“Let’s have the recital,” he said. “This is about the time my indigestion hits.”

“But there’s dessert!” Lady Snow protested. “I know you won’t eat it, but Mr. Sippy might enjoy some.”

“No, I want the recital,” Isinglass insisted. “I’m getting worried about Mesty. He ought to be back with that cowboy by now. If I worry too much, my indigestion is apt to flare up, and I might just hang this feller to settle my nerves.”

“In that case we’ll delay dessert,” Cecily said, folding her napkin. “Shall we retire to the study?”

4.

We retired to the study and I read the first five chapters of my little novel Black Beans—it was all I had on hand except the rather scratchy beginnings of Sister of the Sangre. Isinglass put his feet on a huge leather footstool and sipped whiskey as I read, while Lady Snow merely folded her long hands and listened.

“How’s your indigestion?” I inquired when I reached the end of chapter five—the straggling party of Texans, already lost on the llano, were just about to eat their last mule.

“It ain’t showed up—I guess you’ve gained twenty-four hours,” Isinglass said. He stood and started to trudge out of the room, then paused a moment at the door.

“It’s just what I said tonight,” he said. “Half the sorry white people who headed up that expedition couldn’t find their way to the next water hole.”

As we went back to have our dessert, a tasty pudding made with wild plums, I saw the old man go out the front door.

“Where’s he going?” I asked.

“He sleeps in the bunkhouse with the cowboys,” Lady Snow said.

“But why?” I asked. We were at the foot of the great staircase; above us were rooms enough for a house party of sixty, at least.

“Surely in a house this size he could find a room to his liking,” I ventured.

“Oh, the man is no fool,” the lady said, taking my arm to lead me back to the dining room. “He knows he wouldn’t survive a night in this house.”

I thought it was a joke.

“But why, are the beds that hard?” I asked.

“As to that, you must judge for yourself—you’ll soon be in one of them,” Cecily said, amusement in her gray eyes.

“I don’t quite understand, ma’am,” I said. “Mr. Isinglass has survived the worst dangers of the West for eighty years. What could threaten him in a fine house such as this?”

“Me, merely me,” the woman said, still with amusement, her hand still on my arm.

“Ma’am, I suppose my mind’s going,” I said, helping her into her seat at the long table. “I can’t remember having mentioned terrapin soup in my books, and I’m afraid I can’t grasp your meaning, either.”