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coquettishly, she fluttered her lashes.
    â€œYou are, aren’t you?”
    â€œAhh, and I imagined it discreet when he set me up as a kinswoman. But you’ve found me out. Well, nothing remains but to confess and seek your advice. You know Major Stuart. You’ve seen how he’s been with his other, uhh, nieces. Tell me, Mr. Bridger, what can I expect in the way of jewelry?” She touched the rose and both earlobes. “Diamonds and emeralds? Or does he give on a more modest scale? Turquoise and garnets? I won’t accept paste. No. Definitely paste won’t do.”
    â€œMiss Dalzell, how shall I apologize? What can I say?” He spoke stiffly, attempting to hide his mortification, then burst out, “I’m a prime fool, aren’t I?”
    â€œPerceptive. All Europe knows me as La Grande Horizontale .”
    A log fell in the fireplace, and at the sharp crack they both jerked. When their eyes met again, she touched the rose, this time a shy gesture as though she regretted the raciness of her last remark.
    â€œFather and Uncle are half brothers,” she said. “Father’s here too.”
    â€œHe is?” Tom gulped. “My only excuse is you and your father weren’t at old Mr. Stuart’s funeral. I have no excuse except—”
    â€œEnough, enough,” she interrupted, smiling. “Mr. Bridger, Uncle tells me you’re building a wonderful no-horse-shay. What will you do when you’re finished?”
    â€œSell it. I need the money to build more.”
    â€œHow many?”
    â€œA million or so eventually.” He atoned for his disastrous stupidity by exposing the full extent of his dream, not even voiced to Hugh. “Just think. People will travel long distances, and fast, twenty-five miles an hour, without any worry about watering or feeding or resting a horse.”
    â€œLike on a train?”
    â€œYes, but not tied to the track.”
    She clasped her hands around her knees. “I’ve always admired people who have their futures charted out.”
    â€œYou will too. Later.”
    She shook her head. “I’m one of those rowboats that drift along a canal on sunny days, pausing occasionally to enjoy some pleasant shade.”
    Footsteps moved across the colonnaded hall. Antonia jumped up, the napkin falling unnoticed from her lap.
    â€œMademoiselle?” said the French nurse.
    â€œ Excusez-moi. Je ne savais pas qu’il était si tard .” She turned to Tom. “Mr. Bridger, please excuse me.”
    He watched her run upstairs to be engulfed by the gloom of the landing. A door opened and closed quietly. Tom retrieved her napkin, his eyes somber. He knew that whatever Antonia Dalzell found behind the door was as oppressive to her as his mother’s high, racing voice had been to him.
    IV
    Given the belief that certain characteristics show like dye stain through a family, it would be easy to infer that Mr. Dalzell and Major Stuart inherited their self-indulgence from their mother. It was their sole shared trait. The Major, younger by five years, was a large, exuberant man who enjoyed his business successes as well as sensual pleasures. Mr. Dalzell, narrow and drawn into himself, fed his virtues on a lack of energy. He had no ambition beyond an urge to view cathedrals and sites of classical antiquity. At eighteen, coming into a small inheritance, he sailed for Europe, where a favorable rate of exchange cushioned his wanderings. In his forty-first year he married the spinster daughter of an impoverished Florentine house. Ill health plagued her and she died before Antonia was three. Had Mr. Dalzell found the child less winning, he would have deposited her in some convent school, but her liveliness diverted him, so wherever they halted he engaged a chambermaid to tend her physical needs. Her education he handled in a scattershot method, buying a wide variety of books that she read herself. He tried to curb her