‘Are you all right, sir?’

He peered down at the owner of one of those billowing skirts and bobbing hats.

‘You don’t look well,’ she said. There were bows on her shoes. ‘Would it help to get out of the sun? You’re a stranger here, aren’t you?’

Why the hell do people interfere? By what right? He was unaware that this sudden gust of anger flickered in his eyes, but he knew it would show in his voice, so he gestured with those beautiful hands of his that he was fine, that he didn’t want to cause her any trouble.

‘Oh!’ she cried in delight (intrigued, too, as people always are by evidence of emotion suppressed). ‘You don’t need words at all, do you? How did you learn to do that?’ But then she rushed on. ‘It’s no trouble. Really. I live here.’

He stared down at her, unbelieving, unable to believe – which made him even more uncertain of his voice. He used his hands again, and his meaning was so clear that she laughed out loud with pleasure.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re right. The senator’s my father. Come on, let me help you.’

She guided him around the crowd toward the back of the mansion. The grass crunched dreamlike under his shoes as though it were still frozen in mid-winter while the rest of the world had moved on to this summery day. She urged him through a door and along a hallway. Black and white squares of marble on the floor: then carpet, then wood, then another carpet.

‘Sit down here,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’

Books lined three walls. On the fourth, eaglehead candelabra stood on either side of a battle scene from the Revolution where flags flew, horses reared, mud everywhere, except near the dead man in the center, immaculate in cream-colored tights and satin coat, a pretty trickle of blood at his throat. Jonathan eyed the dead man in disgust; he had a puritanical aversion to sham. People crap their cream-colored tights when they die. Their mouths yawn; you have to tie the lower jaw up as Ichabod Crane tied his or it stays gaped wide, a detail missing from the actors who play dead people on television screens every night just as it’s missing from elegiac pictures of war like this one of George Stoke’s.

The young woman appeared with a glass of water. Beyond her, Jonathan could see an ornate desk. On its surface stood a silver-framed daguerreotype. He knew at once what the picture would show: what it had to be.

‘You go to college, I suppose,’ he said abruptly.

She plumped herself down next to him with enthusiasm. ‘You can speak. I thought you were mute. Wellesley. I go to Wellesley. I major in French. I’m leaving for Paris next week. Paris! Isn’t that wonderful? Do you suppose they talk any English there?’

‘With your father?’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she laughed, misunderstanding. She had the shiny, black eyes her father had once had (but had, so it seemed, no more). ‘He wouldn’t let Sweetbrier down in its hour of need. Anyhow, Europe is bad for the image.’ She laughed again. ‘Daddy’s image is the most important thing in American civilization. No, mother’s taking me. He’s going to be all on his own for two whole months.’