"Grace," I said—agitatedly, "Will you give me more of your evening after the next dance you promised?"
"Take from then to the end!—three dances that I have kept for you especially; I wish they were longer. But I am ashamed to sit here after what I have happened to say."
CHAPTER XI.
THE "CAVE."
A whirl of rapid thoughts made it some time till I could regain presence of mind, and I found my eyes following her feverishly into the weavings of another waltz, and was roused by the "Salut, Monsieur," of a quiet man who did not know me, but turned out from his remarks, to be Picault, the owner of the mansion. His observations were general and of a kind of a conciliatory tone, and seemed to be each uttered after grave deliberation. There was a prudence and respectability and an air of inoffensiveness about his manner which indicated the quiet merchant of means. He spoke of Madame De Rheims with great respect, and drew my attention to quondam Mlle. Alvarez, the New Orleans beauty, as though her presence was a marked honor to his house; and hearing that I was not acquainted with her, he insisted on an introduction and I found myself leading her into the alcove Grace and I had left. She spoke first of New Orleans, where English, she said, was taking the place of our language, and I gathered that the latter was becoming gradually confined to a limited circle. There was a French quarter apart from the American city, though in its midst.
"The fate of your people should make you intensely French," said I.
"Monsieur has an English descent, to judge by his name. Well then, I will say something I say at home. I do not admire Frenchmen."
"But Mlle.—your patriotism!"
"I am not very French," she said haughtily, "My father is the son of a
Spanish Minister."
"But why do you disapprove of the French? As to me, I find them excessively attractive."