One evening M. Castanado sat reading to his wife from a fresh number of
the weekly _Courier des Etats-Unis_.
It was not long after the incident last mentioned. Chester had become
accustomed to his new lift in fortune, but as yet no further word as to
the manuscript had reached him; he had only just written a second
letter of inquiry after it. Also that summons to the two aunts, from
the archbishop, of which the pair were so sure, was still unheard; no
need had arisen for Aline to take any counter-step. We _could_ name
the exact date, for it was the day of the week on which the _Courier_
always came, and the week was the last in which a Canal Street
movie-show beautifully presented the matchless Bernhardt as a widowed
shopkeeper--like Mme. Alexandre, but with a son, not daughter, in love.
The door-bell rang. Castanado went down to the street. There, letting
in a visitor, he spoke with such animation that madame, listening from
her special seat, guessed, and before the two were half up-stairs knew,
who it was. It was Mélanie Alexandre.
No one answered her mother's bell, she said, kissing madame
lingeringly, twice on the forehead and once on either vast cheek. She
was short and square, with such serene kindness of face and voice as to
be the last you would ever pick out to fall into a mistake of passion,
however exalted. Of course, that serenity may have come since the
mistake. Both Castanados seemed to take note of it as if it had come
since, and she to be willing they should note it.
"No," they said, "Mme. Alexandre had gone with Dubroca and his wife to
that movie of Sarah."
"And also with M. Beloiseau?" asked Mélanie, with a lurking smile, as
she sat down so fondly close to madame as to leave both her small hands
in one of her friend's.
"Ah, now," madame exclaimed, "there is nothing in that! You ought to
be rijoice' if there was."
The new look warmed in Mélanie's eyes. "I'll be very glad if that time
ever comes," she said.
"Then you billieve in the second love?"
"Ah, in a case like that! Indeed, yes. In their first love they both
were happy; the second would be in praise of the first."
"And to separate them there is only the street," Castanado suggested,
"and Royal Street, street of their birth and chilehood, and so narrow,
it have the effect to join, not separate. But!"--he made a wary
motion--"kip quite, eize they will not go into the net, those old
bird', hah!"
There was a smiling silence, and then--"Well," madame said, "they are
all to stop here as they riturn. Waiting here, you'll see them all."
"Yes, and beside', I have some good news for you; news anyhow to me."