Aaron was not satisfied. 'You could not possibly have enjoyed the performance to date unless your critical faculties are in complete abeyance. Nor did you seem to be attending. Of what were you thinking?'

For the first time in her life she resented his probing of her thoughts, and for the first time since she was ten and told little fibs about the disappearance of comfits and fruit, she deliberately lied to him.

'The Grecian Daughter reminded me of one of Horace's odes. I was trying to remember it.'

Aaron chuckled. 'See what a little bluestocking you will have to wife, Joseph!'

Joseph grinned fatuously. He was feeling happy, and, for him, excited. He had been comparing Theodosia with the girls in other boxes and decided that not one of them approached her for looks. She would be a wife to be proud of, and her intellectual airs and graces were charming if not carried too far. A beautiful wife who could quote Horace would be an agreeable acquisition to display in Charleston society. Daughter of the President, too, if all went well in the elections.

He felt a sudden urge to establish physical contact with her. She had been much more approachable tonight. Her hand lay beside her on the bench. He grasped it tightly in his, pulling it over so that it was concealed by her skirt.

Her fingers did not move; the little hand rested as passively under his as though it had been a glove.

After a moment he began to feel self-conscious. He looked at her averted profile. She gazed with strained attention at the crimson curtains before them. Her whole attitude had an unnatural immobility, as though she were holding her breath.

He removed his hand and sank back, disgruntled. Hers remained as before quiet on the bench.

Theodosia had noticed Joseph's caress no more than she noticed the moths which flitted around the candle above her head.

Her mind was in chaos. Who is he? Why do I feel like this? She had a sensation of falling apart, as though her inner essence were rushing out of her toward a point at which she dared not look again—in the box to her right. She felt this stranger's presence there with an intensity that numbed her. The call between them was so strong that she thought it must be visible: a golden flash crackling through the smoky air. Joseph, Natalie, and the Count were negligible. They would not sec it. But her father—that was terrifying.

On the stage, Mrs. Melmoth performed again, in a farce called The Window and the Riding Horse. The audience in an uproar shouted and slapped their thighs over the broad jokes.