"We'll be right down," I promised.

"You just want to skip our political talk, that's all," Paul accused playfully. But when he looked at me closer, he saw why I wanted to take Jeanne upstairs and he put his arm around James and led him away.

Jeanne burst into tears the moment we were alone. "What is it?" I asked, embracing her. I led her to the settee and handed her a handkerchief.

"Oh, Ruby, I'm so unhappy. I thought I would have a marriage as wonderful as yours, but it's been disappointing. Not the first two weeks, of course," she added between sobs, "but afterward, when we settled down, the romance just seemed to die. All he cares about is his career and his work. Sometimes he doesn't come home until ten or eleven o'clock and I have to eat dinner all alone, and then when he does arrive, he's usually so exhausted, he wants to go right to sleep."

"Did you tell him how you feel about it?" I asked, sitting beside her.

"Yes." She sucked in her gasps and stopped sobbing. "But all he says is he's just starting his career and I have to be understanding. One night he snapped at me and said, 'I'm not as lucky as your brother. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth so I would inherit oil-rich land. I've got to work for a living.'

"I told him Paul works for a living. I don't know anyone who works harder. He doesn't take anything for granted, right, Ruby?"

"Paul thinks there are twenty-five hours in every day, not twenty-four," I said, smiling.

"Yet somehow he manages to keep the romance in your marriage, doesn't he? A person would just have to look at you two together and he or she would see how devoted you are to each other and how much you care about each other's feelings. No matter how hard Paul works, he always has time for you, doesn't he? And you don't mind his being away so much, right?"

I shifted my eyes away quickly so she couldn't read the truth in them and then I folded my arms across my chest in Grandmère Catherine's way and filled my face with deep thought. She waited anxiously for my reply, her hands twisting in her lap.

"Yes," I finally replied, "but maybe that's because I'm so involved in my art."

She nodded and sighed.

"That's what James said. He said I should find something to do so I don't dote upon him so much, but I wanted to dote on him and our marriage. That's why I got married!" she exclaimed. "The truth is," she continued, dabbing at her cheeks with the handkerchief, "the passion is already gone."

"Oh, Jeanne, I'm sure that's not so."

"We haven't made love for two straight weeks," she revealed. "That's a long time for a husband and wife, right?" she followed, fixing her eyes on me for my reaction.

"Well . . ." I looked down and smoothed out my skirt so she wouldn't see my face again. Grandmère Catherine used to say my thoughts were as obvious as a secret written in a book with a glass cover. "I don't think there's any set time or rate of lovemaking, even for married people. Besides," I replied, now thinking about Beau, "it's something that both have to want spontaneously, impulsively."

"James," she said, gazing at her entwined fingers, "believes in the rhythm method because he's such a devout Catholic. I have to take my temperature before we make love. You don't do that, do you?"

I shook my head. I knew that a woman's body temperature was supposed to reflect when she was most apt to become pregnant, and that was considered an acceptable method of birth control, but I had to admit, taking your temperature before sleeping together would diminish the romance.

"So you see why I'm so unhappy?" she concluded.

"Doesn't he know just how deeply unhappy you are?" I asked. She shrugged. "You should talk to him more about it, Jeanne. No one else can help you two but you two."

"But if there's no passion . . ."

"Yes, I agree. There must be passion, but there must be compromise, too. That's what marriage is," I continued, realizing how true it was for Paul and me, "compromise —two people sacrificing willingly for the good of each other. They must care as much for each other as they do for themselves. But it works only if both do it," I said, thinking about Daddy and his devotion to Daphne.

"I don't think James wants to be like that," Jeanne worried.

"I'm sure he does, but it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to build a relationship."

She nodded, slightly encouraged. "Paul and you have certainly spent a long time together. Is that why your marriage is so perfect?" she asked.

A strange aching began in my heart. I hated how one lie led to another and then another, building one upon the other until we were buried under a mountain of deceit.

"Nothing is perfect, Jeanne."

"Paul and you are as close as can be. Look how the two of you were toward each other from the first day you two met. The truth is," she said sadly, "I was hoping James would worship me as much as Paul worships you. I suppose I shouldn't compare him to my brother."

"No one should worship anyone, Jeanne," I said softly, but the way she viewed Paul and me and the way others saw us made me feel ever so guilty for loving Beau on the side. What a shock it would be if the truth were to be known, I thought, and how devastating it would be to Paul.

Talking like this with Jeanne made me realize that my relationship with Beau would go nowhere. It might even destroy Paul little by little. I had made my choice, accepted his kindness and devotion, and now I had to live with that choice. I couldn't be selfish enough to do anything else.

"Maybe I will have another long talk with James," Jeanne said. "Maybe you're right—maybe it takes time." "Anything worthwhile does," I said softly.

She was so involved with her own problems, she couldn't see the longing in my eyes. She seized my hands in hers. "Thank you, Ruby. Thank you for listening and caring."

We hugged and she smiled. Why was it so easy to help other people feel happy, but so hard to help myself? I wondered.

"There really is a new dress to show you," I said, and took her to my closet. Afterward, we joined Paul and James in the living room and had some after-dinner cordials. Jeanne smiled at me when James put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. He whispered something in her ear and she turned crimson. Then they announced they were tired and had to go home. At the doorway, Jeanne leaned over to thank me again. From the look in her eyes, I saw she was excited and happy. Paul and I remained on the gallery and watched them go to their car and drive away.

