“If so, you are a most agreeable and amiable ghost,” returned Mauville.
“An amiable ghost!” cackled the old man. “Ha! Ha! you must have your joke! But don’t let me have such a ghastly one again. I don’t like”––in a lower tone––“jests about the spirits of the other world.”
“What! A well-seasoned materialist like you!”
“An idle prejudice!” answered the marquis. “Only when you compared me to a ghost”––in a half whisper––“it seemed as though I were one, a ghost of myself 230 looking back through years of pleasure––years of pleasure!”
“A pleasant perspective such memories make, I am sure,” observed the land baron.
“Memories,” repeated the marquis, wagging his head. “Existence is first a memory and then a blank. But you have been absent from New Orleans, Monsieur?”
“I have been north to look after certain properties left me by a distant relative––peace to his ashes!”
“Only on business?” leered the marquis. “No affair of the heart? You know the saying: ‘Love makes time pass––’”
“‘And time makes love pass,’” laughed Mauville, somewhat unnaturally, his cynicism fraught with a twinge. “Nothing of the kind, I assure you! But you, Marquis, are not the only exile.”
The nobleman raised his brows interrogatively.