"Do you like her?"

"Oh, that's different! Poets, you know, are the exception to any rule."

"Why?"

"Because--Really, my dear, you ask too many questions!"

Although Straws and Celestina had left the house early in the day, it was noon before they reached the attractive garden, wherein was sequestered the "select seminary."

In this charming prison, whose walls were overrun with flowering vines, and whose cells were pretty vestal bowers, entered the bard and the young girl, to be met on the front porch by the wardeness herself, a mite of a woman, with wavy yellow hair, fine complexion and washed-out blue eyes. Sensitive almost to shyness, Mademoiselle de Castiglione appeared more adapted for the seclusion of the veil in the Ursuline Church than for the varied responsibilities of a young ladies' inst.i.tute. At the approach of the poet, she turned, looked startled, but finally came forward bravely.

"Oh, I've read it again, Mr. Straws!" she exclaimed, impetuously.

"What?" he returned, sternly, pausing at the foot of the steps.

"Your--your lovely Strophes!" she continued, timidly.

The bard frowned. "All great men profess to scowl at flattery,"

thought Straws. "She will have but a poor opinion of me, if I do not appear an offended Hector!"

"Mademoiselle, I excessively dislike compliments," he began aloud, but having gone thus far, his courage and lack of chivalry failed him in the presence of her dismay; he forgot his greatness, and hastened to add, with an ingratiating smile: "Except when delivered by such a charming person!"

"Oh, Mr. Straws!"

"This, Mademoiselle," resumed the bard, "is the young girl I spoke about. Her mother," he added in a low voice, "was a beautiful quadroon; her father"--here Straws mentioned a name. The wardeness flushed furiously. "Father died; always meant to make it right; didn't; crime of good intentions! Virago of an aunt; regular termagant; hates the girl! Where was a home to be found for her?

Where"--gazing around him--"save this--Eden? Where a mother--save in one whose heart is the tenderest?"

Diplomatic Straws! Impulsively the wardeness crossed to Celestina; her blue eyes beamed with sentiment and friendliness. "I will give her my personal attention," she said. And then to the young girl: "We will be friends, won't we?"

"Yes," replied Celestina, slowly, after a moment's discreet hesitation. She was glad the other did not kiss her like Feu-de-joie.

"I always like," said the wardeness, "to feel my little girls are all my little friends."

"Mademoiselle," exclaimed the bard, "I'll--I'll dedicate my next volume of poems to you!"

"Really, Mr. Straws!"

"For every kindness to her, you shall have a verse," he further declared.

"Then your dedication would be as long as Homer!" she suddenly flashed out, her arm around the child.

Straws looked at her quickly. It was too bad of him! And that borrowed Don Juan smile! Nothing could excuse it.

Castiglione busied herself with Celestina's ribbons. "Whoever did tie that bow-knot?" she observed.

"Good-by, Celestina," said Straws.

Celestina put her arms gravely about his neck and he pressed his lips to her cheek. Then he strode quickly toward the gate. Just before pa.s.sing out, he looked back. The wardeness had finished adjusting the ribbon and was contemplatively inspecting it. Celestina, as though unconscious of the attention, was gazing after the poet, and when he turned into the road, her glance continued to rest upon the gate.

CHAPTER IV

"THE BEST OF LIFE"

On a certain evening about a month later, the tropical rains had flooded the thoroughfares, until St. Charles Street needed but a Rialto and a little imagination to convert it into a watery highway of another Venice, while as for Ca.n.a.l Street, its name was as applicable as though it were spanned by a Bridge of Sighs. In the narrow streets the projecting eaves poured the water from the roof to the sidewalks, deluging the pedestrians. These minor thoroughfares were tributary to the main avenues and gushed their rippling currents into them, as streams supply a river, until the princ.i.p.al streets flowed swiftly with the dirty water that choked their gutters. The rain splashed and spattered on the sidewalks, fairly flooding out the fruit venders and street merchants who withstood the deluge for a time and then were forced to vanish with their portable stores. The cabby, phlegmatic to wind and weather, sat on his box, shedding the moisture from his oil-skin coat and facing a cloud of steam which presumably concealed a horse.

