"Well-!"

"What other course had I, my dear? As a stranger here-knowing that I must necessarily be cautious to whom I speak-for there are, you know, surely you know, a dizzying profusion of plots in this house-plots, calculations, aspirations, dreams-some of them, to my way of thinking, quite mad-as, I say, a stranger here, I was forced to make my way like a sleepwalker. For though I knew from that very first night exactly what my own dreams were, I could not speak my heart, for fear of deeply insulting someone or other-someone who had, let us say, her own plans for me."

"They want to marry you off?"

"I gather as much. But they seem somewhat confused-they haven't come to any mutual agreement-and so in the meantime I am relatively free. Except, of course, that I am," he said lightly, "anything but free."

The woman made a muffled sound like a sob. "But I've asked you not to say such things!"

"My dear, we have so little time, how can you deny me?-deny me, I mean, the only opportunity I may have to express myself? We are so rarely alone together, since you forbid it-"

"I know what's best," the woman said in a trembling voice. "Or do I mean-I know what is inevitable."

"But you won't have pity on me, not even to the point of-of facing me? Turning to me? No? But surely you know," he said in a low voice, "how I value you. How I worship you."

"Please-I will be forced to leave-"

"Surely you know, since that first night?"

"I prefer not to think of that first night. I am overcome with shame and humiliation, thinking of it."

"But my dear-"

"You injure me terribly, to bring it up!"

"You aren't being reasonable-"

"You aren't being reasonable," the woman said, greatly agitated. "In the guise of being my friend you are persecuting me far more cruelly than my enemies have persecuted me."

"Enemies! Have you enemies?"

The woman was silent, now pacing on the hearth a few yards away. Germaine could hear her gasping for breath. ". . . I've said too much," she whispered. "I dare not say any more."

"Surely you haven't enemies? People who actively wish you harm?"

"I'm afraid I must leave, please excuse me-"

"But you promised me this meeting, and we've only now begun-"

"I spoke unwisely. I'm forced now to change my mind."

"But to be so cruel-cruel not only to me but to yourself! I can see that you're tortured by something, you do want to turn to me, you do want to speak-isn't it so? My dear, won't you have faith in me?"

"This is impossible. No, really, I can't allow you to say such things under the circumstances."

"But what are the circumstances? You are a young, unattached woman; you appear to have no responsibilities or obligations to your family, so far as I know; and I," he said with a startling, bitter laugh, "am an unattached man, no longer young-except in experience."

"Please don't mock yourself."

"But how can I refrain from mocking myself, when it appears that I am, in your eyes, an object of mockery? Too contemptible even to hear out-even to humor."

"You misunderstand me," the woman said, weeping. "You-you simply don't know my circumstances."

"Then you must explain them to me!"

"Please. I really can't-I can't-I can't bear this," she said.

She wept, and the gentleman seemed about to approach her, and comfort her; but (and Germaine, cringing behind the love seat, could feel his misery) he dared not. After some minutes of silence, except for the woman's heartbroken sobbing, he said, "My dear, are you afraid that there is too great a discrepancy between our backgrounds? It's very difficult for me to express this-I lack fluency, and subtlety-but- Are you concerned that because you are alone in the world, and have no fortune, my people might object to-might object to our-"

The woman's sobs grew louder. Indeed, the poor thing seemed to lack all control. The gentleman continued to speak, in a voice that veered in pitch, and Germaine had the feeling (though she was by now pressing her fists against her ears, for it was all so embarrassing) that he was summoning all his courage to take the young woman in his arms-yet could not move. The two of them were a short distance away from the fireplace, now, in the far corner of the room.

"-might object to our marriage?"

The woman hissed something unintelligible.

"Ah, have I insulted you?" the gentleman cried in despair. "Simply by uttering the word marriage-? I had hoped it would not sound so despicable on my lips."

"I can't bear this!" the woman exclaimed.

