If there was ever a time to dissemble, this was it. For just a moment, Rose looked completely astonished.

“Socialistic?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “You know Mr. Butler well, I am sure, Mr. Pusey, and he is a man who has prejudices.”

“True.”

“Well, I know from my son that Mr. Keller in his lectures, for instance, is always scrupulous to present both sides of a case. And I can imagine Mr. Butler, if he does not care for somebody, accusing them of,” she shrugged, “I don’t know what. But I can assure you of one thing: if Mr. Keller was any kind of a socialist, he’d never have set foot in my house.”

“Butler can be unreasonably prejudiced,” Pusey agreed. “But are you sure about Keller’s private views?”

“I am for this reason, Mr. Pusey. Just a few years ago, when there was all that trouble about those garment workers striking, I was at a private luncheon. And I heard Mr. Keller speak out—very strongly—against the strikers. He warned everyone there, in the plainest terms, that the strikers were being whipped up by socialists and Russians and anarchists, and that we should give them no consideration at all. He spoke with great passion. I remember it well. And how right he turned out to be.” And having delivered herself of this monstrous, bare-faced lie, she gave old Mr. Pusey a meaningful nod. “So much,” she said drily, “for Nicholas Murray Butler.”

“Ah.” Elihu Pusey looked immensely gratified. “That is most helpful, Mrs. Master. Really most helpful.”

It was a couple of months later when Charlie informed her that Edmund Keller would be going away to Oxford.

“I know it’s what he wanted,” she said with a smile. Three thousand miles away from her impressionable son—everything that she could wish for, but that would remain her little secret.

“And Keller says that you put in a good word for him with the man who was recommending him. You never told me you did that. Keller’s so grateful to you.”

“It was nothing. I just happened to meet Mr. Pusey at a party, that’s all.”

“I know you used not to like Keller too much. I guess you must have changed your mind, after he came to dinner.”

“Evidently.”

“I’m so impressed that you could do that. Change your mind, I mean.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I can tell you one thing.”

“What’s that, Charlie?”

“Edmund Keller,” he said, beaming at her, “is now your friend for life.”

1925

Strangely, it was not the death of Anna, nor the war, nor even the bizarre new law—inexplicable to anyone from a wine-producing country—that forbade Americans to consume alcoholic drinks, nor the increasing estrangement of Paolo from his parents that changed the life of Salvatore Caruso’s family. It was his eldest brother Giuseppe and the Long Island Rail Road.