Satisfied with her son's quarters, Mrs. Chester returned to her hotel and had just dined when her telephone rang.  
"Mme.--oh, Mme. De l'Isle, I'm so please'----"
 
The instrument reciprocated¹ the pleasure. "If Mrs. Chezter was not too fat-igue' by travelling, monsieur and madame would like to call."
 
Soon they appeared and in a moment whose brevity did honor to both sides had established cordial terms. Rising to go, the pair asked a great favor. It made them, they said, "very 'appy to perceive that Mr. Chezter, by writing, has make his mother well acquaint' with that li'l' coterie² in Royal Street, in which they, sometime', 'ave the honor to be include'." "The honor" meant the modest condescension³, and when Mrs. Chester's charming smile recognized the fact the pair took fresh delight in her. "An' that li'l' coterie, sinze hearing that from Beloiseau juz' this evening, are anxiouz to see you at ones; they are, like ourselve', so fon' of yo' son; and they cannot call all together--my faith, that would be a procession! And bi-side', Mme. Castanado she--well--you understan' why that is--she never go' h-out. Same time M. Castanado he's down-stair' waiting----
 
"Shall I go around there with you? I'll be glad to go." They went.
 
Through that "recommend'" of Chester, got by Thorndyke-Smith for the law firm, and by him shown to M. De l'Isle, the coterie knew that the pretty lady whom they welcomed in Castanado's little parlor⁴ was of a family line from which had come three State governors, one of whom had been also his State's chief justice. One of her pleasantest impressions as she made herself at ease among them, and they around her and Mme. Castanado, was that they regarded this fact as honoring all while flattering none. She found herself as much, and as kindly⁵, on trial before them as they before her, and saw that behind all their lively conversation on such comparatively light topics as the World War, greater New Orleans, and the decay of the times, the main question was not who, but what, she was. As for them, they proved at least equal to the best her son had ever written of them.
 
And they found her a confirmation⁶ of the best they had ever discerned in her son. In her fair face they saw both his masculine beauty and the excellence⁷ of his mind better interpreted than they had seen them in his own countenance⁸. A point most pleasing to them was the palpable fact that she was in her son's confidence. Evidently, though arriving sooner than expected, her coming was due to his initiative. Clearly he had written things that showed a ............