Of course not."

"Yet it would never do to let the Yankees get the offices, either."

"That was true; nobody could deny that."

"If Spain or France got the country back, they would certainly remember
and reward those who had held out faithfully."

"Certainly! That was an old habit with France and Spain."

"But if they did not get the country back--"

"Yes, that is so; Honore is a very good fellow, and--"

And, one after another, under the mild coolness of Honore's amiable
disregard, their indignation trickled back from steam to water, and they
went on drawing their stipends, some in Honore's counting-room, where
they held positions, some from the provisional government, which had as
yet made but few changes, and some, secretly, from the cunning
Casa-Calvo; for, blow the wind east or blow the wind west, the affinity
of the average Grandissime for a salary abideth forever.

Then, at the right moment, Honore made a single happy stroke, and even
the hot Grandissimes, they of the interior parishes and they of
Agricola's squadron, slaked and crumbled when he wrote each a letter
saying that the governor was about to send them appointments, and that
it would be well, if they wished to _evade_ them, to write the governor
at once, surrendering their present commissions. Well! Evade? They would
evade nothing! Do you think they would so belittle themselves as to
write to the usurper? They would submit to keep the positions first.

But the next move was Honore's making the whole town aware of his
apostasy. The great mansion, with the old grandpere sitting out in
front, shivered. As we have seen, he had ridden through the Place
d'Armes with the arch-usurper himself. Yet, after all, a Grandissime
would be a Grandissime still; whatever he did he did openly. And wasn't
that glorious--never to be ashamed of anything, no matter how bad? It
was not everyone who could ride with the governor.

And blood was so much thicker than vinegar that the family, that would
not meet either in January or February, met in the first week of March,
every constituent one of them.

The feast has been eaten. The garden now is joyous with children and
the veranda resplendent with ladies. From among the latter the eye
quickly selects one. She is perceptibly taller than the others; she sits
in their midst near the great hall entrance; and as you look at her
there is no claim of ancestry the Grandissimes can make which you would
not allow. Her hair, o