France when Louis took a Polish princess, and there my mother married an
English gentleman. Well, it was always the Court, in France and in
England. Always the Court--do you know what that means? It's a place
where women are pretty pink and white candies that men are always
picking over. It's a great bed with a rose silk counterpane and closed
draperies. Champagne and music and scent and masques. Little plays with
the intrigue in the audience; favours behind green hedges. I was in it
when I was fourteen, and I had a lover the first year. He showed me how
to make pleasure. Don't think that I was indifferent to this," she added
directly; "that I wanted to escape it. I wasn't; I didn't. Only beneath
everything I had a feeling of not being completely satisfied; I
wanted--oh, not very strongly--something else, for an hour. At times the
air seemed choking; and inside of me, but not in my body, I seemed
choking too. I used to think about the Polish forests, and that would
help a little."

She resumed the place at his side, with her silk billowing against his
knee. "This is it," she declared, her face set against the illimitable,
still dark. "I recognized it only a little while ago. I think
unconsciously I came to America hoping to find it; there was nothing at
Annapolis, but here--" she drew a breath as deep, he noted, as her stays
would permit. "It includes you, somehow," she continued; "as if you were
the voice. What I said coming away from the Forge, about dreading you,
was only momentary. I have another feeling, premonition--" she broke
off, her manner changed. "All the Court believes in signs: Protestantism
and vampires.

"It seems unreal here; I mean St. James and all that was so
tremendously important; incredibly stupid--the Princess Amelia's
stockings. But you can't imagine the jealousy. Every bit of it shall go