“Ma’am, carpe diem, then,” I said, taking the hairbrush from her and putting it on the table by the commodious bed.

6.

The next morning not long after sunup I stood on my airy balcony and watched Cecily ride off on her bay thoroughbred to search for wildflowers, weeds, or obscure prairie grasses that she wished to paint. She was accompanied by seven greyhounds and numerous whippets, and she led a black donkey which carried her easel and various scientific supplies.

Isinglass and some twenty cowboys were mounted too, but they did not accompany Lady Snow. In fact, they left Winds’ Hill in the opposite direction. Before they were out of sight, old Mahmood crept in with my breakfast—kidney, as I might have predicted, and some excellent scones.

Well, I didn’t waste the day, I can tell you. I doubt that Scheherazade spent all day combing her hair, either. I ate my kidney and repaired to the study; the fact that I had a good pen and smooth English paper to write on, after weeks of making do with the poorest tablets, seemed to lend wings to my imagination. Before Cecily Snow swept in many hours later, beautiful and dusty, to order tea, I had completed ten new chapters of Black Beans; my bedraggled Texans were then almost at the end of their harrowing march to the city of Mexico.

The conspicuous pile of pages seemed to amuse Cecily no end.

“Why, you’re quite productive,” she said.

“I’d like to get a day or two ahead,” I explained. “There might come a morning when my brain doesn’t function, and it doesn’t seem wise to have nothing on hand to read. Mr. Isinglass’s indigestion might flare up.”

“It’s very likely to flare up no matter what you read, Mr. Sippy,” she said as she started up the stairs. “I’ll explain once I’ve washed my face.”

She soon reappeared, all fresh and lovely, just as the old coolie brought in the tea.

“Mahmood, explain to Mr. Sippy why the master has had so much trouble with his digestion lately,” she said.

“Vineglass,” the old Egyptian said, a twinkle suddenly lighting his eye. “I grind very fine, put in chili.”

“Vineglass?” I asked, as the man tottered out.

“Wineglass, he means,” Cecily said, buttering herself a bun. “Mahmood hates him, Bertram hates him, we all hate him. It gives us a great deal of pleasure to grind up the wineglasses and put them in his chili, but the fact is we’re almost out of wineglasses, and except for mild dyspepsia, Mr. Isinglass is as fit as he ever was.

“I’d marry anyone who could kill him,” she said, looking pointedly at me. Then she ate her buttered bun with relish.