“ ‘Mona, why do you try to go to bed with so many people?’ I asked. I knew that I sounded naive and childlike, but I had to ask her.

“ ‘Why do you do the same thing, Tarquin?’

“ ‘But I don’t, not really. Aside from you, I’ve been to bed with one of the women on the property and that’s all.’

“ ‘I know,’ she said smiling. ‘It’s the gorgeous blond-haired quadroon, Jasmine.’

“ ‘How did you know?’

“ ‘We witches have a little bit of telepathic power,’ she said with the same generous smile. ‘I picked up on it, you might say. Didn’t you feel that that was a road you had to travel?’

“ ‘Yeah, I guess I did. But compared to you, I’m kind of retarded. I’m almost nineteen and I’ve slept with one spirit, one ghost and two real women, you being the one with whom I am in love.’

“ ‘I can guess about the spirit,’ she said, ‘but tell me about the ghost.’

“ ‘I can’t, not now. We’re too near her grave.’ I pointed to the little headstone in the cemetery. ‘But let me say her name’s Rebecca and she’s beautiful, and she met her end in a cruel, unjust way and I lost my virginity with her. She has great charm when she comes. . . .

“ ‘. . . And speaking of charm,’ I said, ‘I have a tutor who is like that and he’s coming right towards us.’

“It was Nash come down from the house to invite us to supper. He looked elegant and handsome in his sharply cut blue denim three-piece suit and a white shirt open at the collar.

“Now, I have to achieve that style, I thought, and he comes by it so daringly and so naturally.

“At once I introduced him to Mona and told him I was going to marry her. He was faintly amazed but accepted it totally seriously.

“ ‘Congratulations, Quinn, and my dear’—he took her hand—‘it’s a pleasure.’

“I felt his mellow voice could level mountains. And his face was truly enhanced by its lines and its folds. It gave him the look of wisdom.

“ ‘Of course, we’re still going to Europe, Nash,’ I said. ‘We’re all going. We’re stealing Mona.’

“ ‘Well, that makes things doubly exciting,’ said Nash with just a twinge of a smile and a touch of gentle irony. He gave his arm to Mona graciously to help her up to the high ground, and I felt ashamed that I hadn’t thought to do it.

“As for supper, we were all to join Aunt Queen on the other side of the house where the table was set on the flagstone patio using the newly refurbished wicker.

“ ‘Rebecca’s wicker,’ I explained to Mona. ‘Rebecca and I—it was in a dream—we had coffee together and we were sitting in these wicker chairs. You’ll see.’