Up the stairs she went, fast as her legs would carry her. When she turned around and looked back, Julia and Kenneth were leaning towards each other. She sighed. She didn't know what Julia saw in him. He was only an inch or two taller than she, and, to Mary's eyes, nothing much to look at. Some actress had got a reputation as the girl with it. In Julia's eyes, plainly, Kenneth Marble had it. Mary still found it more bewildering than exciting.

She flopped down on her bed and started reading a copy of The Ladies' Home Journal she'd got the last time she went into Rosenfeld. The magazine showed her a whole different world, and not just because it came from the USA. Skinny girls in short dresses strode city streets, rode in motorcars, listened to the wireless, lived in apartments, used electric lights and telephones, and did all sorts of other things Mary thought herself unlikely ever to do. Even more than what they did, that they took it so completely for granted was daunting.

If it weren't for the recipes and patterns the Journal included, Mary's mother probably wouldn't have let it come into the farmhouse. Nothing could have been better calculated to make someone on a farm discontented with her life. This issue even had a story about flying to California for a holiday. Flying! For pleasure! The only aeroplanes Mary had even seen were the fighting scouts and bombers that had buzzed above the farm during the Great War. She couldn't imagine wanting to get into one of those.

The Journal also had an article about a journey on an ocean liner. Mary couldn't decide whether she found stranger the idea of a liner or that of the ocean itself. She'd never seen it, and didn't expect she ever would. Before she could read much of the article, a commotion broke out downstairs: Julia and their mother and Beth Marble sounded even more excited than the hens had when Mary rifled their nests.

She flipped the magazine closed and hurried down to see what had happened. She found her older sister in tears, with their mother and Mrs. Marble both embracing her. Kenneth Marble stood off to one side, a sickly grin on his face. Mary stared at him. Had he tried to…? With his own mother, and Julia's, in the next room? He couldn't have been that stupid. Could he?

Then Mary noticed both her mother and Beth Marble were crying and smiling at the same time. Maude McGregor said, "Kenneth just asked Julia to marry him, and she said yes."

"Oh." Mary couldn't have said anything more if she tried; she felt as if she'd been punched in the pit of the stomach. Even breathing was hard. The first thought that went through her mind was, How will we do the work if Julia moves away? Even with all three of them working flat out, it barely got done.

Despite her mother's smile, Maude McGregor looked worried, too. Mrs. Marble seemed oblivious to the glance that went between Mary and her mother. It wasn't her trouble, after all.

"This is the happiest day of my life," Julia said. Beth Marble burst into tears again. Mary congratulated her sister. What a liar I am, she thought.

AmericanEmpire: TheCenterCannotHold

T o Anne Colleton's ears, J.B.H. Norris' drawl sounded harsh and ignorant. But the Texas oil man had proved a sharp operator in spite of that backwoods accent. "Hope you'll see fit to invest in our operation here, ma'am," he said, tipping his hat to her. The Stetson, with its high crown and wide brim, also told her she wasn't in South Carolina any more.

She was near the banks of the Brazos River, northwest of Fort Worth. And she had questions that went beyond profit and loss. She pointed west. "That new Yankee state of Houston isn't very far away. What happens if there's another war? How are you going to keep U.S. soldiers and aeroplanes from wrecking everything you've got?"

"Ma'am, you'd do better asking Richmond about that than me," Norris answered. "If they hadn't given up so much last time, we wouldn't need to fret about it now."

"Yes, but they did, and so we do." Anne slapped at something. The mosquitoes were coming out early this afternoon. It wasn't quite so muggy as it would have been back home, but it would do.

J.B.H. Norris said, "Don't quite know what to tell you about that, except I don't think a war's coming any time soon."

"No," Anne said bleakly. "I don't, either. We're too weak."

"That's about the size of it," Norris agreed. "At least President Mitchel has the sense to see it. That Featherston maniac would get us into a fight we can't hope to win."

"I used to like him better than I do now, but he hasn't got any real chance of getting elected, anyway," Anne said. "So I'm a Whig again. Some people don't much like that, but I've never much cared for what people like or don't like." She changed the subject, but only a little: "What do you think of the Supreme Court ruling that lets Mitchel run again?"

"Well, the Constitution says a president serves the six-year term he's elected for, and then he's done." Norris shrugged. "President Mitchel didn't run for the job-he got it when that Calkins bastard-pardon me, ma'am-killed President Hampton. So I suppose it's only fair to let him try and win it again on his own. And Calkins was one of those Freedom Party fools, so I'm not surprised the Supreme Court gave it to Featherston right between the eyes."

"Yes, that occurred to me, too. Featherston frightened people-powerful people-a few years ago. Now they're going to make him pay for it." Anne Colleton's smile had a certain predatory quality, enough so that J.B.H. Norris flinched when she turned it on him rather than the world at large. She went on, "I do thank you for showing me around. You've given me a lot to think about-more than I expected when I came out to Texas, in fact. I may well put some of my money here once I get home."

Norris beamed. "That'd be wonderful. We can use the capital, and I'm not lyin' when I tell you so." He scratched his cheek with his left hand. Only then did Anne notice his ring finger was just a stump. A war wound? Probably. A lot of men had such small mutilations. He added, "If you're heading back East, you'd better not waste a lot of time. From what the papers say, the flood in the Mississippi Valley just keeps gettin' worse and worse."

"I know." Anne had been reading the papers, too. Anger roiled her voice: "And it's hurt us so much worse than it hit the damnyankees. If they hadn't stolen Kentucky and that piece of Arkansas from us, it wouldn't have hurt them much at all. Cairo, Illinois, got flooded." She rolled her eyes. "Cairo, Illinois, never was any sort of a place to begin with. But we've had Memphis and Little Rock just drowned, and the levees in New Orleans were holding by this much"-she held thumb and forefinger close together-"when I went through Louisiana on my way here."

"May not be so easy gettin' back," Norris warned.

"Why not?" Anne said. "Most of the bridges over the Mississippi are still standing."

"Yes, ma'am." The oil man nodded again. "The bridges over the Mississippi are still good. They're the big, strong ones, and they were built to take whatever the river could throw at 'em. But what about the bridges on the way to the Mississippi? An awful lot of them'll go down, I bet. I may be wrong, but that's sure enough how it looks to me."

Anne muttered something under her breath. It wasn't quite far enough under, for J.B.H. Norris' gingery eyebrows leapt upwards. He'll never think of me as a lady again, Anne thought, and did her best not to giggle. Well, fair enough, because I'm damn well not. Worry wiped out the temptation to laugh. "You're dead right, Mr. Norris, and I wish I'd thought of that myself. Please take me back to my hotel. I can't afford to waste much time, can I?"

"No, I don't reckon you can," Norris said. "Wish I could see more of you, but I know how things are. Car's right over there." He pointed to a middle-aged Birmingham outside the shack that did duty for an office.