"Never mind that, either. We're in a joint commercial enterprise; we want a few good stories that will hang on one stem. Our business is business; a primrose by the river's brim--nothing more! Although"--the speaker reddened----
The girl blushed. "Mr. Chester, take away the 'although' and I'll tell the story."
"I take it away. Although----"
XX
THE CHAPDELAINES
"A yellow primrose was to him----"
Yonder in the parlor with the Ducatels, ignorant of the poet's lines as they, the two aunts--those two consciously irremovable, unadjustable, incarnated interdictions to their niece's marriage--saw the primrose, the "business," as the pair in the bower thought they saw it themselves. Were not Aline and Chester immersed in that tale of servile insurrection so destitute of angels, guiding stars, and lovers? And was not Hector with them? And are not three as truly a crowd in French as in American?
"Well, to begin," Chester urged, "your grandfather, Théophile Chapdelaine, was born in this old quarter, in such a street. Royal?"
"Yes. Nearly opposite the ladies' entrance of that Hotel St. Louis now perishing."