Aline to turn the conversation upon country life in Chester’s State, and constrain him to tell of his own past and kindred.  So time and the river’s great windings slipped by with the De l’Isles undisappointed, and early in the afternoon the company lunched in the two cars, under a homestead grove.  Its master and mistress, old friends of all but Chester, came running, followed by maids with gifts of milk and honey.  They climbed in among the company; shared, lightly, their bread and wine; heard with momentary interest the latest news of the great war; spoke English and French in alternating clauses; inquired after the coterie’s four young heroes at the French front, but only by stealth and out of Aline’s hearing; and cried to Cupid, “’Ello, ’Ector! comment ca va-t-il?  And ’ow she is, yonder at ’ome, that Marie Madeleine?”

Cupid smiled to his ears, but it was the absentee’s two mistresses who answered for her, volubly, tenderly:  “We was going to bring her, but juz’ at the lazt she discide’ she di’n’ want to come.  You know, tha’z beautiful, sometime’, her capriciouznezz!”

Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days.  Then, in the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they glided cityward.  At Carrollton they turned toward the New Canal, and at West End took the lake shore eastward—­but what matter their way?  Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two—­three, counting Cupid—­and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept themselves aware of the world about them while Aline’s story ran gently on.  It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the reply: 

“No, ’twas easier to bear, I think, because I had not more time and less work.”

“What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now?  Incidentally you keep books, but mainly you do—­what?”

“Mainly—­I’ll tell you.  Papa, you know, he was, like grandpere, a true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of beautiful living.  Like grandpere he had that perception by three ways—­occupation, education, talent.  And he had it so abboundingly because he had also the art—­of that beautiful life, h’m?”

“The art beyond the arts,” suggested the listener; “their underlying philosophy.”

The narrator glowed.  Then, grave again, she said:  “Mr. Chezter, I’ll tell you something.  To you ’twill seem very small, but to me ’tis large.  It muz’ have been because of both together, those arts and that art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him—­egcept in play—­speak an exaggeration.  ’Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you that—­while ad the same time papa he never rebuke’ that in anybody else—­egcept, of course—­his daughter.”