As softly as a shadow I drew out of sight, turned away, and went almost
back to the gate before I let my footfall be heard, and called, "M'sieu'
Fontenette!"
He hallooed from the shed in a playful sham of being a mile or so away,
and emerged from the lattice and vine with that accustomed light of
equanimity on his features which made him always so thoroughly good-
looking. He came hitching his waistband with both hands in that innocent
Creole way that belongs to the latitude, and how I knew I cannot tell you,
but I did know--I didn't merely feel or think, but I knew!--_positively_--
that he had that hideous thing on his person.
Against what contingency I could only ask myself and wonder, but I
instantly decided to get him away from home and keep him away until the
picnickers had got back and scattered. So I proposed a walk, a diversion
we had often enjoyed together.
"Yes?" he said, "to pazz the time whilse they don't arrive? With the
greates' of pleasu'e!"
I dare say we were both more preoccupied than we thought we were, for
outside the gate we fairly ran into a lady--yes; a seamstress--the wife of
the entomologist. My stars! She had seemed winning enough before, but now
--what a rise in values! As we conversed it was all I could do to keep my
eyes from saying: "A man with you for a wife belongs at home whenever he
can be there!" But whether they spoke it or not, in some way, without word
or glance, by simple radiations from the whole sweet woman, she revealed
that to make that fact plain to him, to _her_, and to all of us, was what
this new emphasis of charm was for.
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