"Who? Beloiseau?"
"Ah, you! You can guess better."
"Ovide Lan'--no, Ovide was still a slave."
"Yet more free than most free negroes. 'Twas he. He was janitor to offices in the hotel, and always making acquaintance with the slaves of the slave-mart. And when he found one who was quite of the right kind--and Ovide he's a wise judge of men, you know--he would show him to grandpère, and at the auction, if the bidding was low, grandpère would buy him--or her."
"What was one of 'quite the right kind'? One willing to buy his own freedom?"
"Ah, also to do something more; you see?"
"Yes, I see," Chester laughed; "to help others run away, wasn't it?"
"Not precisely to run, but----"
"To stow away, on those ships, h'm?" There was rapture in crossing that h'm line of intimacy. "I see it all! Ha-ha, I see it all! Well! that brings us back to 'Maud,' doesn't it--h'm?"
"Yes. They met, she and grandpère, at a ball, in the hotel. But"--Aline smiled--"that was not their first. Their first was two or three mornings before, when he, passing in Royal Street, and she--with Sidney--looking at old buildings in Conti Street----"