It was a rather clear evening, so that we could look up at the star-studded sky and see constellations from one horizon to the other. Paul took my hand.

"Want to sit outside awhile?" he asked. I nodded and we went to the bench. The night was filled with the monotonous symphony of cicadas interrupted by the occasional hoot of an owl.

"Jeanne wanted some big-sister advice tonight, didn't she?" he asked.

"Yes, but I'm not sure I'm the one she should have been asking."

"Of course you are." After a pause he added, "James asked me for advice, too. Made me feel older than I am." He turned to me in the darkness, his face cloaked in the shadows. "They think we're Mr. and Mrs. Perfect."

"I know."

"I wish we were." He took my hand again. "So what are we going to do?"

"Let's not try to come up with all the answers tonight, Paul. I'm tired and confused myself."

"Whatever you say." He leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. "Don't hate me for loving you so much," he whispered. I wanted to hug him, to kiss him, to soothe his troubled soul, but all I could do was shed some tears and stare into the night with my heart feeling like a lump of lead.

Finally we both went in and up to our separate bedrooms. After I put out my light, I stood by my window and gazed into the evening sky. I thought about Jeanne and James hurrying home after a wonderful meal, wine, and conversation, excited about each other, eager to hold each other and cap the evening with their lovemaking.

While in his room, Paul embraced a pillow, and in mine, I embraced my memories of Beau.

Shortly after Paul left for work the next morning, Beau called. He was so excited about our next rendezvous, barely squeezing in a breath as he described his plans for our day and evening, that at first I couldn't get in a word.

"You don't know how this has changed my life," he said. "You've given me something to look forward to, something to cheer me through the most dreary days and nights."

"Beau, I have some bad news," I finally inserted, and told him about Mrs. Flemming's daughter. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone things."

"Why? Just come in with Pearl," he pleaded.

"No. I can't," I said.

"It's more than that, isn't it?" he asked after a pause.

"Yes," I admitted, and told him about Paul.

"Then he knows about us?"

"Yes, Beau."

"Gisselle has been very suspicious lately, too," he confessed. "She's even uttered some veiled threats and some not so veiled threats."

"Then maybe it's best we cool things down," I suggested. "We must think of all the people we might hurt, Beau."

"Yes," he said in a cracked voice.

If words had weight, the telephone lines between New Orleans and Cypress Woods would sag and tear apart, I thought.

"I'm sorry, Beau."

I heard him sigh deeply. "Well, Gisselle keeps asking to go to the ranch for a few days. I guess I'll take her next week. The truth is, I hate living in this house without you, Ruby. There are too many memories of us together here. Every time I walk past your room, I stop and stare at the door and remember."

"Talk Gisselle into selling the house, Beau. Start new somewhere else," I suggested.

"She doesn't care. Nothing bothers her. What have we done to each other, Ruby?" he asked.

I swallowed back the throat lumps, but fugitive tears trickled down my cheeks. For a moment I couldn't find my voice.

"We fell in love, Beau. That's all. We fell in love."

"Ruby . . ."

"I've got to go, Beau. Please."

"Don't say good-bye. Just hang up," he told me, and I did so, but I sat at the phone and sobbed until I heard Pearl wake from her nap and call to me. Then I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and went on to fill my days and nights with as much work as I could find, so I wouldn't think and I wouldn't regret.

A quiet resignation fell over me. I began to feel like a nun, spending much of my time in quiet meditation, painting, reading, and listening to music. Caring for Pearl was a full-time job now, too. She was very active and curious about everything. I had to go about and make the house child-proof, placing valuable knick-knacks out of her reach, being sure she couldn't get into anything dangerous. Occasionally Molly would look after her for me for a few hours while I shopped or had some quiet time alone.

Paul was busier than ever; deliberately so, I thought. He was up at the crack of dawn and gone some days before I came down for breakfast. Sometimes he couldn't get back in time for dinner. He told me his father was doing less and less at the cannery, and talking about retirement.

"Maybe you should hire a manager, then," I suggested. "You can't do it all."

"I'll see," he promised, but I saw that he enjoyed being occupied. Just like me, he hated leisure because leisure made him reflect on what his life was really like now.

I thought it would go on like this forever until we were both old and gray, rocking side by side on the gallery and looking out at the bayou, wondering what life would have been like had we not made some of the decisions we had made when we were young and impulsive. But one night after dinner toward the end of the month, the phone rang. Paul had already settled himself in his favorite easy chair and had the journal opened to the business pages. Pearl was asleep and I was reading a novel. James appeared in the doorway.

"It's for Madame," he announced. Paul looked up curiously. I shrugged and rose.

"Maybe it's Jeanne," I suggested. He nodded. But it was Beau, who sounded like a voice without a body . . . a wisp of himself, so soft and stunned, I questioned whether it was really he.

"Beau? What is it?"

"It's Gisselle. We're at the ranch. We've been here for more than a week now."

"Oh," I said. "She knows about us, then?"

"No, that's not it," he replied.

I held my breath. "What then, Beau?"

"She was bitten by mosquitoes. We thought nothing of it. She complained like crazy, of course, but I rubbed alcohol on her and forgot it. Then . . ."