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wasted work.”
    Well, something else I didn’t understand, but I

didn’t want him to feel that I was grilling him. If we got to know each other

better, I’d figure him out, and if we didn’t, his little oddities and strange

turns of phrase really didn’t matter.
    He led me in through the center door, which was

standing ajar, and I looked around the long, bright room. It was indeed a lab,

and not a historian’s study, though there was a sitting area with a few history

books on the side tables. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of lab it was. I had

spent a lot of time in labs over the years, but this one had quite a few

instruments I couldn’t put a name to. They were all neatly arranged, though, on

the long counters familiar from classrooms. Some had built-in sinks, many had

shelves and brackets, and they all had storage cabinets beneath.
    The room clearly ran the length of the house,

and had French windows that let in the afternoon light. The lab was most of the

room, but the near end was the study, with a big oak desk pushed up to the

wall, a beautiful oil painting of a wild river hanging on the wall above the

desk, an Oriental carpet, attractively faded, comfy-looking chairs, and good

reading lights. You had to walk through the study to get to the lab. I was

curious, but I hadn’t been invited to go farther in.
    “Have a seat and we’ll get a little brandy in

you,” Bert said. “You still look a little peaked.”
    I expect I did. In fact, I probably looked

God-awful, with tear tracks through my makeup and my hair, once more, frizzed

to the max. “Um, yes, yes, that would be nice. But first, could I use your

bathroom?” He looked blank again. He couldn’t actually be stupid, could he? “To freshen up?” I added, hoping it would help.
    Mrs. Peacock helped. She arrived with a large

tray, which she deposited in the center of the desk. “She means the powder

room, Bertie,” she said, patiently.
    “Oh? Oh! Of course. Would you be so good as to…I mean, if you don’t mind…”
    “Yes, I’ll show her where it is,” she said. “We

don’t want you dealing with anything indelicate.” That really was right on the

edge of rude, but she seemed more amused than anything, and he took it with a

good humor.
    I followed her into the hall and down to the

second floor. She opened the door on the right of the stairs, pulling a fresh

washcloth and hand towel out of a drawer. “Here you go. You probably want to

fix your face. Do you need anything else? I keep a few supplies on hand in the

first floor bathroom.”
    “No, this will be fine, thanks, but actually,

you could…what’s…” I gestured helplessly toward the lab and the confusing Bert.
    She shook her head, and laughed a little. “I

really don’t know, but it does help if you remember that the Progressive Era is

his time. He seems to speak that language best.”
    “What? I mean, I didn’t take a lot of history,

just the required courses, you know?”
    “Hmm. You and all

the other undergraduates. The Progressive Era was turn of the twentieth

century in the U.S. Roughly equivalent to the Edwardian Period in England.

Teddy Roosevelt, St. Louis World’s Fair, Gibson Girls, suffragists— ring any bells?”
    “Some, yes. Bert was quite firm on the

difference between suffragists and suffragettes when we met a few days ago.”
    “That’s a historian for you. Passionate about

things everyone else barely remembers.”
    “You seem to know a lot—history and

historians.”
    “I was married to one, Addie. You either love

it or you get divorced, but you can’t avoid it. I got divorced.”
    I blinked. She saw and smiled again. “Did

Bertie tell you I was a widow?”
    “Yes, actually.”
    “I think he finds divorce disgraceful, and

assumes I would be ashamed to have it mentioned. And in his era, divorcées were

called ‘grass widows’ anyway.”
    “In his era? Really?”
    “His era of study. It’s easier just