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" 'Hot chocolate, mon fils, what do you say to that?¡¯

" 'Oh, marvelous,' I said with a laugh. 'How absolutely delicious. I never expected it. ' He filled my cup.

" 'Ah,' he said, as he filled his own, 'you have no idea what a treat it is for me. ¡¯

"We sipped, waiting for the temperature to become comfortable, and I saw there were animal crackers on the plate and the old poem by Christopher Morley came to me about this very repast:

Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,

That is the finest of suppers, I think;

"Quite suddenly, Oncle Julien recited the next two lines:

'When I'm grown up and can have what I please

I think I shall always insist upon these. ¡¯

"We both laughed.

" 'Did you plan it on account of the poem?' I asked.

" 'Well, I suppose I did,' he responded. 'And because I thought you'd enjoy it. ¡¯

" 'Oh, I'm so thankful. What a thoughtful thing to do. ¡¯

"I felt high. I felt happy. This man wouldn't separate me from Mona. He would understand love. But I was forgetting something. I had heard the name Julien Mayfair, I was sure of it. It was in some connection, but I couldn't remember. . . Surely not from Mona. No.

"I looked up and to the left at the long three-story flank of the Mayfair house. It was immense and silent. I didn't want it to shut me out.

" 'Do you know of Blackwood Manor?' I asked suddenly. 'It was built in the 1880s. I know this house is far older. We live out in the country. But you have the charm and stillness of the country right here. ' I felt foolish for my candor. What was I trying to prove?

" 'Yes, I know of the house,' he said, smiling agreeably. 'It's very beautiful. And my coming there was a macabre and romantic experience, which I wouldn't divulge to you in any detail, except that I must. It bears heavily upon your love for Mona. And so the light must shine in the dark. ¡¯

" 'How so?' I was suddenly alarmed.

"The chocolate was now at the perfect temperature. We both drank it at the same time. He sighed with pleasure, and then he filled our cups again. It was, as Mona would have said, perfectly egregiously delicious. But where was Mona?

" 'Oh, please tell everything,' I said. 'What does it have to do with my love of Mona?' I found myself trying to calculate his age. Was he older than Pops had been? Surely he was younger than Aunt Queen.

" 'It was in the time of your great-great-great-grandfather Manfred,' said Oncle Julien. 'He and I belonged to a gambling club here in New Orleans. It was secretive and fashionable and we p

layed hands of poker for bets that did not involve money so much as secret tasks to please the man who won. It was in this very house that we played, I well remember, and your ancestor Manfred had at home his son William, who was a very young bridegroom, and rather afraid of Blackwood Manor and all the responsibilities that it involved. Can you imagine such a thing?¡¯

" 'That he was intimidated? Yes,' I said, 'I can imagine it though I don't feel that way myself. I'm the young master there now and I love it. ¡¯

"He smiled gently. 'I believe you,' he said evenly. 'And I like you. I see travel in your future, great adventures, roaming the world. ¡¯

" 'Not alone, however,' I was quick to answer.

" 'Well, on this night in question,' he went on, 'when the gambling club was meeting here, it was Manfred Blackwood who won the hand and it was of Julien Mayfair whom he asked for the task to be done.

" 'We rode out at once in his automobile to Blackwood Manor and there I saw your marvelous home in all its moonlit glory, the columns the color of magnolia blossoms -- one of those southern fantasies that nourish us perpetually in which northerners so seldom believe. Your great-great-great-grandfather Manfred took me inside and up the winding steps to an unoccupied bedroom and there he declared to me what I must do.

" 'He produced an artful Mardi Gras mask and a rich red velvet cloak lined in gold satin, and he said that, clothed in this apparel, I must deflower William's young bride, for William himself, who soon appeared, had been absolutely unable to do it, and both Manfred and William had seen such masked trickery in a recent opera in New Orleans and they felt it would work here.

" ' "But hasn't your wife seen the same opera with you?" I asked William, for I too had seen it at the opera house in New Orleans only a week before. "Yes," William responded. "Which is all the more reason why she will go along. "

" 'Alors. Never one to turn my back upon a virgin and having only respect and compassion for a young woman so far cheated of a gentle and loving wedding night, I donned the mask and the cloak and went about the enterprise, vowing that I should wring from the young woman tears of ecstasy or count myself a damned soul, and suffice it to say that I emerged from the bedroom some forty-five minutes later a victor on the Stairway to Heaven, having achieved my highest goals.