The next day was a rare one, for a wind from somewhere had blown the moisture away a little, the shadows were clearer cut, and by noon Monsieur de St. Gre and I were walking our horses in the shady road behind the levee.  We were followed at a respectful distance by Andre, Monsieur’s mulatto body-servant, and as we rode my companion gave me stories of the owners of the different plantations we passed, and spoke of many events of interest in the history of the colony.  Presently he ceased to talk, and rode in silence for many minutes.  And then he turned upon me suddenly.

“Mr. Ritchie,” he said, “you have seen my son.  It may be that in him I am paying the price of my sins.  I have done everything to set him straight, but in vain.  Monsieur, every son of the St. Gre’s has awakened sooner or later to a sense of what becomes him.  But Auguste is a fool,” he cried bitterly,—­a statement which I could not deny; “were it not for my daughter, Antoinette, I should be a miserable man indeed.”

Inasmuch as he was not a person of confidences, I felt the more flattered that he should speak so plainly to me, and I had a great sympathy for this strong man who could not help himself.

“You have observed Antoinette, Mr. Ritchie,” he continued; “she is a strange mixture of wilfulness and caprice and self-sacrifice, and she has at times a bit of that wit which has made our house for generations the intimates—­I may say—­of sovereigns.”

This peculiar pride of race would have amused me in another man.  I found myself listening to Monsieur de St. Gre with gravity, and I did not dare to reply that I had had evidence of Mademoiselle’s aptness of retort.

“She has been my companion since she was a child, Monsieur.  She has disobeyed me, flaunted me, nursed me in illness, championed me behind my back.  I have a little book which I have kept of her sayings and doings, which may interest you, Monsieur.  I will show it you.”

This indeed was a new side of Monsieur de St. Gre, and I reflected rather ruefully upon the unvarnished truth of what Mr. Wharton had told me,—­ay, and what Colonel Clark had emphasized long before.  It was my fate never to be treated as a young man.  It struck me that Monsieur de St. Gre had never even considered me in the light of a possible suitor for his daughter’s hand.

“I should be delighted to see them, Monsieur,” I answered.

“Would you?” he exclaimed, his face lighting up as he glanced at me.  “Alas, Madame de St. Gre and I have promised to go to our neighbors’, Monsieur and Madame Bertrand’s, for to-night.  But, to-morrow, if you have leisure, we shall look at it together.  And not a word of this to my daughter, Monsieur,” he added apprehensively; “she would never forgive me.  She dislikes my talking of her, but at times I cannot help it.  It was only last year that she was very angry with me, and would not speak to me for days, because I boasted of her having watched at the bedside of a poor gentleman who came here and got the fever.  You will not tell her?”