“I believe they’re still people of some consequence in New York,” His Lordship said. “Do you know them?”

The abyss had opened before her, and her family were staring into it. Her decades as a servant in the Masters’ house. Mary caught her breath, then smiled a perfect smile.

“Hetty Master is one of my closest friends,” she said firmly. “Why, I’ve known her nearly fifty years.” It was true, every word of it.

“Well,” said Lord Rivers, quite delighted, “it’s a small world, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” said Mary.

By the time the fish course arrived, she and His Lordship were getting along famously, but now it was time to give her attention to young Gerald. As she knew nothing of hunting, shooting, fishing or the army, Mary wasn’t sure what to talk to him about, but after a quick pass at the theater, she discovered that he loved Gilbert and Sullivan, and so that kept them going quite agreeably for a while. But it was clear to her from the way he glanced boyishly at Clarissa, and then round the table, that Gerald Rivers, who’d had a glass or two to drink, felt he’d like to make a bit of an impression on his future wife’s family; and Mary wondered what form this would take.

The young man’s chance came during the main course when Lord Rivers asked her if she knew a charming New Yorker who lived in England now. “A Mr. Croker. He has an estate in Surrey,” he said. Rather astonished, she answered softly: “Everyone in New York knows Mr. Croker.”

And now, Gerald decided to cut in.

“When I was in America visiting the New York Yacht Club last year, Father,” he said a little too loudly, “they told me he was mixed up with Tammany Hall, and he skipped across the Atlantic to stay out of jail.”

Though he was perhaps a little tactless, young Gerald Rivers was perfectly right. If Boss Tweed had embezzled on a huge scale, his successor Croker had continued the good work, until the complaints became so loud that he’d decided to go overseas for a while. The idea of his living in England as a respectable country gentleman was amusing indeed.

“Is it true?” Lady Rivers asked Sean. But Sean was far too close to Tammany himself to start throwing stones in that glass house.

“Tammany Hall is a complex affair,” he said carefully. “It’s a very important political machine, and has to be handled with caution.”

“Ah,” said Lord Rivers knowingly. Aristocrats evidently respected politics. But young Gerald Rivers wasn’t finished yet.

“I met a splendid fellow called Teddy Roosevelt in New York,” he said. “He has great plans for cleaning up the New York Police—they’re completely corrupt as well, I heard.”