Barford paused to light a cigar: a black, nasty cheroot that smelled almost as bad as his breath. He sighed smokily. "I believe you," he said again. "But no matter how come it happened, what matters is, it did happen. My wife, she's mighty mad at you-mighty God-damned mad."

Frederick hung his head. "I'm sorry, Master Henry. I'm sorrier'n I know how to tell you. I tried to apologize to Mistress Clotilde last night, but she didn't want to listen to me. Honest to God, it was an accident." He hated crawling. If he wanted to save his own skin, though, what choice did he have?

"One more time, Fred-I believe you," Barford said. "What I believe right now… don't matter one hell of a lot. Something like that happens when we're sitting down to dinner by our lonesomes, maybe you can say 'I'm sorry' and get away with it. Maybe. Shit goes wrong. I know that. Everybody knows that. When you go and ruin somethin' Clotilde's had her heart set on for months, now, and when you make her look bad in front of all of her friends… And we ain't even talking about how much all the fancy dresses that got ruined cost, not yet we're not."

How close had he come to selling Frederick-and maybe Helen, too-for whatever he could get? (This was the first time in his life Frederick was halfway relieved none of their children had lived-they would have been sold, too.)

Gowns of silk and lace and endless labor didn't come cheap. Frederick knew that, all right. He remembered his mistress complaining about how expensive the dress she'd worn to the gathering-only one of the gowns Frederick had wrecked-was. All the money he'd saved… He didn't offer it. It not only wouldn't be enough, it would be so far from enough that the very offer would seem insulting.

Henry Barford blew out another ragged puff of smoke. "So I got to make you sorry for real," he said. "Won't be any peace in this house till I do. And you know you've got it coming. Can't hardly tell me you don't."