There was then a scuffling sound, and a sharp surprised intake of breath, as if the woman had tried to brush past the gentleman; and he had acted upon instinct to prevent her.

Germaine's little heart was pounding with alarm and embarrassment. If they discovered her-! She was sitting on the floor with her back to the love seat, her knees drawn up tightly to her chin and her eyes shut. She did not, she did not want to hear them; she did not want to hear any of the adults in their private, secret, passionate conversations. (So much was said, and so much left unsaid. Her father's frequent absences from home; his expensive automobiles; a letter Leah had received from a girl . . . or was it from a young girl's mother. . . . Gideon saying to Leah, I don't make any claim upon you, why should you want, at this point, to make any claim upon me, and Leah saying coldly, you might at least think of the child and of how this is affecting her, and Gideon saying, with an air of genuine surprise, the child?-what child? Have we a child in common, still? And there were the hushed scandalized remarks, the week before, about great-grandmother Elvira and the old man from the flood: the old man who was evidently her "lover." But to allow the old fool to marry, at her age, and to marry that-that wretch! Hiram said dully. What might this mean about the estate? Will she want her will changed? And Noel saying, How dare you call our mother a fool! You, to call anyone a fool! I don't say the match is a felicitous one-I don't, in fact, say that any match is a felicitous one-but if Mother is happy, as she appears to be, marrying for the second time, at the age of-of, dear God, is it nearly 101?-we dare not oppose her. And the old man is, so far as I can judge, perfectly harmless-smiling and amiable and undemanding and- And senile! Hiram cried. His brain must have been soaking in the flood for days!-he simply smiles all the time, as if he knows we have to keep him for the rest of his life. And what if Mother dies first, and the estate falls into his hands, and he dies, and his heirs step forward? What if we are evicted from our home? Displaced by brutes? . . . And, earlier still, there were the low rapid exchanges between Ewan and Leah, about Vernon's death: Suppose you know perfectly well who killed him, but haven't any witnesses? Suppose you simply move in to take our revenge? Who would protest? Who would dare protest? But you'll have to be quick, when you do move. And don't be any more merciful than they were.) So much said, and so much unsaid.

Now the woman's voice lifted bravely. "The circumstances are-the circumstances are simply that I am not worthy of you. And now you know, and must let me go."

"Not worthy of me!" The gentleman laughed. "How can you say such a thing, when I've declared my love for you-when I have practically begged you for the opportunity to declare it? My dear, my dearest, only stand still, and look me in the face-"

"But I can't! I can't!" she cried. "I am unworthy."

"What on earth can you mean?"

"I-I-I've been involved with another man," she said in a wild, choked voice.

For a moment there was silence. Then the gentleman said, evenly, "Why, yes, another man: of course, another man. I am saddened but hardly . . . I must admit, hardly surprised. For you are, after all, an extremely attractive young woman, and it stands to reason that . . . that . . ."

"The relationship was not a happy one," she murmured.

"Was he . . . Did he . . . Did he take advantage of you?"

"Advantage!" The woman laughed. "Perhaps it was I who took advantage of him!"

"What do you mean? Why do you look at me so strangely?"

"I was the sinner, for I fell in love with a married man," she said angrily, "I fell in love, and pursued him, mad with love I could not let him alone, until at last-at last-"

"Yes?"

"But I've said enough! Already you must feel such contempt for me."

"My dear, your words wound me, but do I look as if I feel contempt? Please! Don't turn aside! Do I look as if I feel anything for you other than love?"

"You're too good- You stand too far above me-"

"Please don't say such irresponsible things! When you are my wife, when all this is settled and behind us, and you realize the depth of my love, you'll see how inconsequential these feelings are. Set beside my love for you, my dearest-"

"But I tell you: I am unworthy."

