She shook her head impatiently. "Don't be absurd, Barton! Face reality. People may like her, young men may desire her, heaven knows she's beautiful enough, I've seen to that. But they won't marry her. Their mothers won't allow it, whatever they think." She whirled around to Zillah again, her eyes burning in a white face. "Is that what you'll settle for? Being liked and desired while all the eligible men marry other girls? I can tell you, it may be fine for another year or two, but in five years, when they have houses and families and you are still here with us, it will look very different. The invitations will stop coming. You will have more and more time to sit by yourself and consider your idiocy."

"Delphine, stop it!" Lambert commanded.

But she would not be stopped; the heat of passion consumed any restraint. "And when you are thirty, and an old maid, and your beauty is gone, what then? Who's going to keep you? What are you going to do with yourself?"

"I'll keep her, should that arise!" Lambert responded angrily. "And she'll do with herself whatever she chooses."

"There won't be anything to choose from," Delphine pointed out. "Can't you see what she's done? Are you so blind you still don't understand?" There were tears of grief and frustration in her eyes. "One suitor leaving her she might get over, but not two!" Her voice dropped to be deeply sarcastic. "Or are you going to suggest there is something wrong with Sachev-erall? He's a woman in disguise, perhaps?"

Lambert was momentarily lost for a reply.

"He was an opportunistic coward who did not love her," Monk supplied with deep disgust. "And any woman is worthy of more than that." He was so filled with loathing for the whole system of values where beauty and reputation were the yardsticks of worth that he did not trust himself to say more. "It is not a misfortune that he showed his nature before you could no longer extricate yourself from any connection with him gracefully." He said this last to Zillah. He turned to Barton Lambert. "Thank you for your time, sir. I shall learn what more I can about Melville's death, and advise you if it is of worth. Good day." And he bowed to the women and left.

It was later in the afternoon when he was recalling the conversation that he realized how odd were the particular words Delphine had used regarding Zillah. She had almost sounded as if she had not known her in her first year or so of life. She had seemed to disclaim responsibility for Zillah's inherited qualities. Had Barton Lambert been married before, and Zillah was his daughter but not hers? Zillah was apparently an only child, which was not a common circumstance.