"Impossible! Mais, w'at sorcery did you use to obtain such a thing of my mother, Mr. Laballière? Lan' that has been in the St. Denys Godolph family since time untole!"
"No sorcery whatever, Mademoiselle, only an appeal to your mother's intelligence and common sense; and she is well supplied with both. She wishes me to say, further, that she desires your presence very urgently and your immediate return home."
"My mother is unduly impatient, surely," replied Suzanne, with chilling politeness.
"May I ask, mademoiselle," he broke in, with an abruptness that was startling, "the name of the man with whom you were walking this afternoon?"
She looked at him with unaffected astonishment, and told him: "I hardly understan' yo' question. That gentleman is Mr. Hector Santien, of one of the firs' families of Natchitoches; a warm ole frien' an' far distant relative of mine."
"Oh, that's his name, is it, Hector Santien? Well, please don't walk on the New Orleans streets again with Mr. Hector Santien."
"Yo' remarks would be insulting if they were not so highly amusing, Mr. Laballière."
"I beg your pardon if I am insulting; and I have no desire to be amusing," and then Laballière lost his head. "You are at liberty to walk the streets with whom you please, of course," he blurted, with ill-suppressed passion, "but if I encounter Mr. Hector Santien in your company again, in public, I shall wring his neck, then and there, as I would a chicken; I shall break every bone in his body"—Suzanne had arisen.
"You have said enough, sir. I even desire no explanation of yo' words."
"I did n't intend to explain them," he retorted, stung by the insinuation.