“Nothing else we can do.” Lovey blinked rapidly, her working. “Send Leon to town, Miss Deb, to stay with his Aunt Nell and Uncle Felix.”

Deborah frowned; her mind busy too. She picked up from a commode an old snuff box she used for pins and stared at the likeness of General Washington on its lid. Then putting it down without having been aware she had picked it up, she nodded vigorously and clapped her hands again. “You’re right, Lovey. Of course you’re right!”

Lovey sighed. “Out of sight, out of mind, they say. No use for him to stay here and be shamed.”

“I don’t care about his feelings,” Deborah said, “but I don’t like the idea of our people seeing him without respect. He will be their master one day.”

“Just so,” Lovey said grimly. “Floyd can siphon off their disrespect.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Lovey.”

“I know you didn’t. I want Floyd to swallow his medicine and learn his lesson. Short of marrying her.”

“Leon will be closer to his tutor. But he can’t stay in Highboro forever. Still, I should like him to be away from here a long while.” Deborah walked back and forth, worrying the problem. Lovey waited. Deborah went to a window and looked out over bare trees to the gray fields beyond.

Lovey stirred, bored with inaction. “It’s nigh time for dinner. They’ll soon be ringing the bell.”

“When they do, I shall go down and eat, no matter that every bite will stick in my craw. But I don’t want Leon there. Go and tell him he is not to come down when he hears the bell. He can do without his noon victuals. Then ask Plumboy to saddle a horse. Tell Leon to pack clothes enough for a few days in Highboro, and to go. I don’t want to see him. I have nothing to say to him. You may tell him that.”

“I won’t have to; he knows.” Lovey moved to the door.

“Don’t you aggravate me too, Lovey!” Deborah exclaimed.

“No’m!” Lovey said huffily and went out.

Leon packed his clothes and rode away to Highboro to stay with his aunt and uncle, taking with him a short letter Deborah had written and sealed with candle wax before going downstairs to the dining room to eat her silent and solitary meal. Selma did not appear. Deborah wondered vaguely where she was, but the child sometimes chose not to come to a meal, so she didn’t worry about her. Her mind was too full of Leon to accommodate another concern. The male sex, she thought with disgust.