Being in hell wasn't as bad as it might be, if you could sit with your family in the hot dark of summer nights, listen to the crickets and the soft sweet wailing of singing along the street of the quarters, in those short lapis hours between supper and bed.

The thought of losing that-even that-was usually enough to make a man or a woman think twice about open revolt.

Still he said nothing. But he felt as if the whole core of him had shrunk and cured to a rod of iron, ungiving and utterly cold.

"Then yesterday morning the servants found Gilles, my butler, dead in the storeroom under the house." Fourchet's mouth hardened. "Beside him was a bottle of liquor, cognac. My cognac. The cellaret in the dining room was unlocked, the keys lying beside Gilles's hand."

Bitter hatred froze the old planter's face as he gazed unseeing at the bright slim slat of Rue Burgundy visible beyond the window louvers, remembering whatever sight it was that he had been brought down to see.

"Livia will have told you I used to drink," he said. "And that when I drank, it was as if there was a devil in me."

"My mother never spoke of you, sir," replied January, and the dark eyes slashed in his direction again, then cut toward the straight cool figure in the yellow muslin, sipping her cafe creme. But since January hadn't actually said, What makes you think she gave you a moment's thought after she wiped your spunk off her legs and went about her business? there was nothing with which Fourchet could take issue.

"Just as well. I'd like to say that all the evil in my life sprang from drink, but I don't think even that's true." He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end with carnivorous-looking teeth. "For eight months now I have not tasted a drop. Nor will I. But I've spoken of this to no one.