“My-de’-seh,” said the Creole, laying his hand out toward his companion and turning his horse in such a way as to turn the other also, “do me one favor; remember that it is sore to the touch.”

The animals picked their steps down the inner face of the levee and resumed their course up the road at a walk.

“Did you see that man just turn the bend of the road, away yonder?” the Creole asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“It was—­my landlord, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.  Did he not have a conversation with you lately, too?”

“Yes, sir; why do you ask?”

“It has had a bad effect on him.  I wonder why he is out here on foot?”

The horses quickened their paces.  The two friends rode along in silence.  Frowenfeld noticed his companion frequently cast an eye up along the distant sunset shadows of the road with a new anxiety.  Yet, when M. Grandissime broke the silence it was only to say: 

“I suppose you find the blemishes in our state of society can all be attributed to one main defect, Mr. Frowenfeld?”

Frowenfeld was glad of the chance to answer: 

“I have not overlooked that this society has disadvantages as well as blemishes; it is distant from enlightened centres; it has a language and religion different from that of the great people of which it is now called to be a part.  That it has also positive blemishes of organism—­”

“Yes,” interrupted the Creole, smiling at the immigrant’s sudden magnanimity, “its positive blemishes; do they all spring from one main defect?”

“I think not.  The climate has its influence, the soil has its influence—­dwellers in swamps cannot be mountaineers.”

“But after all,” persisted the Creole, “the greater part of our troubles comes from—­”

“Slavery,” said Frowenfeld, “or rather caste.”

“Exactly,” said M. Grandissime.

“You surprise me, sir,” said the simple apothecary.  “I supposed you were—­”

“My-de’-seh,” exclaimed M. Grandissime, suddenly becoming very earnest, “I am nothing, nothing!  There is where you have the advantage of me.  I am but a dilettante, whether in politics, in philosophy, morals, or religion.  I am afraid to go deeply into anything, lest it should make ruin in my name, my family, my property.”

He laughed unpleasantly.

The question darted into Frowenfeld’s mind, whether this might not be a hint of the matter that M. Grandissime had been trying to see him about.

“Mr. Grandissime,” he said, “I can hardly believe you would neglect a duty either for family, property, or society.”

“Well, you mistake,” said the Creole, so coldly that Frowenfeld colored.