ill
Wednesday, every time that clock, I'll pray those four _evangelistes_!
and Thursday you'll see--the power of prayer! Oh, 'tis like _magique_,
that power of prayer!"

VIII

On Tuesday evening Chester, a country boy yet now and then, was first
at the De l'Isles'.

Madame lauded him. "Punctualitie! tha'z the soul of pleasure!" She
had begun to explain why her other guests included but one young lady,
when here they came. First, the Prieurs, a still handsome Creole
couple whom he never met again. Then that youthful-aged up-town pair,
the Thorndyke-Smiths. And last--while Smith held Chester captive to
tell him he knew his part of Dixie, having soldiered there in the Civil
War--the one young lady, Mlle. Chapdelaine. As Chester turned toward
her she turned away, but her back view was enough to startle him.

"Aline," the hostess began as she brought them face to face, but
whatever she said more might as well have been a thunderbolt through
the roof. For Aline Chapdelaine was SHE.

They went out together. What a stately dining-room! What carvings!
What old china and lace on the board, under what soft, rich
illumination! The Prieurs held the seats of honor. Chester was on the
hostess's left. Mademoiselle sat between him and Mr. Smith. It would
be pleasant to tell with what poise the youth and she dropped into
conversation, each intensely mindful--intensely aware that the other
was mindful--of that Conti Street corner, of Ovide's shop, and of "The
Clock in the Sky," and both alike hungry to know how much each had been
told about the other. Calmly they ignored all earlier encounter and
entered into acquaintance on the common ground of the poetry of the
narrow region of decay in which this lovely home lay hid "like a lost
jewel."

"Ah, not quite lost yet," the girl protested.

"No," he conceded, "not while the poetry remains," and Smith, on her
other hand, said:

"Not while this cluster of shops beneath us is kept by those who now
keep them."

"My faith!" the hostess broke in, "to real souls 'tis they are the
wonder--and the _poesie_--and the jewels! Ask Aline!"

"Ask me," Chester said, as if for mademoiselle's rescue; "I discovered
them only last week."

"And then also," quietly said Aline, "ask me, for I did not discover
them only last week."

M. Prieur joining in enabled Chester to murmur: "May I ask you
something?"

"You need not. You would ask if I knew you had discovered them--M.