“That plant needs no pruning,” said Calvin, putting on the sophisticated English voice he had learned in London.

Lady Ashworth turned toward him in shock. “I beg your pardon. You were not admitted here.”

“The doors were open. I heard you tell your servant to send me away. But I could not bear to leave without having seen a lady of such legendary grace and beauty.”

“Your compliments disgust me,” she said, her cavalier drawl lengthening with the fervor of her opinion. “I have no patience with dandies, and as for trespassers, I generally have them killed.”

“There's no need to have me killed. Your contemptuous gaze has already stopped my heart from beating.”

“Oh, I see, you're not flattering me, you're mocking me. Don't you know this house is full of servants? I'll have you thrown out.”

“Blacks lay hands on a White man?”

“We always use our servants to take out the trash.”

The banter was not engaging even a tiny fraction of Calvin's attention. Instead he was using his doodlebug to explore Lady Ashworth's body. In his peregrinations with Honor‚ de Balzac, Calvin had watched the Frenchman seduce several dozen women of every social class, and because Calvin was a scientist at heart, he had used his doodlebug to note the changes in a woman's body as her lust was aroused. There were tiny organs where certain juices were made and released into the blood. It was hard to find them, but once found, they could easily be stimulated. In moments, Calvin had three different glands secreting rather strong doses of the juices of desire, and now it was his eyes, not just his doodlebug, that could see the transformation in Lady Ashworth. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, her manner more aloof, her voice huskier. «Compared to your grace and beauty I am trash and nothing more,» Calvin said. «But I am your trash, my lady, to do with as you will. Discard me and I will cease to exist. Save me and I will become whatever you want me to be. A jewel to wear upon your bosom. A fan behind which your beauty may continue unobserved. Or perhaps the glove in which your hand may stay clean and warm.»

“Who would ever have guessed that such talk could come from a frontier boy from Wobbish,” she said, suppressing a smile.

“What matters isn't where a man is from, but where he's going. I think that all my life was leading to this moment. To this hot day in Camelot, this porch, this jungle of living plants, this magnificent Eve who is tending the garden.”

She looked down at her pruning shears. “But you said I shouldn't cut this plant.”

“It would be heartless,” said Calvin. “It reaches up, not to the sun, but to you. Do not despise what grows for love of you, my lady.”

She blushed and breathed more rapidly. “The things you say.”

“I came in search of my brother's wife, because I heard she had visited here,” said Calvin. “I could have left a card with your servant to accomplish that.”

“I suppose you could.”

“But even on the harsh cobbles of the street, I could hear you like music, smell you like roses, see you like the light of the one star breaking through on a cloudy night. I knew that in all the world this is the place I had to be, even if it cost me my life or my honor. My lady, until this moment every day of life was a burden, without purpose or joy. Now all I long for is to stay here, looking at you, wondering at the marvels of perfection concealed by the draperies of your clothing, tied up by the pins in your hair.”

She was trembling. “You shouldn't talk about such…”

He stood before her now, inches from her. As he had seen with Honor‚'s seductions, his closeness would heighten the feelings within her. He reached up and brushed his fingers gently across her cheek, then her neck, her shoulder, touching only bare skin. She gasped but did not speak, did not take her eyes from his.

“My eyes imagine,” he murmured, “my lips imagine, every part of my body imagines being close to you, holding you, becoming part of you.”

She staggered, barely able to walk as she led him from the porch to her bedroom.

Besides studying the women's bodies, Calvin had also studied Honor‚'s, had seen how the Frenchman tried to maintain himself on the brink of ecstacy for as long as possible without crossing over. What Honor‚ had to do with self-discipline, Calvin could do mechanically, with his doodlebug. Lady Ashworth was possessed by pleasure many times and in many ways before Calvin finally allowed himself to find release. They lay together on sheets clammy with their sweat. «If this is how the devil rewards wickedness,» murmured Lady Ashworth, «I understand why God seems to be losing ground in this world.» But there was sadness in her voice, for now her conscience was reawakening, ready to punish her for the pleasure she had taken.

“There was no wickedness here today,” said Calvin. “Was not your body made by God? Did not these desires come from that body? What are you but the woman God made you to be? What am I but the man God brought here to worship you?”

“I don't even know your name,” she said.

“Calvin.”

“Calvin? That's all?”

“Calvin Maker.”

“A good name, my love,” she said. “For you have made me. Until this hour I did not truly exist.”

Calvin wanted to laugh in her face. This is all that romance and love amounted to. Juices flowing from the glands. Bodies coupling in heat. A lot of pretty talk surrounding it.

He cleaned his body again. Hers also. But not the seed he left inside her. On impulse he followed it, wondering what it might accomplish. The idea rather appealed to him– a child of his, raised in a noble house. If he wanted to have seven sons, did it matter whether they all had the same mother? Let this be the first.

Was it possible to decide whether it would be a boy or a girl? He didn't know. Maybe Alvin could comprehend things as small as this, but it was all Calvin could do just to follow what was happening inside Lady Ashworth's body. And then even that slipped away from him. He just didn't know what he was looking for. At least she wasn't already pregnant.

“That was my first time, you know,” he said.

“How could it be?” she said. “You knew everything. You knew how to– my husband knows nothing compared to you.”

“My first time,” he said. “I never had another woman until now. Your body taught me all I needed to know.”

He caused the sweat on the sheets to dry, despite the dampness of the air. He rose from the cool dry bed, clean and fresh as he was when he arrived. He looked at her. Not young, really; sagging just a bit; but not too bad, considering. Honor‚ would probably approve. If he decided to tell him.

Oh, he would tell him. Without doubt, for Honor‚ would love the story of it, would love hearing how much Calvin had learned from his constant dalliances.

“Where is my sister-in-law?” Calvin asked matter-of-factly.

“Don't go,” said Lady Ashworth.

“It wouldn't do for me to stay,” said Calvin. “The gossipy ladies of Camelot would never understand the perfect beauty of this hour.”

“But you'll come back.”

“As often as prudence allows,” he said. “For I will not permit my visits here to do you any harm.”

“What have I done,” she murmured. “I am not a woman who commits adultery.”

On the contrary, Calvin thought. You're just a woman who was never tempted until now. That's all that virtue amounts to, isn't it? Virtue is what you treasure until you feel desire, and then it becomes an intolerable burden to be cast away, and only to be picked up again when the desire fades.

“You are a woman who married before she met the love of her life,” said Calvin. “You serve your husband well. He has no reason to complain of you. But he will never love you as I love you.”

A tear slipped out of her eye and ran across her temple onto her hair-strewn pillow. “He rides me impatiently, like a carriage, getting out almost before he reaches his destination.”