“At that time bitter and vindictive?”

“Oh, ferocious!  And there they met also people of the most—­dignity.”

“Above the average of the other hotels?”

“Well, not so—­so brisk.”

“Not so American?”

“Ah, you know.  Well, maybe that’s one reason the St. Charles, for example, continued, while the Royal did not.  Anyhow the Royal—­grandpere had the life habit of it and ’twas just across the street.  Daily they ate there; a real economy.”

“But they kept the old home.”

“Yes.  ’Twas furnished the same but not ‘run’ the same.  ’Twas very difficult to keep it, even with all three stories of the servants’ wing shut up, you know?—­like”—­a glance indicated the De l’Isles.

“But you say Hotel Royal was soon closed.”

“Yes, and then, in the worst of those days, it became the capitol.  There, in the most elegant hotel for the most elegant planters of the South—­anyhow Southwest—­sat their slaves, with white men even more abhorred, and made the laws.  In that old dome, second story, they put a floor across, and there sat the Senate!  Just over that auction-block where grandpere had bought Mingo.”

“Where was he—­Mingo?”

“Dead—­of drink.  Grandpere was in that government!  Long time he was senator.  Mr. Chester, for that papa was proud of him, and I am proud.”

The listener was proud of her pride.  “I know,” he said, “from my own people, that in such an attitude—­as your grandfather’s—­there was honor a plenty for any honorable man.  Ovide tells me the negroes never wanted negro supremacy.  I wonder if that’s so.  They were often, he says, madly foolish and corrupt; yet their fundamental lawmaking was mostly good.  I know the State’s constitution was; it was ahead of the times.”

Aline made a quick gesture:  “And any of the old masters who agreed to that could help lead!”

“Mademoiselle, how could they agree to it?  Some did, I know, but that’s the wonder.  Those that could not—­who can blame them?”

“Ah! ’tis no longer a question of blame but of judgment.  So papa used to say.  Anyhow grandpere agreed, accepted, led; until at the last, one day, that White League—­you’ve heard of them, how they armed and drilled and rose against that reconstruction police in a battle on the steamboat landing?  Grandpere was in that.  He commanded part of the reconstruction forces.  And papa was there, though only thirteen.  Grandpere was bayonet-wounded.  They carried him away bleeding.  Only at the State-house a surgeon met them, and there, under that dome, just as papa brought grand’mere and Sidney, he died.”  Mademoiselle ceased.

Chester waited, but she glanced to the other table.  Monsieur had ended his recital.  Madame and the aunts chatted merrily.  Smilingly the niece’s eyes came back.

“Don’t stop,” said Chester.  “What followed—­for ’Maud’—­Sidney—­your boy father—­your little-girl aunts?  Did the clock in the sky call them North again?”