"But why? Simply because, as an inexperienced young girl, you fell in love unwisely? I suspect you were taken advantage of by this man you mention, this married man-I will not, of course, ask his identity-whether he is a member of this very household, as I am led to believe-I will not inquire, now or in the future-never-you have my word-you must trust me! But I cannot accept your harsh judgment, your condemnation of yourself. If, as an innocent young girl, you fell in love, and were deeply wounded-I can find in my heart only sympathy for you, and a desire to atone for that wretch's cruelty-"

"He isn't a wretch!" the woman cried. "He's a prince! He's not to be judged by us!"

"Then we must never speak of him again," the gentleman said slowly.

"Except for the fact," said the woman, "that I . . . I had a baby by him. A baby out of wedlock. Never acknowledged by its father, though all the world knew."

Germaine could hear the gentleman's labored breath.

"I see," he said quietly. "A baby."

"A baby, yes. Never acknowledged by its father."

"And so, and so. . . . You had a baby."

"Yes. That's right."

"And you loved its father. . . ."

"I loved its father. I love him still."

"A baby. . . ."

"A baby."

"Then I . . . I . . . Then I must love you both," the gentleman said, with an effort. "I must love the baby as I love its mother, without censure . . . without judgment. I am, my dear, fully capable of . . . of such a love . . . if only you will test me; if only you won't turn me away. This has been, as you can see, a considerable shock to me, but . . . but I believe I will recover . . . am already recovering. . . . If only . . . If . . . But I will, you see," he said, somewhat desperately, "I will love your baby as I love you, if only you give me the chance to prove myself!"

"Ah, but you don't understand," the woman whispered. "The baby is dead."

"Dead-!"

"The baby is dead. And I am lost, and should have been allowed, that night, to drown myself! If only you had let me go-if only you had had mercy on me!"

Suddenly she ran from the room, and the gentleman, stunned, called out after her, "But my dear- My poor darling- What have you said?"

He ran out after her, clumsily, panting.

"My dear- Oh, my dear- Please don't forsake me-"

GERMAINE, HIDDEN BEHIND the love seat, sat with her eyes shut tight and her fists pressed against her ears. She did not want to hear, she did not want to know.

Deep in her chest, in the lower part of her chest, that odd pulsating ache began, as if it were something that wanted violently to kick into life, to define itself. But she ignored it. She remained motionless, alone now in the room, hearing nothing. Her cheeks were damp with tears but she could not judge-were they tears of sorrow, or of rage? She did not want to be a witness to all that was forced upon her.

The Mirror.

Preparing herself for her journey to Winterthur, where she was to sign a very important contract and to acquire a considerable amount of land, Leah studied her glowing reflection in the mirror and was well pleased with it. Her reflection, and her mirror: and even on one of her less triumphant mornings, when she woke confused and unrefreshed from a light, worrisome sleep, her mind already jangling and clattering like a trolley, the chaff of stray bits of quarrels blowing about her head, the mirror gave her back a calm, composed, and frankly-was there any need for modesty?-beautiful image. She turned from side to side, examining herself. Those magnificent eyes . . . the fleshy, full lips . . . the comely nose . . . the heavy red-brown hair, as lustrous now as it had been when she was a girl of sixteen. . . . She wore emerald earrings and a green cashmere suit with a sable collar, which Nightshade had selected for her (for the strange little man delighted in his mistress's clothes, her innumerable clothes, exactly as if he were a giddy young girl servant-and what did it matter, Leah said sharply to Gideon or Cornelia or Noel or anyone who presumed to criticize her, if he was somewhat repulsive, oughtn't they to look beyond physical appearances?); she slipped a gold bracelet watch, a parting gift from Mr. Tirpitz, around her wrist.

Germaine, she called out, absently, while gazing into the mirror, are you hiding in here?-where are you?

She had thought she'd seen, for a brief moment, the child's reflection in the mirror, behind her; but when she glanced around no one was there. A pale glowering winter light gave to the furnishings in the room-some of them familiar, some new-an inhospitable look.

Germaine? Are you playing a game with me?

