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Hog Gap,” Serena said to Cheney. “Obviously, your views on my sex were formed by the slatterns you grew up with, but I assure you the natures of women are more various than your limited experience allows.”
    As if tugged upward by fishhooks, the sides of Doctor Cheney’s mouth creased into a mirthless smile.
    “By God you married a saucy one,” Wilkie chortled, raising his tumbler to Pemberton. “This camp is going to be lively now.”
    Buchanan retrieved the bottle of scotch and placed it on the table.
    “Have you ever been to these parts before, Mrs. Pemberton?” he asked.
    “No, I haven’t.”
    “As you’ve seen, we are somewhat isolated here.”
    “Somewhat?” Wilkie exclaimed. “At times I feel I’ve been banished to the moon.”
    “Asheville is only fifty miles away,” Buchanan said. “It has its village charms.”
    “Indeed,” Doctor Cheney interjected, “including several T.B. sanatoriums.”
    “Yet you’ve no doubt heard of George Vanderbilt’s estate,” Buchanan continued, “which is there as well.”
    “Biltmore is indeed impressive,” Wilkie conceded, “an actual French castle, Mrs. Pemberton. Olmsted himself came down from Brookline to design the grounds. Vanderbilt’s daughter Cornelia lives there now, with her husband, a Brit named Cecil. I’ve been their guest on occasion. Very gracious people.”
    Wilkie paused to empty his tumbler and set it on the table. His cheeks were rosy from the alcohol, but Pemberton knew it was Serena’s presence that made him even more loquacious than usual.
    “I heard a phrase today worthy of your journal, Buchanan,” Wilkie continued. “Two workers at the splash pond were discussing a fight and spoke of how one combatant ‘feathered into’ the other. It apparently means to inflict great damage.”
    Buchanan retrieved a fountain pen and black leather notebook from his coat’s inner pocket. Buchanan placed the pen on the notebook’s rag paper and wrote feathered into , behind it a question mark. He blew on the ink and closed the notebook.
    “I doubt that it goes back to the British Isles,” Buchanan said. “Perhaps instead a colloquialism to do with cockfighting.”
    “Kephart would no doubt know,” Wilkie said. “Have you heard of him, Mrs. Pemberton, our local Thoreau? Buchanan here is quite an admirer of his work, despite Kephart’s being behind this national park nonsense.”
    “I’ve seen his books in the window at Grolier’s,” Serena said. “As you may imagine, they were quite taken with a Harvard man turned Natty Bumpo.”
    “As well as being a former librarian in Saint Louis,” Wilkie noted.
    “A librarian and an author,” Serena said, “yet he’d stop us from harvesting the very thing books are made of.”
    Pemberton drained his second dram of scotch, felt the alcohol’s smooth slide down his throat, its warm glow deepening his contentment. He felt an overwhelming wonder that this woman, whom he’d not even known existed when he’d left this valley three months earlier, was now his wife. Pemberton settled his right hand on Serena’s knee, unsurprised when her left hand settled on his knee as well. She leaned toward him and for a few seconds let her head nestle in the space between his neck and shoulder. Pemberton tried to imagine how this moment could be better. He could think of nothing other than that he and Serena were alone.
    At seven o’clock, two kitchen workers set the table with Spode bone china and silver cutlery and linen napkins. They left and returned pushing a cart laden with wicker baskets of buttered biscuits and a silver platter draping with beef, large bowls of Steuben crystal brimmed with potatoes and carrots and squash, various jams and relishes.
    They were midway through their meal when Campbell, who’d been bent over the adding machine in the front room, appeared at the door.
    “I need to know if you and Mrs. Pemberton are holding Bilded to the bet,” Campbell said. “For the