“From my father’s aquarium,” Cecily Snow said with a pleased smile. “It’s quite a good one, though we’ve only a few terrapin left. I knew the dish must be a favorite of yours, since you mention it so often in your books.”

“I mention it?” I said, as astonished by her statement as I had been by the soup. I had no memory of having mentioned terrapin soup at all, in any of my writings—though I supposed a chance reference might have crept into one of the domestic tales.

But Cecily Snow was right. When later I had occasion to check, I discovered that Orson Oxx had eaten terrapin soup the very day he disposed of Captain Kidd, and that Sandycraw, the Man of Grit, had even managed to partake of it while crossing the Tibetan plateau, on his way to Lhasa.

Isinglass, though, was having no soup.

“I’ll pass on the turtle squeezings,” he said to Mahmood. “Just bring me my beefsteak and chili.”

“You and I will be having mutton,” Lady Snow informed me. “I’m sure you’ve had to saw your way through enough tough beefsteak in your travels on the prairies. Or ‘chawed’ your way, as they put it here.”

“Beefsteak and worse,” I admitted. “Though Sister Blandina did serve me some tasty mutton at her mission. The Sister wouldn’t agree with you, ma’am, on one subject, at least.”

“Oh, what?” Cecily asked.

“That I understand the female heart,” I said. “She thinks I’m mainly off, in that department.”

“Well, what would a nun know?” Cecily asked. “I won’t retreat, I’m afraid. I think you have a most uncommon understanding of the female heart.”

“Not if he thinks females have hearts, he don’t,” Isinglass remarked.

“I have a heart, sir,” Cecily said. “Surely you won’t be so bald as to deny me that.”

“The she-bear has a heart, I reckon,” Old Whiskey said. “Comanche women have hearts, and what they do to white men ain’t much worse than what the ladies of the world do, if you ask me.”

“But there are no Comanche women now,” Lady Snow said evenly. “Nor Comanche men, either. You killed them all. Do you regret it?”

Isinglass had his same quart jar of whiskey at the table. He took a long swallow before answering.

“I guess I did kill a lot of good Comanches,” he said. “I kilt some decent Kiowa too, and all to make room for a lot of sorry white people who can’t find their way from one water hole to the next. I suppose it was a poor job.”

“That’s a rather thin apology,” Cecily said. “You eliminated an entire people—though I suppose you had help.”

“Not much help,” Isinglass said. He was mopping up the drippings of his beef with a hunk of bread. Besides the beefsteak he had consumed a huge bowl of fiery chili.