She was Helene to me; and the artist had caught the strength of her soul in her clear-cut face, in the eyes that flashed with wit and courage,—­eyes that seemed to look with scorn upon what was mean in the world and untrue, with pity on the weak.  Here was one who might have governed a province and still have been a woman, one who had taken into exile the best of safeguards against misfortune,—­humor and an indomitable spirit.

CHAPTER V

THE HOUSE OF THE HONEYCOMBED TILES

As long as I live I shall never forget that Sunday morning of my second arrival at New Orleans.  A saffron heat-haze hung over the river and the city, robbed alike from the yellow waters of the one and the pestilent moisture of the other.  It would have been strange indeed if this capital of Louisiana, brought hither to a swamp from the sands of Biloxi many years ago by the energetic Bienville, were not visited from time to time by the scourge!

Again I saw the green villas on the outskirts, the verdure-dotted expanse of roofs of the city behind the levee bank, the line of Kentucky boats, keel boats and barges which brought our own resistless commerce hither in the teeth of royal mandates.  Farther out, and tugging fretfully in the yellow current, were the aliens of the blue seas, high-hulled, their tracery of masts and spars shimmering in the heat:  a full-rigged ocean packet from Spain, a barque and brigantine from the West Indies, a rakish slaver from Africa with her water-line dry, discharged but yesterday of a teeming horror of freight.  I looked again upon the familiar rows of trees which shaded the gravelled promenades where Nick had first seen Antoinette.  Then we were under it, for the river was low, and the dingy-uniformed officer was bowing over our passports beneath the awning.  We walked ashore, Monsieur Vigo and I, and we joined a staring group of keel boatmen and river-men under the willows.

Below us, the white shell walks of the Place d’Armes were thronged with gayly dressed people.  Over their heads rose the fine new Cathedral, built by the munificence of Don Andreas Almonaster, and beside that the many-windowed, heavy-arched Cabildo, nearly finished, which will stand for all time a monument to Spanish builders.

“It is Corpus Christi day,” said Monsieur Vigo; “let us go and see the procession.”

Here once more were the bright-turbaned negresses, the gay Creole gowns and scarfs, the linen-jacketed, broad-hatted merchants, with those of soberer and more conventional dress, laughing and chatting, the children playing despite the heat.  Many of these people greeted Monsieur Vigo.  There were the saturnine, long-cloaked Spaniards, too, and a greater number than I had believed of my own keen-faced countrymen lounging about, mildly amused by the scene.  We crossed the square, and with the courtesy of their race the people made way for us in the press; and we