In other words, there was a great deal going on in that charming room with its merry fireplace and the deep-silled windows with their views of the late-February snow, but not so much that I could not sense him gazing at me constantly. I was, without this help, acutely aware that I would soon have to speak to him.

He had shown, during every moment of my visit, the most agreeable and cultivated manner, but I never forgot that he was a passionate Republican and could never have imagined this French noble might become his son.

"Do you have a French expression for cabin fever?" he inquired at last.

I could, of course, supply several, not only in French but in German too.

"We should take a trip," said he. "We should get away."

I wished to go nowhere, to do nothing but finish my chapter and see my beloved. I was, at that moment, in the best place on earth. "Indeed," I said. "We must."

"Six more weeks and there will be dogwood blooming in Atlanta," he said. "We might be there to greet it. You will find a different America down there, I promise you." He had by then turned and was standing over me, smiling down. For a dreadful moment I thought he intended to read my manuscript. I sprinkled a cloud of sawdust on the pages.

"That sounds an excellent idea," I said.

"Well, frankly, I am pleased to hear it," he said, "for you cannot stay in Wethersfield and know what is happening on the Mississippi or understand the passions in South Carolina where, at this very moment, there are otherwise intelligent men gone mad and marching in the streets, declaring they will fight to separate from the Union."

At that moment my dear beautiful beloved entered.

"What say you to this?" he asked her, holding out a drawing but I observed his eyes joining her to me, and saw her warm smile in return.

Blood rushed to my cheeks.

My darling made some comment about the corn shucker I did not exactly understand but which clearly concerned the utility of her father's emendation. Watching this picture, the seated father with the high forehead, the eyes turned up toward the thoughtful girl, her handsome features softly illuminated by the field of snow, I thought of her meeting with my mother. It should have frightened me, but it amused me to imagine Amelia Godefroy politely passing the cogwheel of a corn shucker to the Comtesse de Garmont.

Amelia crossed the rug and stood beside my desk, resting her hand upon my shoulder.

"So what do you say?" she asked.

"Say?" I asked, alarmed that there would now be some frank conversation performed in some violently efficient American way. I was not ready, not at all.

"To my father's invitation."

She looked deep into my eyes and I saw what she had done. She was conspiring to send me away with her father, to keep us locked together in a carriage until the matter of our marriage was raised and settled once and for all. Of course there would be democratic opposition to my nobility, but how could Amelia's loving determination not excite my pulse and predict the strength of our union?

Nor was I unaware of the enormous benefit this travel would have for my greater work which, no matter how much I wished to stay here at Wethersfield, could not possibly be completed without venturing into the nether regions of America.

These travels of mine are, by this time, generally well known, being a considerable part of Morals and Manners in Democracies. This present narration, therefore, will not repeat my existing accounts of the explosion aboard the Comet behind the barrier islands, our meetings with the Creeks in Georgia, or the astonishing discovery of President Andrew Jackson sitting quite alone in his rather plain salon.

As for Mr. Godefroy's great appetites for life, they have no place in either book, although it is a caution to any foreigner taking the pulse of this nation, that I would never have guessed at the depth of his character if I had known him only in the Protestant propriety of Wethersfield. Once we were in the free and open air of New York State, he whom I hoped to be my father bloomed spectacularly and did not once cease to astonish me all the way to Virginia, where it proved necessary for him to fight a duel in which he behaved with extraordinary courage and dignity. When his poor henpecked opponent, having missed his shot, awaited his death, Godefroy fired into the air.

Whether that individual's honor could be said to have been restored, I would judge quite unlikely, but what is certain is that the book I labored on so long would never have been written without Philip Godefroy. And if I must here record lighter, more personal matters, let it be said that Godefroy was on good terms with those on all sides of the great questions. We dined with Mr. Biddle of the First Bank of the United States before calling on Andrew Jackson who was set on destroying all the bankers' power. We enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Calhoun and the great good humor of the diminutive Van Buren.

Through all this very long and sometimes arduous journey, during which we were often delayed by the most appalling roads and had not much better fortune when we took to sea and river, I wrote constantly to Amelia and she to me. These letters, being both passionate and intelligent, made me all the more certain of the correctness of our course.

WE WERE IN SOUTH CAROLINA by the time the subject could be approached but even then there were impediments which I would ask you, like Godefroy and myself, to tolerate a while longer.

I forget the name of our hotel except it was considered the best place in Charleston. Godefroy had written to secure our lodging while we were still in Georgia.

What he wrote I do not know, but clearly an impression had been made, for although we arrived late at night we were greeted with much bowing and scraping and a boy was sent to the chef with an order to keep the fires alive. The landlord then held us under close engagement-I presumed to cover any likely delay in the kitchen-so by the time we were seated at table we knew he had purchased the cellar of the late Thomas Jefferson and had himself driven all the way to Monticello to collect his loot, sleeping beneath his carriage on return as he feared he would be robbed of his treasure by bandits or oenophiles or worse.

Who knows how much he paid for his fifty cases? More, certainly, than he could afford, for we had been but a moment in the dining room-a place of extraordinary pretension-when he was looming over us ready to discuss his carte de vin. He was a confusing man to consider, a meaty military-looking fellow with the manner of a bully but at the same time unctuous, a character echoed in the decoration of the dining room, a high-ceilinged hall with a gallery from which were hung the flags of all the nations. Against this manly bluster were opposed a great number of floral displays too strongly perfumed for their situation.

He presented us each with his wine list explaining, ha-ha, that it would have been a deal longer if my countryman Lafayette had not had such pleasure from it. I thought him tedious.

Godefroy raised an apologetic eyebrow as the man happily recounted how the late president had died impoverished, and he had managed to get a great bargain from the estate.

"The prices, monsieur," the landlord said to me, "will gratify you I am sure."

Grave robbing to one side, the list saddened me, for it was not what you would expect in the cellar of a head of state. There was a Bergasse, a wine mixed together in some cellar in Marseille which was labeled claret in the English manner, also some Blanquette de Limoux, a great deal of Minervois and Languedoc. Only a Beaune Greves Vigne de l'Enfant Jesus seemed to rise above the ordinary.

Godefroy declared I must choose, but I declined, saying I was a stranger in his land.