Two things began to make him weaken. The first of these and of slighter influence was that Mary’s darkness of skin prevented him from eating at the old restaurants, Antoine’s, Delatoire’s, Mme. Begue’s. He and Margot and Mimi had often gone there in the old days and without trouble though the proprietors and waiters and the regular patrons knew of his Negro blood. He and Mary had gone once or twice until slight but unmistakable hints had been given him that he was welcome but his wife—“We are most sorry but our American guests, on whose continued patronage we are largely dependent, object to une femme de couleur .”
There were stormy, very stormy scenes. Jean, his white hair and waxed moustache and goatee bristling, his face an apoplectic crimson, refused to listen to the profuse apologies, strode, shoulders back, head high in the air, from the places, vowing “never again to darken your doors, sir!” This vow he kept and the old places knew him no more.
Of greater moment, even, were the changes in the Creole quarter. The old