I glanced over at Louisa, who was following the whole conversation with interest. Only Experience had the thoughtfulness to look away, embarrassed. She stared at the fire, working to suppress one more yawn, then stood up suddenly. “I fear, Madame Elizabeth, that we must retire,” she said very carefully, in a low tone she used when she was speaking to older people.

They stood and embraced Madame Elizabeth, who stayed in her chair, and waved to Lucien. Then they were gone.

I turned in my chair and made a show of asking Lucien about himself.

He had remained as pleasant-looking as he had been ten years earlier, and I realized, with a start, that he was lightly flirting with me, though it seemed to be more for the amusement of his mother, I realized, then any sort of genuine interest. He made his jokes and verbal flips loud enough for her to hear and when one was finished, looked sideways for her approval. Madame Elizabeth would sally him on with a tap of her fan or a pull at her shawl.

In one of his moments of joking, he called me “Black Gal,” and I shivered.

“Do you remember?” I said. “Do you remember Mr. Ben?”

“Oh, Daisy!” Lucien cried in a nasal falsetto, and then fluttered his hands. “But of course.”

Madame Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “That poor man.”

“Do you ever wonder what happened to Daisy?”

“If there’s any justice in the world,” Madame Elizabeth said, “her soul’s repented for all the pain she caused that man.”

“But how is it Daisy’s fault,” I said, “if Ben Daisy was the one who chose to die for her?”

“Well, listen to you, Miss Libertie,” Lucien said. His eyes shifted between me and his mother, sizing each of us up.

Madame Elizabeth tilted her head and held her finger to her chin, a practiced pose of concentration. Then she said, “Love is a mysterious thing, and a gift. A woman is a keeper of love, and when she does not take that duty as sacred, then things like that happen.”

Lucien sighed. “You lose your mind and end up trying to make love to a river.”

“You are terrible,” I said.

“Glug, glug, glug,” Lucien replied, and I saw, from the way his mother held in her laugh, that the joke was not a gamble.

I stood up. “I should go to bed, as well, Madame Elizabeth.”

“Ah,” Lucien said, “we’ve made you mad.”

“Lucien, stop it.” Madame Elizabeth held up her arms, and I stepped awkwardly toward her. “Good night. And say your prayers for your mama and me.” Her breath was murky with the smell of tea and sugar.