But the child did not appear from behind the bed, or the desk, or the old armoire Leah had had moved upstairs from Violet's room, and since she rarely played games with anyone, let alone her mother on a busy morning, Leah concluded that she wasn't in the room: it was quite probable that the new girl, Helen, was still dressing her in the nursery. Perhaps one of the cats had darted beneath the bed.

Though it was a long journey by train to Winterthur, and a December blizzard was predicted, Germaine was to accompany Leah; for Leah would have been uneasy, for reasons she could not have articulated, if the child were left behind. Often, upon impulse, at the oddest times (when Germaine was being bathed, for instance, or when she was already asleep for the night, or when Leah was in the midst of an important telephone call), Leah felt the need, an almost physical need, to seek out her daughter, to hug her and stare into her eyes, to laugh, to kiss her, to ask, in a voice that never betrayed anxiety, What should I do next? What next? Germaine? At such times the child usually hugged her mother, wordlessly, and with a surprising strength; her slender arms could close like steel bands around Leah's neck, startling and delighting her. The love that passed between them-! But it was more than love, it was the passion of absolute sympathy: absolute identity: as if the same blood coursed through both their bodies, carrying with it the very same thoughts. Naturally the two-year-old never told Leah what to do, or even betrayed much intelligent awareness of Leah's actual words, but after a few minutes of hugging and kissing and whispering, during which Leah had no idea what she said, it might have been simply baby talk, she would invariably know what strategy to pursue: the idea, the perfectly formed conviction, would rise jubilant in her mind.

So Germaine must accompany her to Winterthur, to this extremely important meeting, despite Gideon's and Cornelia's objections; and of course Helen would be coming, and Nightshade, whom Leah was beginning to find indispensable; and at the last minute Jasper had been added to the party. (Hiram, of course, who had worked with Leah for months on these negotiations, had fully intended to go-but since his mother's wedding to that old derelict he had been sleeping poorly, plagued by bouts of sleepwalking; it would be too dangerous, he believed, to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings, even if a servant stayed up through the night to watch him. And he had to admit, he said with a wry laugh, that his nephew Jasper, though only nineteen, knew more than he in certain respects . . . the boy had business instincts as remarkable as Leah's.) Leah took off the emerald earrings, and screwed on a pair of pearl earrings, tilting her head, noting with quiet pleasure how the winter light behind her outlined her figure (a superb figure, still, though she continued to lose weight, and her dressmaker was always busy) and, reflected in the mirror, illuminated her fine smooth pale skin. She was still a young woman, still young, though she had lived through so much . . . though she felt, at times, half-amused, as if she might be great-aunt Veronica's age. . . . Gideon, sullen Gideon, was graying: his wonderful black hair was turning salt-and-pepper: there were impatient, not very attractive, creases on his forehead. Of course he was still a handsome man. It hurt her, it angered her, to see how handsome he was, how little fools like two or three of their houseguests this past month, and of course servants like Helen, and that unfortunate Garnet Hecht, gazed upon him adoringly. They were fools, women were largely fools, and deserved whatever happened to them . . . whatever happened to them when they succumbed to men. . . . Since Gideon's little finger had been amputated, however, perhaps he would not seem so attractive; perhaps he would seem deformed; freakish; contemptible. (It was a measure of his absurd self-mocking stubbornness that the finger had had to be amputated at all. Gideon's hand had been infected from a bite of some kind, and though he must have felt pain for days, and noticed the angry red streaks reaching upward toward his heart, he had done nothing about it . . . claimed he was too busy to see Jensen. How angry Leah had been, how she had wanted to strike him with her fists, and claw at that dark imperious face! You would let yourself rot away, wouldn't you, inch by inch, to spite me. . . . ) But she hadn't attacked him. She had not even spoken to him about the finger. The absurd, the ridiculous finger. . . . It was an imperfectly kept secret that Gideon now slept in another bedchamber, at the far end of the corridor, though, for appearance's sake, or out of indifference, he kept most of his clothes in this room. Certainly the servants knew, for how could they fail to know, and anyway what did it matter: Gideon with his expensive automobiles (the Rolls coupe, Leah had learned to her dismay, had cost nearly as much as the family limousine, which seated eight people comfortably, in addition to the driver) and his lengthy unexplained absences (which Leah supposed had to do with business deals and investments of his own, for he and Ewan preferred to keep their money separate from the family, and were always alluding to matters no one else understood) and his imponderable inert spirit-paralyzing tarry-black moods (which Leah despised, for they were the purest form of self-indulgence): what did it matter, really?

