“It’s strange,” Margaret said, succumbing to the deliciously warm, doughy corn-bread, “but when Mama was forever wielding her measuring tape and fussing over the size of my waist, I craved cake. Yet in Ireland, where I was free to eat as much cake as I wanted, I found that I didn’t want to. Perhaps that is simply my contrary nature.”

“It is certainly human nature, to want what one is told one cannot have,” Marion said dryly. “I’m afraid I have little patience with this fashion for tight-lacing. No wonder so many women are forever fainting away—they can’t blooming well breathe. I abandoned my corset when Alexander was posted to Syria. It wasn’t only the heat but the sand—I assure you, my dear, you have no notion of the havoc even a few grains of the stuff trapped between your corset and your chemise can wreak. I adopted native dress, lovely loose tunics that let the breeze circulate about one’s person, and made it a dashed sight easier to let one’s husband circulate about a person, too. There was something about the heat that made both Alexander and me—” She broke off with a hearty sigh. “Ah, but there’s no point in dwelling on that now. What was it I was saying, about wanting what one can’t have?”

“You must miss him a great deal.”

“Oh, you have no idea. However, Alexander made me promise not to mourn him and to enjoy life to the full, and I try my best to do just that. It’s an odd way of mourning, some might say, but it’s my way.”

“I think it’s rather wonderful.”

“Thank you, my dear. Now then,” Marion said, inhaling the dregs of her coffee, “I have been busy while you have been catching up on your sleep. In my experience, the best way to get to know a city is to get the lie of the land, as they say. The charming concierge informs me that for the sum of five dollars one may hire a hansom cab and driver for the day. So if you are finished your repast, we will make hay while the sun shines which,” she said, casting an eye at the window, “it seems to be trying very hard to do.”