I found her smallest movements, even when she held her silence, so compelling that I could not keep my eyes from her, and then I grew self-conscious of that fact and tried to mask it by deliberately not looking at her, which in its own way was very likely just as telling.

Gilroy noticed. Or at least his gaze brushed me in that impassive way of his a few more times than made me comfortable.

It was Gilroy’s fault that Lily was here to begin with. She had only come by to deliver the original certificate again, which he apparently had asked her for by letter, telling her that we had need of it for some reason or other. But when she’d arrived and found us out, and Helen here with Violet Young, and would have left the document and gone, Helen refused to hear of anything but that she stay and join us all for dinner.

I suspect that the offer came partly from Helen’s own kindness, and partly because, like any good flower arranger, she doubtless believed Violet’s beauty and charms would show better displayed against some plainer blossom.

She’d miscalculated. While she had been noticing whose gown was of the newest fashion or the finest quality, whose teeth were the most even, and the other superficial ways of measuring one woman against another, Helen had forgotten the most simple fact of all: in most bouquets, a single lily could outshine a violet.

Not that Violet didn’t try. She laughed, and talked, and lightly touched my arm to draw me back to her if my attention wavered, but in spite of that I twice lost track of what was being said around the table and I had to force myself to follow everything more closely.

I gathered they were finishing some anecdote that featured Violet’s father, Dr. Young.

“Men are great fools when they’re in love,” said Helen, fondly.

Gilroy, without looking up from his plate, replied, “My mother says we are fools the best part of the time, whether in love or no.”

Helen’s smile was delighted. “I cannot imagine you having a mother. In fact, I’d have wagered you sprang into being exactly as you are now—full grown and serious.”

“’Tis a fair wager,” he told her, “but one you’d have lost, for in truth I’m the youngest of eight.”

Which explained, in part, why he so stoically endured her teasing. He must be used to it, being the youngest of such a large family.

“Eight!” Helen found this intriguing. “Pray, are your parents saints?”

“My parents are inseparable,” he said, “and wish for nothing more than to die at the same moment, like that couple in the Greek myth who were turned to trees.”

“Baucis and Philemon?” Helen looked at Gilroy with the joy of someone making a discovery. “You come from romantic stock.”

“I do, I’ll not deny it,” he said. “But I’m not a fool.”

MacDougall, taking up our empty first course plates, sniffed loudly. “Who would wish tae be turned tae a tree?”