The Strollers

“Your politeness almost reconciles me to staying,” said the old man, more affably. “But I am on my way to the club. What do you say to a rubber?”

The patroon readily assented. In front of the hotel waited the marquis’ carriage, on the door of which was his coat-of-arms–argent, three mounts vert, on each a sable bird. Entering this conveyance, they were soon being driven over the stones at a pace which jarred every bone in the marquis’ body and threatened to shake the breath of life from his trembling and attenuated figure. He jumped about like a parched pea, and when finally they drew up with a jerk and a jolt, the marquis was fairly gasping. After an interval to recover himself, he took his companion’s arm, and, with his assistance, mounted the broad steps leading to the handsome and commodious club house.

“At least,” said the nobleman, dryly, as he paused on the stairs, “our pavements are so well-kept in Paris that a drive there in a tumbril to the scaffold is preferable to a coach in New Orleans!”

CHAPTER II

“ONLY AN INCIDENT”

To the scattering of the anti-renters by the rescue party that memorable night at the manor the land baron undoubtedly owed his safety. Beyond reach of personal violence in a neighboring town, without his own domains, from which he was practically exiled, he had sought redress in the courts, only to find his hands tied, with no convincing clue to the perpetrators of these outrages. On the patroon lay the burden of proof, and he found it more difficult than he had anticipated to establish satisfactorily any kind of a case, for alibis blocked his progress at every turn.

At war with his neighbors, and with little taste for the monotony of a northern winter, he bethought him of his native city, determined to leave the locality and at a distance wait for the turmoil to subside. His brief dream of the rehabilitation of the commonwealth brought only memories stirring him to restlessness. He made inquiries about the strollers, but to no purpose. The theatrical band had come and gone like gipsies.

Saying nothing to any one, except Scroggs, to whom he entrusted a load of litigation, he at length quietly departed in the regular stage, until he reached a point where two strap rails proclaimed the new method of conveyance. Wedged in the small compartment of a little car directly behind a smoking monster, with an enormous chimney, fed with cord-wood, he was borne over the land, and another puffing marvel of different construction carried him over the water. Reaching the Crescent City some time before the strollers–his progress expedited by a locomotive that ran full twenty miles an hour!–the land baron found among the latest floating population, comprised of all sorts and conditions, the Marquis de Ligne. The blood of the patroons flowed sluggishly through the land baron’s veins, but his French extraction danced in every fiber of his being. After learning the more important and not altogether discreditable circumstances about the land baron’s ancestors–for if every gentleman were whipped for godlessness, how many striped backs would there be!–the marquis, who declined intimacy with Tom, Dick and Harry, and their honest butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers of forefathers, permitted an acquaintance that accorded with his views governing social intercourse.

“This is a genuine pleasure, Monsieur le Marquis,” observed the land baron suavely, when the two found themselves seated in a card room with brandy and soda before them. “To meet a nobleman of the old school is indeed welcome in these days when New Orleans harbors the refugees of the world, for, strive as we will, outsiders are creeping in and corrupting our best circles.”

“Soon we shall all be corrupt,” croaked the old man. “France–but what can you expect of a nation that exiles kings!”

“Ah, Louis Philippe! My father once entertained him here in New Orleans,” said Mauville.

“Indeed?” remarked the marquis with interest.

“It was when he visited the city in 1798 with his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of Beaujolais. New Orleans then did not belong to America. France was not so eager to sell her fair possessions in those days. I remember my father often speaking of the royal visit. The king even borrowed money, which”–laughing–“he forgot to pay!”

The marquis’ face was a study, as he returned stiffly: “Sir, it is a king’s privilege to borrow.”

“It is his immortal prerogative,” answered Mauville easily. “I only mentioned it to show how highly he honored my father.”

The nobleman lifted his eyebrows, steadily regarding his companion.

“It was a great honor,” he said softly. “One does not lend to a king. When Louis Philippe borrowed from your father he lent luster to your ancestry.”

