d low dark curtains of orange
groves, yet he began to be more and more tardy each succeeding day in
meeting his father under the riverside oaks of the Exposition grounds.
And then, on the seventh day, he saw her again.

Now he was more confident than ever that this vision and he, except in
dreams, had never spoken to each other. Yet the likeness was
wonderful. But so, too, was the unlikeness. True, this time, she only
flashed across his sight--out of a bank, into a carriage where a very
"American"-looking lady sat waiting for her and was gone. But the
bank; the carriage; that lady; those earlier companions,--no, this
could not be Marguerite. Marguerite would have been with her mother.
Now, if one could see Madame Beausoleil's daughter with Madame
Beausoleil at her side to identify her and distinguish her from this
flashing and vanishing apparition it would clear away a trying
perplexity. Why not be bold and call upon them where they were
dwelling? But where? Their names were not in the directory. Now,
inventive talent, do your best.

* * * * *

"Well!" said St. Pierre after a long silence. Claude and he were out
on the swollen Mississippi pulling with steady leisure for the
home-side shore, their skiff pointed half to and half from the boiling
current. The sun was gone; a purple dusk wrapped either low bank; a
steamboat that had passed up stream was now, at the turning of the
bend, only a cluster of soft red lights; Venus began to make a faint
silvery pathway across the waters. St. Pierre had the forward seat, at
Claude's back. The father looked with fond perplexity at the strong
young shoulders swinging silently with his own, forward and backward
in slow, monotonous strokes, and said again:

"Well? Whass matter? Look like cat got yo' tongue. Makin' new
mash-in?" Then in a low dissatisfied tone--"I reckon somet'in' mighty
curious." He repeated the last three words in the Acadian speech:
"Tcheuque-chose bien tchurieux."

"Yass," replied the son, "mighty strange. I tell you when we come at
home."

He told all. Recounted all his heart's longings, all his dreams,
every least pang of self-reproach, the idealization of Marguerite, and
the finding of that ideal incarnated in one who was and yet seemed not
to be, or rather seemed to be and yet was not, Marguerite. And then he
went on to re-assure his father that this could never mean marriage,
never mean the father's supplanting. A man cou