Perroquet, what you are to do with this request is for you alone to decide. I would not encourage you to any criminal acts which, being undertaken on American soil, might be far more dangerous than any of my actions at Le Havre.

If you do receive this letter you might let me know c/o the one in Brussels where I may spend the winter. I have a copy of the Baillard which makes me very happy. The morocco is not of the quality of the treasured item we let go, but the prints are exceptionally fine, there being a greater density in the blacks as a reward for patience.

Tilbot

IT WAS A CONSIDERABLE SURPRISE, in the middle of a gloomy afternoon, at a time when I was nodding before the fire, to see Mr. Larrit looming, not as I sentimentally remembered him but as he really was: weathered cheeks, coarse hair, frank eyes, and that careless habit he had of leaving a few long hairs unshaved around his Adam's apple. He had not brought the Montrachet and, like a servant in an American inn, made no apology except to assure me it would be here by and by.

When he had settled his "things" (in truth no more than the usual bumpy duffel bag), he returned to the library and, without taking the trouble to close the door, announced he had a proposition to put to me.

Of course servants do not, in the normal order of things, put propositions to their masters, and yet it was not his use of this word that alarmed me, but the very clear direct expression in his eyes. To put it coarsely, he looked like he had something "on me."

"A penny for your thoughts, John Larrit."

For answer he patted my arm.

Perhaps this behavior had been encouraged by my friendly letters, or was simply the unfortunate consequence of his spending time among Americans. In any case, I answered coldly. "You may put to me your proposition."

He said he understood I required a great deal of labor from his hand and he would honestly perform it, writing for as many hours a day as I could reasonably expect.

Reasonably? I thought. Un moment, dear Blacqueville.

"No, no," said he although I had not spoken. No, he promised to rise early and labor late, but he would require a horse and three hours of every afternoon to be given to his own endeavors.

I asked him what endeavors and he answered that his proposition was to leave the house when the family sat down to lunch and return in time for supper. I thought, Would not even an American democrat be offended by this presumption? He said he would rise at four each morning and, being absent for the hours he had decided, work until nine at night. He invited me to do the arithmetic although there was no need for he had already done the calculation. It was a bargain for me.

"Indeed," I said.

He could not have been deaf to my tone, but he stared at me directly and I thought, He has something "on me" certainly.

I had confessed everything. If he had forgotten what I told him in my madness on the steamer, I had reminded him in writing. Of course the scoundrel imagines he can stare at me like that and then demand to be provided with a horse for some endeavor he will not name.

"Wait," he cried, seeing the expression on my face. "This is all to your advantage." He then explained that the horse would allow him to spend more of his time laboring in the library and a great deal less along the road to Wethersfield.

His time? This was a very modern concept he had learned. I was far too angry to ask him what business he might have in Wethersfield. I said I would talk to Mr. Godefroy about the horse.

But he had already spoken to Miss Godefroy and she, without consulting his master as she might have, had been very happy to oblige him. In a democracy, it seemed, one could not go against a servant's will.

Thereafter John Larrit performed his duties as he had invented them for himself.

Sometime later, a week or so perhaps, it was reported that Mr. Godefroy's black mare had been seen in the shed adjoining Mrs. Dover's boardinghouse, and so poor Godefroy had a very urgent need to establish that the horse was not there on account of any business of his own, nor was he in unseemly congress with Mrs. Dover whose reputation, it was widely agreed, was not beyond reproach. Godefroy was very cool with me when giving me this news and I was very sorry to be the cause of upset for the man with whom I wished, one day, to form a close association. He left it to me to reprimand my servant, who naturally swore that he had no relationship with Mrs. Dover except to rent the shed from her, and he undertook to ensure that the shed door was always closed in future.

My good Amelia chanced upon this conversation which another of her sex might have thought judicious to leave alone, but as in other controversial matters, such as Christmas and her opinion of the educational qualifications of President Jackson, she surprised me. Taking up her usual chair by the library fireplace, she reached for her English novel and rested it upon her knee as if it were a Bible upon which she would make John Larrit swear.

"How was your time in Wethersfield?" she asked my man.

"Very good thanks miss."

"I suppose it was on a private matter that you ventured forth?"

"Yes miss."

"But you looked after our Molly."

"Next time I will have a feed bag for her."

"She has a stable, I heard."

"A shed. I rented it, miss."

"Did you meet the landlady at all?"

"A moment."

"They say she is handsome."

"Yes, very."

"It would not be the first time she gave a stranger shelter."

"Will that be all sir?" he asked me, coloring.

"Yes," I said. "Please leave us."

When he had gone Amelia said, "He looks at you in such a cheeky way, don't you think? What have you just given him permission for?"

I said I had given no permission, and if anyone had been permissive it was she who gave him the horse.

She put aside her book and stood as if to leave. "My father thinks Larrit has smuggled his wife to Wethersfield."

And then, the minx, she kissed me, and held my hands, high, so they would almost touch her breasts.

Said she, "It must be very nice to have a wife," referring frankly to those pleasures which she had hitherto invited but denied.

"Indeed," I said, for what else could I say? She had such a bright engaged intelligence, and such beauty, that one would think her, in France, to be an aristocrat, a woman like Mme de Stael, although not burdened with her flirtatious reputation. Here in Wethersfield, she could also be seen carrying feed for her chickens, not playing the farm girl but running a considerable business of her own. She would not marry a man who did not love her and a man who loved her could only make that clear by his proposal. There was no question in my mind that I must, sooner rather than later, overcome my sense of duty to my mother. I must eliminate all those ancient lines that led me to this point, sever that root to the Clarels and Barfleurs, everything by which I secured my place on earth, my hope for glory. And yet of course my past in France was not secure at all, nor could my future be when, even now, my own kind was once again regarded an enemy of the state. If this mortal danger was a privilege of rank, why should I not cast it from me?

Was not the American democracy preferable? Was not the French turmoil the result only of its inevitable path toward democracy, a treacherous confluence where the river of nobility met the ocean of equality? Was it not better to inhabit the future than the past? And if the future appeared half-made and raw, was it not also peacefully free of politics and parties? In America there was nothing like our schisms, our ancient blood-drenched hatreds. I could discover no discord here more serious than the manufacturing states bickering with the agrarian about a tariff.