Mr. Pontellier himself had no particular leaning toward horseracing, and

was even rather inclined to discourage it as a pastime, especially

when he considered the fate of that blue-grass farm in Kentucky. He

endeavored, in a general way, to express a particular disapproval, and

only succeeded in arousing the ire and opposition of his father-in-law.

A pretty dispute followed, in which Edna warmly espoused her father's

cause and the Doctor remained neutral.

He observed his hostess attentively from under his shaggy brows, and

noted a subtle change which had transformed her from the listless woman

he had known into a being who, for the moment, seemed palpitant with

the forces of life. Her speech was warm and energetic. There was no

repression in her glance or gesture. She reminded him of some beautiful,

sleek animal waking up in the sun.

The dinner was excellent. The claret was warm and the champagne was

cold, and under their beneficent influence the threatened unpleasantness

melted and vanished with the fumes of the wine.

Mr. Pontellier warmed up and grew reminiscent. He told some amusing

plantation experiences, recollections of old Iberville and his youth,

when he hunted 'possum in company with some friendly darky; thrashed

the pecan trees, shot the grosbec, and roamed the woods and fields in

mischievous idleness.

The Colonel, with little sense of humor and of the fitness of things,

related a somber episode of those dark and bitter days, in which he had

acted a conspicuous part and always formed a central figure. Nor was

the Doctor happier in his selection, when he told the old, ever new

and curious story of the waning of a woman's love, seeking strange, new

channels, only to return to its legitimate source after days of fierce

unrest. It was one of the many little human documents which had been

unfolded to him during his long career as a physician. The story did not

seem especially to impress Edna. She had one of her own to tell, of a

woman who paddled away with her lover one night in a pirogue and never

came back. They were lost amid the Baratarian Islands, and no one ever

heard of them or found trace of them from that day to this. It was a

pure invention. She said that Madame Antoine had related it to her.

That, also, was an invention. Perhaps it was a dream she had had. But

every glowing word seemed real to those who listened. They could feel

the hot breath of the Southern night; they could hear the long sweep of

the pirogue through the glistening moonlit water, the beating of birds'

wings, rising startled from among the reeds in the salt-water pools;

they could see the faces of the lovers, pale, close together, rapt in

oblivious forgetfulness, drifting into the unknown.




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