Petronius took Julia from Pa and handed her to Helena, giving Pa the nudge that they should leave. Pa, typically, failed to respond. “ Well, she’ll remarry of course.”

“Don’t be so certain,” Helena disagreed quietly. It was a rebuke to men. Pa failed to take this hint too. I buried my face in my hands for a moment, reflecting that an attractive, unprotected woman like my sister would indeed have to fend off a rash of propositions, many of them repulsive. That must be just one aspect of her despair in her new situation. Still, removing predators was one thing I could help her with.

“I bet…” Pa had been struck by one of his terrible mischievous ideas. “I bet your mother,” he suggested to me portentously, “will try to set her up with somebody we know!”

I could not bring myself even to try thinking up who he meant.

“Somebody else who’s been given a nice station in lifecongratulations, by the way, Marcus, and not before time; we must celebrate, son-on some better occasion, of course,” he conceded reluctantly.

Belatedly I caught on. “You don’t mean-”

“He has a good position with a sound employer, plenty of loot, prime of life, well known to us all-I reckon he’s obvious,” crowed Pa. “Your mother’s precious lodger!”

I kicked back my stool, stood, then walked off to my bedroom, slamming the door like an offended child. It had been a bad day, but now I felt truly sickened. Like all my father’s wild remarks, this had a deadly air of probability. If you ignored the fact the lodger was a poisonous, parasitic fungus with the ethics of a politically devious slug, here indeed was a salaried, propertied, recently elevated man who was longing to be part of the family.