“I know a boy called Starbuck,” Ridley said.

“A good-looking boy,” Sally said coquettishly. A length of ash dropped off her cigar onto a rug. “He was the one that married me off to Robert. My pa made him do it. He made it sound all proper, with a book and all, and he even wrote it down to make it legal, but I know it wasn’t proper.”

“Starbuck married you?” Ridley was amused.

“He was nice about it. Real nice.” Sally cocked her head at Ridley, wanting him to be jealous. “So then I told Robert he should go for a soldier, and I came here. To be with you.”

“But I won’t be staying here,” Ridley said. Sally watched him, her eyes catlike. “I’m going to the Legion,” Ridley explained. “I shall just finish my business here, then I shall go back.”

“Then I tell you what other business you’ve got to finish, honey.” Sally walked toward him, unconsciously graceful as she crossed the rich rugs and wax-polished boards. “You’re going to find me a place to live, Ethan. Somewhere nice, with carpets like this and real chairs and a proper bed. And you can visit me there, like you said you would. Ain’t that what you said? That you’d find a place where I could live? Where you’d keep me? And love me?” The last three words were said very softly and so close that Ridley could smell the cigar smoke on her breath.

“I said that, yes.” And he knew he could not resist her, but he also knew that as soon as they had made love he would hate Sally for her vulgarity and commonness. She was a child, scarce fifteen, yet she knew her power and Ridley knew it too. He knew she would fight to have her way and she would not care what destruction she caused in the fighting, and so, the very next day, Ridley moved her out of his brother’s Grace Street rooms. If Delaney had returned to find any of his precious porcelain broken he would never have agreed to help Ethan, and so Ridley had taken a front room at a boardinghouse on Monroe Street where he registered himself and Sally as a married couple. Now he pleaded for his brother’s help. “For God’s sake, Bev! She’s a witch! She’ll destroy everything!”

“A succuba, is she? I’d like to meet her. Is she really as beautiful as your sketch?”