doctor, "what did that fellow mean by your Creole partner? Mandarin is in charge of your store, but he is not your partner, is he? Have you one?"