“Yes, I see that, in a harbor whose miles of wharfs without ships cried to him:  ‘our occupation and your fortune are gone!’ Also I see him again in the streets—­Royal, Chartres, Canal, Carondelet—­where old friends pass him with a stare.  I see him and grand’mere married at last, in a church nearly empty and even the priest unfriendly.”

“Had he no new friends, Unionists?”

“Not yet, at the wedding.  There he said:  ‘Old friends or none.’  And that was right, don’t you think?  Later ’twas different.  You see, in the navy, both of the rivers and the sea, as likewise the army, grand’mere had uncles and cousins; and when the hotel was made a military hospital she was there every day.  And naturally those cousins, whether from hospital or no, would call and even bring friends.  Well, of course, grandpere was, at the least, courteous!  And then there was his word of honor, to Mr. Lincoln, as also his own desire, to bring the State back into the Union.”

“Of course.  Don’t hurry, please.”

“Was I hurrying?  Pardon, but I’m afraid they’ll be calling us again.”  The pair rose, but stood.  “Well, when a kind of government was made of that part of the State held by the Union, and the military governor wanted both grandpere and his father to take some public offices, his father made excuse of his age and of a malady—­taken from that hospital—­which soon occasioned him to die.”

“I’ve seen his tomb, in St. Louis cemetery, with its epitaph of barely two words—­’Adieu, Chapdelaine.’  Who supplied that?  Old friends, after all?”

“A few old, a few new, and one the governor.”

“Did the governor propose the words?”

“No.  If I tell you you won’t tell?  Ovide.  But grandpere he took the office.  And so that put him yet more distant from old friends except just two or three who believed the same as he did.”

“And our Royal Street coterie, of course.”

“Ah, not those you see now; but their parents, yes.  They were faithful; though sometimes, some of them, sympathizing differently.  Well, and so there was grandpere working to repair a piece of the State, when at last the war finished and the reconstruction of the whole State commenced.  He and Ovide were both of that State convention they mobbed in the ‘July riot.’  Some men were killed in that riot. Grandpere was wounded, also Ovide.  Those were awful times to grand’mere, those years of the reconstruction. Grandpere he—­” The girl glanced backward, then turned again, smiling.  The four chaperons were going indoors without them.

“Yes,” Chester said, “your grandpere I can imagine——­”

“Well, go ahead; imagine, to me.”

“No.  No, except just enough to see him with no choice of party allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old regime red-handed with the rabble’s blood.”