“And the new fireplace, a black iron Franklin stove of great proportions, with only a heap of gray ash in it tonight, thanks to the warm weather.

“The curving stairs to the second floor was a heavily carved bronze created with pivots, and very handsome too. Beneath it was the only bookcase in the place, small, of heavily carved wood, neat and crammed with thin paperback volumes.

“There was nothing here that wasn’t lovely in its own right.

“At the same time, there was something completely wrong with it, something grotesque, impure, out of keeping with the night noises of the swamp. Had my adolescent madness done this or her total insanity?

“Even the cup on her desk was a golden chalice with jewels embedded in it. It looked rather like the ciborium used by the priest at Mass for the wafers of the Blessed Sacrament.

“ ‘And so it was,’ she remarked, ‘before a little thief sold it to me in the streets of New Orleans. It’s still consecrated, don’t you suppose?’

“ ‘Really,’ I replied, taking note that she had read my thoughts. I saw two bottles of red wine, already uncorked, sitting beside the ciborium.

“ ‘Those are for you, King Tarquin,’ she said. She gestured for me to walk about more if I wanted to. I did so.

“ ‘Ah, you know the derivation of my name,’ I said. ‘Not many people do.’ Clumsily I tried to match her eloquence.

“ ‘King Tarquin of ancient Rome,’ she said, smiling. ‘He ruled before the beginning of the Republic.’

“ ‘And do you think he was real or merely a legend?’ I asked.

“ ‘Oh, most real in old poetry,’ she replied, ‘and most real in my mind in that over these three years I have so often thought of you. You have done well by my fantasies. I don’t entirely know why I crave this remote paradise, but crave it I do, and you have restored my little house and made it splendid. I slip away from other palaces where I’m too uncomfortably known and come here with no loss of comfort. Why, your men even come to clean this house by day. They mop the marble and polish it afterwards. They clean the windows. I never expected this much attention.’

“ ‘Yes, I told them to do these things. They think me quite the madman, I must tell you.’ Was this me talking?

“ ‘I’m sure they do, but that’s the common price of all wild eccentricity, and small eccentricity isn’t worth a damn, is it?’

“ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, laughing. ‘I haven’t settled that one yet.’

“I saw a big long heap of dark mink thrown over one of the couches—a bedspread, a wrap, something like that it had to be.

“ ‘Is that for cold nights?’ I asked.

“ ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘and also for flying. It’s fiercely cold in the clouds.’

“ ‘You fly?’ I asked, wanting to play along.