"You are practically family," he said, with what degree of calculation I do not know. I fancy we both blushed.

I judged the moment had arrived.

"Monsieur le commissaire, permets-moi de me presenter." This, at that very instant, came from our neighbor who was dining by himself.

I thought, Who dares to speak to me in this familiar tone?

I regarded the milky well-fed form and prissy little beard which I was told belonged to the French consul to Louisiana. If he was a diplomat he was also a boor for he had discovered my business when there was no decent way he could have done so. He ignored the most important man in my life and tutoyered me, inquiring of my family, my friends and relatives when he could not possibly be of our circle. In return, I paid him some empty compliment about the city of New Orleans and returned my full attention to he who I intended to make my father-in-law.

"Excuse me gentlemen."

Godefroy ignored him and filled my glass. I drank too quickly. Godefroy poured again.

"Monsieur le commissaire," our neighbor insisted, "do you wish to have an idea of the public administration of New Orleans?" Only then did I understand that he too had been drinking Jefferson 's cellar and was already well invested in a Barsac. He was, as the English say, two sheets to the wind.

"Examine the streets of New Orleans, monsieur-what holes, what lack of order and alignment. Yet ask me, what is its revenue?" His eyes were awash with some strange emotion, as if daring me to snub him.

"What is its revenue?" said Godefroy pleasantly.

"The revenue sir is one million dollars. But into what hands it passes, God only knows."

There was a Negro servant standing close by, his tall slender back reflected in the mirror with the flowers. Who knows what goes on in a Negro's head?

"Read the names of those who compose boards and councils of Louisiana -obscure people, lawyers of the third order, village intriguers."

I looked to the citizen of Wethersfield and saw his color rising.

"It is the lower classes," said the ridiculous consul, "who have the majority in the electoral colleges. They choose from their own kind. They eliminate one position to ruin a man and create another to give a living to a friend."

At this Godefroy rose from his seat, "To democracy," he said firmly, and raised his glass.

The consul rose unsteadily and brushed some substance from his waistcoat. "Democracy." He raised his glass, but we neither of us saw him drink.

Godefroy remained standing, glowering down at the consul.

"I apologize," the consul said at last, but a Frenchman would have been insulted by the tone. "My opinion is obviously mistaken."

"Indeed sir," said Godefroy gravely. "Indeed it is."

Now the consul raised his Barsac, leaving a sweet viscous shine about his plump red lips. "There is one merit of the American system that one must not deny," he said.

"One?" asked Godefroy who had remained standing.

The consul did not know enough, I thought, to be afraid.

He plunged on. "Without force as it is without skill."

"It?"

"Le systeme democratique, naturellement. It is as without plans as it is without energy, as incapable of harm as it is incapable of good. It is powerless and passive. It lets society marcher tout seul without trying to direct it. Well, in the present state of affairs, it is perfect, no? In order to prosper? America does not need either leadership or deep-laid plans or great efforts, but liberty and still more liberty. The reason for this is that no one yet has any interest in abusing liberty. But wait, monsieur. It may take a century but le fou viendra."

Did Godefroy understand the final insult, the prediction that a lunatic will come to rule America? God save us, it was clear. "To liberty!" roared my friend, beckoning the hovering landlord while glaring at the sweating consul.

I ordered the Greves Vigne de l'Enfant Jesus, wondering if the cork would be pulled before the duel.

"Je te presente mis excuses, M. le Commissionnaire."

We ignored the consul and there was a very tense period when he remained beside us, swaying slightly. Our restraint was finally rewarded by a loud theatrical sigh and the sight, reflected in some dozen gold-framed mirrors, of his most unsteady departure from the room.

United as we were by outrage, neither of us said a word until the Beaune was poured. It might be expected that the first mouthful would make me yearn for France and all its refinements and yet, was I not already intoxicated by Jefferson 's Bergasse?

When, in excitement and affection, we had toasted each other one more time, I remarked to Godefroy that there had been periods in France when one would never dare make such a speech for fear of imprisonment or even death, and that in all the wretched consul's ignorance and sarcasm he made the strongest argument for democracy I had ever heard.

"To liberty," I cried. "To America. To beauty. To the future."

I was drunk, of course, but I spoke in veritas. How moved I was to see my sentiments so welcomed. Amelia's father leaned across the table-a large table, but he was a large man-and took my hand and locked it fast.

"At the end of the day," he said, "you either love a man or you do not."

Not knowing what to say, I attempted to raise my glass, but he did not wish to be interrupted.

"When you talk of America like that, can I take it that you would reside here?"

"Who would wish to live in the past?" I answered.

"Am I correct in assuming it is in Wethersfield that you would dwell?"

My heart was beating very hard. I was perhaps too much aware of the Negro waiter at my side.

I replied to Godefroy that I wished to live very close to him and his family.

He said, "But I am assuming you will one day marry."

"Exactly," I cried.

He smiled. I thought, I have done it now, but had not allowed for his being American. One must speak directly. "Sir, may I ask for your daughter's hand in marriage?"

He raised his glass, his eyes glistening. "You cannot imagine," said he, "how happy I am. I will tell you the truth, dear Olivier, I thought you planned to take her away from us and I really thought that I would die."

Somewhere about this point the consomme was inserted into the scene.

"No," I said, "she is a flower of America. I don't believe France would bring her happiness."

"It is you who will bring her happiness," he said. "Is it not the strangest thing, that my daughter would become a French aristocrat?"

If the consul to Louisiana had been present he would, doubtless, have taken issue with this particular point, but the honorable gentleman was snoring in the parlor beneath the stairs.

"I could never have imagined," Godefroy continued, his voice thick with feeling, "that after all the long sad journeys of my family, it would end up thus." And he then related to me the most extraordinary story-his father had been a bootmaker and his wife's family been driven from her home in Scotland.

He held my hand and would not release me.