Luz said, “I invited them for dinner.”

Janroe was staring at Clare. She looked away and his eyes went to Davis, holding him, as if defying him to speak. Then, slowly, he sat back and looked up at Luz.

“Take the kids with you. They’ll eat in the kitchen.”

Luz hesitated, then nodded quickly and held out her hand to Sandy. The boy looked up at her and pressed closer into his mother’s skirts.

“They’re used to being with me,” Martha said pleasantly. Gently she urged Clare forward, smiling at Luz now, though the Mexican woman did not return her smile. “While Cabe…while Paul was away the children didn’t have the opportunity to meet many new people. I’m afraid they’re just a little bit strange now.”

“If they eat,” Janroe said, “they still eat in the kitchen.”

Martha’s face colored. “Mr. Janroe, I was merely explaining-”

“The point is, Mrs. Cable, there’s nothing to explain. In this house kids don’t sit at the table with grownups.”

Martha felt the heat on her face and she glanced at her husband, at Cable who stood relaxed with the calm, tell-nothing expression she had learned to understand and respect. It isn’t your place to answer him, she thought. But now the impulse was too strong and she could no longer hold back her words, though when she spoke her voice was calm and controlled.

“Now that you’ve said it three times, Mr. Janroe, we will always remember that in this house children do not eat with grownups.”

“Mrs. Cable”-Janroe spoke quietly, sitting straight up and with his hand flat and unmoving on the table-“if your husband has one friend around here it’s going to be me. Not because I’m pro-South or anti-Union. Not because I favor the man who’s at a disadvantage. But because I don’t have a reason not to befriend your husband. Now that’s a pretty flimsy basis for a friendship.”