The mirrored Leah raised her chin, untroubled. She did not care in the slightest about her husband; so one might gather from studying her impassive face. She looked, instead, as indeed she was, like a young woman about to embark upon yet another adventure-confident as a sleepwalker in the destiny opening before her.

THAT MIRROR, MOVED upstairs from Violet's drawing room when Leah had had her bedchamber expanded (a wall was knocked out, and a long modern plate-glass window took the place of the fussy old windows with their leaded mullions) to accommodate a spacious desk, as well as other new pieces of furniture, was one of the most handsome of the manor's antiques: it was about three feet by two, with a heavy ornate gold frame, inlaid with ivory and jade, in a girandole style. Leah had had it moved upstairs along with a somewhat crude but charming bas relief carving of the Bellefleur coat of arms, which hung now on the wall above her desk.

An antique mirror, evidently a favorite of Violet's: and, as it turned out, a most unusual mirror. For while it couldn't be trusted (for reasons of the light, evidently) to show everything that passed before it, as if finicky about its tastes, it certainly showed Leah at her most complete, her most characteristic. It was the only mirror she could rely upon. Dressing, preparing her hair, rehearsing certain facial mannerisms, gazing for long moments at a time into her mirrored eyes: so Leah communed not only with that expertly presented reflection, but with her own interior self, which was of course hidden from the scrutiny of others.

You know me! Ah, don't you know me! she laughed into the mirror, running her tongue hard over her front teeth, patting the back of her sleek, heavy coiffeur. If Nightshade were not present (for she often allowed him into her boudoir, he was so asexual, so harmless) she might even lean to the glass and brush it with her lips, innocently vain as a young girl before a ball.

No one else knows me as you know me, she whispered into the mirror.

It was quite true: for, on her way to her room on the eighteenth floor of the Winterthur Arms, after a highly gratifying afternoon during which another sizable chunk of the old empire was returned to them (piece by piece, slowly, it reasserted itself, Jean-Pierre's original property, though now it was, of course, not simply wilderness land but farms and orchards and mills and factories and villages, entire villages, and parts of cities as well), and Leah would be able to declare, in triumph, upon her return to Bellefleur, that they were now more than half their way to their goal-returning to her room undeniably tired but jubilant as well, and fairly gloating with her good fortune, feeling her strong heart beat with confidence, Leah happened to see, in the elevator's gold-flecked mirror, an image so clearly not herself that she laughed aloud, angrily, at the sight of it.

The broad, showy, vulgar mirror framed a woman of young middle age, with distinctly sallow skin, and querulous, even shrewish lines about her lipsticked mouth. The woman might have been handsome at one time; but now her eyes were shadowed, and her hair, though expertly and fussily arranged on her head, was dull and lusterless, and lacked body. She wore dangling earrings, evidently pearls, that, so close beside her skin, made it appear almost yellowish, and the fur collar of her jacket looked synthetic. How crude a mirror, and what an insult to the overcharged guests of the Winterthur Arms! Leah did no more than glance in it, absentmindedly patting the back of her head. The lighting in the elevator was poor and the quality of the mirror's glass was obviously inferior. . . .

No, only the antique mirror in her own room could be trusted.

Once Upon a Time . . .

Once upon a time, the children were told, a seventeen-year-old Indian boy was lynched not a mile away-hanged from a great oak on the lakeshore drive. The oak was called the Hanging Tree. But it was no longer there-it had been felled many years back.