"Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet.
"Though with the vieux carré full of them?"
"Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!"
"Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character were--what would say?"
"I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but you get it, don't you?"
The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these vieux carré stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'"
"There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said.
"Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the vieux carré is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'"
Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the vieux carré was unlike, but so like the rest of the world.
"Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around Mme. Castanado.