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feelings about that fact, for the sooner he mended, the sooner he would leave England again. Even as he dreaded what he knew he would face on the battlefront, he wanted to be there—in the thick of things. But damn! He had just met the most intriguing woman he had ever known!
    He spotted Sydney at a large round table with Mrs. Carstairs and Herbert. He made a show of waving both hands at her and was delighted to see her eyes light up with pleasure.
    “Show-off,” Pelham muttered in mock disgust at his side, for Ensign Pelham still required his cane.
    They made their way through the crowded, brightly lit room. After an exchange of greetings, Sydney said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant Quintin, on abandoning your cane.”
    “I am thinking of celebrating by building a bonfire and burning the infernal thing.”
    “I ain’t burning mine,” Pelham said. “Saving it for when I get to be in my dotage.”
    “The frugal one among us,” Zachary said.
    At a signal from Mrs. Carstairs, a waiter brought more tea, and cups, along with a plate of sandwiches and assorted cakes and tarts.
    “So where is the third member of your triumvirate?” Sydney asked.
    “We encountered Miss Carstairs as we came in, and she insisted Harrelson take the waters with her. They will be along soon,” Zachary said, helping himself to an apple tart.
    Herbert snorted. “I’m sure he will find the waters very tasty.”
    Pelham laughed. “If Miss Carstairs offers it, Harrelson will treat it as nectar of the gods.”
    “Now. Now,” Mrs. Carstairs admonished, then said, “I think I shall leave you young people to your banter. I promised to meet the Crowleys and I believe they are in the next room.”
    As she stood, so did the three men. Herbert looked about the room and said, “Pelham, there’s Robert Hansen just come in. Now would be a good time to ask him about that black mare. Come, I’ll introduce you.”
    When they had all gone, Zachary sat down and exchanged a rueful look with Sydney. “I think we have been deserted.”
    “So we have. Alone in a crowded room,” she said with a laugh. She gestured at the plate of food. “But we shan’t starve on this desert island.”
    Neither said anything for a few minutes, but Zachary noted that it was not an uncomfortable silence. Nor was it entirely silent. There was the hum of conversations at other tables and a single pianist played softly in the background. He liked that she was not one of those people who must fill every moment with idle chatter.
    After a while, he said, “I want you to know that you sent me off to a circulating library this week.”
    “ I sent you—?”
    “Yes. You. Or, I should say, the views you were espousing on women. I assumed they came at least in part from Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous essay on the rights of women. So I read it, though I did note that the essay is nearly twenty years old. Surely, she must have tempered her ideas later.”
    “Something that is universally true is not tied to a given period of time,” she said, lifting her chin.
    He grinned, relishing the sparkle in her eyes. “Universal? Does that mean men and women are absolutely equal?”
    She leaned forward in her chair and sounded very earnest. “No, of course not. But she—and I—would argue that certain abilities and their related rights are or should be equal.”
    “For example?”
    “The ability to learn, the right to an education.”
    “Do you not think the respective roles of a husband and wife requirevery different kinds of education? The role of housewife and mother do not require university training. Managing business and government does.”
    “What if she wants to work in business or government? In our society—and I daresay in most societies—a man has options in what he may do with his life. A woman does not.”
    “God—or Mother Nature—has fixed the roles of men and women in the human community,” he said firmly. “Besides, she has the protection of the husband she