“Yes; I doubt not my father regarded himself as the debtor. Again, we had another distinguished compatriot of yours at our house–General Lafayette.”

“Lafayette!” repeated the marquis. “Ah, that’s another matter! A man, born to rank and condition, voluntarily sinking to the level of the commonalty! A person of breeding choosing the cause of the rout and rabble! How was he received?”

“Like a king!” laughed Mauville. “A vast concourse of people assembled before the river when he embarked on the ‘Natchez’ for St. Louis.”

Muttering something about “bourgeoisie!–épicier!” the nobleman partook of the liquid consolation before him, which seemed to brighten his spirits.

“If my doctors could see me now! Dolts! Quacks!”

“It’s a good joke on them,” said Mauville, ironically.

“Isn’t it? They forbid me touching stimulants. Said they would be fatal! Impostors! Frauds! They haven’t killed me yet, have they?”

“If so, you are a most agreeable and amiable ghost,” returned Mauville.

“An amiable ghost!” cackled the old man. “Ha! Ha! you must have your joke! But don’t let me have such a ghastly one again. I don’t like”–in a lower tone–“jests about the spirits of the other world.”

“What! A well-seasoned materialist like you!”

“An idle prejudice!” answered the marquis. “Only when you compared me to a ghost”–in a half whisper–“it seemed as though I were one, a ghost of myself looking back through years of pleasure–years of pleasure!”

“A pleasant perspective such memories make, I am sure,” observed the land baron.

“Memories,” repeated the marquis, wagging his head. “Existence is first a memory and then a blank. But you have been absent from New Orleans, Monsieur?”

“I have been north to look after certain properties left me by a distant relative–peace to his ashes!”

“Only on business?” leered the marquis. “No affair of the heart? You know the saying: ‘Love makes time pass–’”

“‘And time makes love pass,’” laughed Mauville, somewhat unnaturally, his cynicism fraught with a twinge. “Nothing of the kind, I assure you! But you, Marquis, are not the only exile.”

The nobleman raised his brows interrogatively.

“You fled from France; I fled from the ancestral manor. The tenants claimed the farms were theirs. I attempted to turn them out and–they turned me out! I might as well have inherited a hornet’s nest. It was a legacy-of hate! The old patroon must have chuckled in his grave! One night they called with the intention of hanging me.”

“My dear sir, I congratulate you!” exclaimed the nobleman enthusiastically.

“Thanks!” Dryly.

“It is the test of gentility. They only hang or cut off the heads of people of distinction nowadays.”

“Gad! then I came near joining the ranks of the well-born angels. But for an accident I should now be a cherub of quality.”

“And how, Monsieur, did you escape such a felicitous fate?”

The land baron’s face clouded. “Through a stranger–a Frenchman–a silent, taciturn fellow–more or less an adventurer, I take it. He called himself Saint-Prosper–”

“Saint-Prosper!”

The marquis gazed at Mauville with amazement and incredulity. He might even have flushed or turned pale, but such a possible exhibition of emotion was lost beneath an artificial bloom, painted by his valet. His eyes, however, gleamed like candles in a death’s head.

“This Saint-Prosper you met was a soldier?” he asked, and his voice trembled. “Ernest Saint-Prosper?”

“Yes; he was a soldier; served in Africa, I believe. You knew him?” Turning to the marquis in surprise.

“Knew him! He was my ward, the rascal!” cried the other violently. “He was, but now–ingrate!–traitor!–better if he were dead!”

“You speak bitterly, Monsieur le Marquis?” said the patroon curiously.

“Bitterly!–after his conduct!–he is no longer anything to me! He is dead to me–dead!”

“How did he deviate from the line of duty?” asked Mauville, with increasing interest, and an eagerness his light manner did not disguise. “A sin of omission or commission?”

“Eh? What?” mumbled the old nobleman, staring at his questioner, and, on a sudden, becoming taciturn. “A family affair!” he added finally, with dignity. “Not worth repeating! But what was he doing there?”