"No, no! not that! This one, where you know the général only by the back of his head."
"Ah--ah, yes; 'Two aviateur' riceiving from General Joffre'--my God! De l'Isle--my God! madame,"--Scipion pounded his breast with the paper--"they are yo' son and mine!"
The company rushed to his elbows. "My faith! Castanado, there are their name'! and 'For destrugtion of their eighteenth enemy aeroplane, under circumstance' calling for exceptional coolnezz and intrepid-ity!'"
There was great and general rejoicing and some quite pardonable boasting, under cover of which Mélanie and her mother slipped out by the inside way, without mention of the young Dubroca, his prisoners, sickness, or letter, except to his father and mother, who told of him more openly when the Alexandres were safely gone. That brought fresh gladness and praise, a fair share of which was for Mélanie.
So presently the remaining company vanished, leaving Mme. Castanado free to embrace her kneeling husband and boast again the power of prayer.
XLV
The cathedral that year was undergoing repairs.
Its cypress-log foundations, which had kept sound from colonial days in a soil always wet, had begun to decay when a new drainage system began to dry it out. Fact, but also allegory.
It may have been in connection with this work, or with some change in the house of the Discalceated Sisters of Mt. Carmel, or of the archbishop, or of St. Augustine's Church, that a certain priest of exceptional taste, Beloiseau's father confessor, dropped in on him to order an ornamental wrought-iron grille for the upper half of a new door. While looking at patterns he asked: