“You told him what he offered was frightful. I heard you.” (Sob) “It was. Oh, it was. Oh, Lalette, it isn’t right, you should be married with a gold coach and six horses—but what can we do?—oh, if your father had left us anything before the war—all I sacrificed for him—but that is what all of us must do, make sacrifices, we can’t have anything real without giving something away . . . Lalette!” “Madame.” “You will be able to employ the Art and have everything you want, you know most of the patterns already, he does not go to the Service often . . . and after all, it’s something that happens to every woman one way or another, and with the Art, even if he doesn’t marry you, he’ll find you a husband you won’t mind, it’s only men like Cleudi who want to be the first, a man who marries would really prefer a girl to have a little experience, I know . . . Lalette!” Lalette did not answer. “All the young ones come to the ball after the opera, Lalette. Count Cleudi will present you, and even if you don’t bring—” (He would have not only a green hat, but southern-made lace at wrist and throat and a funny-looking man who spoke in a Mayern accent, thick as cream, and carried the purse because it spoiled the fit—) “. . . as though he were just one of those . . . so considerate . . .” (I suppose we cannot control how we come by our parents) “. . . your father, like an angel out of heaven, and I could have taught you so much more if he—” (Now she is waist-deep in the past again, I’m going to hear it all over) “. . . really, for it is more like one step up than a leap down from a high place, which is always what we think before the first time . . . Lalette!” “Yes, mother.” Someone knocked at the door. Lalette’s mother hastily daubed at her cheeks, heaved herself heavily from the chair, looked sidewise, saying; “We could sell the stone.” But before the girl could reply, the tap again. The older woman waddled across to the door and opened it a crack; a long jaw and long nose under a wet turn-down hat poked in. “I was just saying to my daughter—” began Dame Leonalda. A pair of thin shoulders pushed past her as though not hearing, the man stood in the center of the room, sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Listen,” he said, “no more stories. I have heard too many.” Dame Leonalda gave him a doleful look and bustled back to her seat. “But I assure you, Ser Ruald—” “No more stories,” he said again. “I have charges to meet and taxes.” She put her hands to her face. (Lalette thought: her only device; I hope I shall not grow like that.) Ruald said; “But I do not wish to be hard, no, and I know you have no money just now. So I will be fair, and if you render me a small service, why then, it is not beyond me to forgive the whole four months’ arrears.” Dame Leonalda took down her hands again and said; “What is the service?” (Her voice had something like a tinge of dread.)