And now they were off on the never-finished argument about animals versus people, voices raised, passionate involvement. No one listened any longer. Everyone appeared to be talking, and Mamzelle whispered to Cornelius, “Do you understand them? Your grandchildren?”

The question took Cornelius by surprise. He was waiting for his dinner. He wanted to be alone to eat it in peace. And the last thing he wanted was to be quizzed by this formidable old person.

He coughed his brittle cough. “I don’t understand most people,” he said. “The human race in its wild diversity is a total mystery.”

Mamzelle shrugged. “Naturellement, but surely it is very queer to be as they are—no attention paid to how they look!”

“Do you remember how Olivia used to look when she was twenty?”

“Oh, those blue jeans!”

“You see?”

She shrugged. “Well, out here in the country, of course …”

“Willard …” Cornelius murmured.

He preferred to follow his own thoughts and leave Mamzelle to hers. They had always taken Willard for granted, like daily bread, but since his illness Cornelius had come to think of Willard and what it had meant to three—no, four—generations, for he must include his father and mother and his brothers too. What it had done for “us Boston provincials,” as he put it, was simply a miracle. All the trips to Europe, all the concerts and art courses, had not so civilized the Chapmans, he thought, as this obscure little village in the New Hampshire hills.

“If you must know, Mamzelle, Willard has civilized us.”

“I don’t understand. Christina has civilized it. She would civilize any place where she found herself … but …”

“No.” Cornelius felt very cross suddenly—cross and excited at the same time, and hungry. “I will try to tell you,” he said, his voice grown a little thick as it still did when he was upset. “My father came here as a rich man, secure in what he was and in who he was, but he didn’t know half what Old Pete does about the natural world all around us. Even he had to learn that we would be respected only insofar as we could keep to a standard set here—a standard of behavior in the woods, for instance.”

“I think you are exaggerating. Noblesse oblige?”

At last Dorothy came in with a tray for Mademoiselle, and Christy with a tray for his grandfather.

“Thank you, boy.” Cornelius was glad to see that Mamzelle had not lost her appetite, and for a moment each was entirely absorbed in eating.

“Christina’s stuffing!” Mamzelle gleamed. “She has not lost her skill.”

“Why should she?”

“She is tired and no longer young.”

It was the old refrain—meant to make Cornelius feel like a clumsy and life-devouring male who sucked the marrow out of a woman. But this time he was not to be drawn. He wanted to make a point.