They must be sixteen and fifteen, thought January- he recalled Agnes had just borne and lost her first child when he had departed for France-the same age, probably, at which Madeleine Dubonnet had been married to Arnaud Trepagier.

And in fact, he reflected, there wasn't that much difference between that match and the one Agnes was clearly trying to line up with Ivanhoe. They were technically free, as Madeleine Dubonnet had been technically free, marrying-or entering into a contract of placage- of their own free choice. But that choice was based on the knowledge that there was precious little a woman could do to keep a roof over her head and food on her table except sell herself to a man on the best terms she could get. Why starve and scrimp and sell produce on the levee, why sew until your fingertips bled and your eyes wept with fatigue, when you could dress in silk and spend the larger part of your days telling servants what to do and having your hair fixed?

A girl has to live.

Then Angelique Crozat stepped into the ballroom, and January understood the iciness in his sister's voice.

True, a girl must live. And even the most beautiful and fair-skinned octoroon could not go long without the wealth of a protector. That was the custom of the country.

And true, the social conventions that bound a white woman so stringently-to coyness and ignorance before marriage, prudishness during, and hem-length sable veils for a year if she had the good fortune not to die in childbed before her spouse-did not apply to the more sensual, and more rational, demimonde.

But it was another matter entirely to appear at a ball in the dazzling height of Paris fashion two months after her lover was in his tomb.

Her gown was white-on-white figured silk, simply and exquisitely cut. Like Dominique's it swooped low over the ripe splendor of her bosom and like Dominique's possessed a spreading wealth of sleeve that offset the close fit of the bodice in layer after fairylike layer of starched lace.