The dark night and the downpour made the _cafes_ look brighter.

Umbrellas flitted here and there, skilfully piloted beneath swinging signs and low balconies, evading awning posts and high hats as best they might. There were as many people out as usual, but they were hurrying to their destinations, even the languid creole beauty, all lace and alabaster, moved with the sprightliness of a maid of Gotham.

Straws, editor and rhymster, was seated on the semi-Oriental, semi-French gallery of the little _cafe_, called the Veranda, sipping his absinthe, smoking a cheroot and watching the rain drip from the roof of the balcony, spatter on the iron railing and form a shower bath for the pedestrians who ventured from beneath the protecting shelter. Before him was paper, partly covered with well-nigh illegible versification, and a bottle of ink, while a goose-quill, tool of the tuneful Nine, was expectantly poised in mid air.

"Confound it!" he said to himself. "I can't write in the attic any more, since Celestina has gone, and apparently I can't write away from it. Since she left, the dishes haven't been washed; my work has run down at the heels, and everything is going to the dogs generally. And now this last thing has upset me quite. 'In the twinkling of an eye,'

says the sacred Book. But I must stop thinking, or I'll never complete this poem. Now to make my mind a blank; a fitting receptacle to receive inspiration!"

The bard's figure swayed uncertainly on the stool. In the lively race through a sonnet, it was often, of late, a matter of doubt with Straws, whether Bacchus or Calliope would prevail at the finish, and to-night the jocund G.o.d had had a perceptible start. "Was ever a poet so rhyme-fuddled?" muttered the impatient versifier. "An inebriating trade, this poetizing!"--and he reached for the absinthe. "If I am not careful, these rhymes will put me under the table!"

"Nappy, eh?" said a voice at his elbow, as a dripping figure approached, deposited his hat on one chair and himself in another. The newcomer had a long, Gothic face and a merry-wise expression.

The left hand of the poet waved mechanically, imposing silence; the quill dived suddenly to paper, trailed twice across it, and then was cast aside, as Straws looked up.

"Yes," he replied to the other's interrogation. "It's all on account of Celestina's leaving me. You ought to see my room. Even a poet's soul revolts against it. So what can I do, save make my home amid convivial haunts?" The poet sighed. "And you, Phazma; how are you feeling?"

"Sober as a judge!"

"Then you shall judge of this last couplet," exclaimed Straws quickly.

"It has cost me much effort. The editor wanted it. It seemed almost too sad a subject for my halting muse. There are some things which should be sacred even from us, Phazma. But what is to be done when the editor-in-chief commands? 'Ours not to reason why!' The poem is a monody on the tragedy at the theater."

"At the St. Charles?" said Phazma, musingly. "As I pa.s.sed, it was closed. It seemed early for the performance to be over. Yet the theater was dark; all the lights had gone out."

"More than the lights went out," answered Straws, gravely; "a life went out!"

"I don't exactly--Oh, you refer to Miss Carew's farewell?"

"No; to Barnes'!"

"Barnes'!" exclaimed his surprised listener.

"Yes; he is dead; gone out like the snuff of a candle! Died in harness, before the footlights!"

"During the performance!" cried the wondering Phazma. "Why, only this afternoon I met him, apparently hale and hearty, and now--you tell me he has paid the debt of nature?"

"As we must all pay it," returned Straws. "He acted as if he were dazed while the play was in progress and I could not but notice it, standing in the wings. The prompter spoke of it to me. 'I don't know what is the matter with Mr. Barnes,' he said, 'I have had to keep throwing him his lines.' Even Miss Carew rallied him gently between acts on his subdued manner.

"'This is our last performance together,' he said absently. She gave him a reproachful look and he added, quickly: 'Do I appear gloomy, my dear? I never felt happier.'

"At the end of the second act he seemed to arouse himself, when she, as Isabella, said: 'I'll fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.'