Clothed in rougher trousers, a calico shirt, and the short corduroy jacket he'd bought while a student in Paris, he descended the stairs and deposited the white shirt in the tiny laundry room next to the kitchen. It was there that his mother caught him, before he could be across the yard again, through the passway to Rue Burgundy and gone.

"Benjamin, I have never been so mortified in my life."

If the statement had been true he would have heard it in her voice, but it wasn't. She wasn't mortified. She was angry. Thwarted and angry.

"Neither have I, Maman, that he'd even think I'd do such a thing as he asks."

"Don't be silly." Her hands were clasped tight, like a little sculpture of seashell and bronze, at her belt buckle. Her mouth was hard as sculptor's work. "I assumed you'd welcome the first chance that came to you, to pay back what you owe me. The quarter-interest in that property the Widow Delachaise is selling is still open for fifteen hundred, and I don't think I need to remind you that because of those new clothes of yours, and all that music, not to mention getting the piano retuned last month, I'm in no position to-"

"No, Maman." January forced his voice level, as he had with Fourchet. "You don't need to remind me."

"Don't interrupt me, Benjamin."

Their eyes met: old wanting, old needing, a thousand griefs never comforted, a thousand things never said. January remembered her-one of his earliest memories-being beaten for stealing eggs for him and for Olympe, when a fox had killed the three chickens that constituted the only livestock they possessed. Remembered her silence under the lash.

"We need that money," Livia said, in a voice that took into account nothing of the other property she owned, or the funds in three separate banks. "You can't possibly think Monsieur Fourchet would use this opportunity to take advantage of your position and kidnap you to sell to dealers, for heaven's sake. If he told that animal Shaw about hiring you, he can't intend-"