known for his libertinage, most recently and notoriously for the intolerable insult he has of fered to a lady of quality. Not content with making the most indecent possible remarks to her very face, he has shamelessly spread lies and calumny about her through the coarsest strata of society.
It has lately been remarked that everything that we, the inhabitants of this beautiful city, hold dear is in danger fiom the sewage of depravity being dumped in upon us from outside forces. How much more disgrace is there in those officials who, for their own profit, foster and coddle the degenerates against whom we look to them for protection. -Dr. Emil Barnard January set down the paper, his hand shaking, and met his mother's eyes.
Livia Levesque was an early riser. The Bee had been lying, folded open to Barnard's letter, beside his coffee cup when her son entered her small dining parlor.
Her deep, smoky voice was dry. "I'd like to know what that's about, Ben," she said.
Anger rose in him, a fever-scald of rage. He wasn't even sure for a moment whether it was directed at Barnard or at her. "So would I."
"Well, everyone's going to be asking me about it," she said. "I have to tell them something. Really, Ben, I knew you'd gotten too free in your speech when you went to Paris..."
"You really think I'm stupid enough to-to `offer intolerable insult to a lady of quality'? To make `indecent remarks' to her face? Excuse me, her very face, as he puts it."
"You changed in Paris." Livia's great, dark eyes were calmly cold.
"I didn't change that much! You raised me better than to do any such thing!" He saw her mouth soften, just a bit, and added, "I'm surprised you believe what a rag like this prints." In fact, the Bee's stories were as a rule accurate, if overheated; but his mother never could let pass a chance to attack anything.
"Well, you're certainly right about that," she agreed. "They'll print any damn lie that's sent them, and that's for certain. Madame," she added, raising her voice without turning her head, "I hope you're not looking at the top of that table?"
The fatter of the two yellow cats sat down where she was and began to wash in an elaborate display of innocence.
"But Ben," Livia added, and there was now real concern in her eyes, "who was she?"
"I don't know!" He slapped the paper down on the table, feeling as if he were about to explode. "Aside from the stupidity of the thing, you know I'm not that rude. Have you ever heard me be rude to a lady?"
"Well." Her mouth primed tight again. "You certainly could watch your speech a little more around gentlemen. Especially those who stand in a position to do you good. I always told Monsieur Janvier that it was a mistake to send you to Paris."
As far as January remembered, she had told St. Denis Janvier nothing of the kind. In fact she'd been all for getting him away from New Orleans and out of the public view, if he was going to be something as low-class as a hired musician. But he wasn't about to be drawn into a discussion of his mother's version of the past. Instead he got to his feet, picked up the scarf of green silk Catherine Clisson had knitted him for Christmas-for the morning was bitterly cold-and shoved the folded sheets of the Bee into the pocket of his rough corduroy jacket.
"And you're not going out dressed like that," Livia added sharply, tonguing a chunk of brown sugar into her coffee. "You look like a street sweeper. People see you dressed like that, of course they'll think anything that paper says of you is true."
"All right, Mother," said January patiently. "I'll go change."
She nodded to herself and went back to her perusal of the Louisiana Gazette-January didn't even want to ask if Barnard's letter had been printed there as well. He stepped through the French doors back into the yard, turned immediately left, secure in the knowledge that she had ceased to notice him the moment he'd agreed with her, and made his way down the pass-through to Rue Burgundy, in quest of whatever Madame Redfern's servants had to tell.
Unlike the walled compounds of the old French town, the houses of the American faubourgs north of Canal Street were set, for the most part, in wide yards and scattered outbuildings and, in consequence, were easy to approach. Clothed in