roked his jaw. He looked
like an old turkey cock, with fierce eyes, a hooked nose and a long,
wrinkled neck. The leather-bound copy of Montaigne's essays that had
been lying in his lap had slipped to the floor to join newspapers piled
around his feet like autumn leaves, a mixture of local papers like Frank
Hopkins's _Victor Visitor_, and the Galena _Miners Journal_, months-old
papers from the East--the _New York Evening Post_, the _Boston Evening
Transcript_, the _National Intelligencer_ from Washington City, the even
older copies of _Mercure de France_ from Paris.

"Come here, both of you," Elysee sighed.

Hoping his father could reconcile them where he had failed so dismally,
Pierre went to stand before Elysee's chair. After a moment's hesitation
Raoul approached too. But Pierre saw that he was pointedly keeping more
than an arm's-length distance between the two of them.

Elysee said, "That's better. I can't see you when you stand far from me.
These eyes are good for very little but reading, and when I can no
longer read, I will shoot myself. And if I cannot see well enough to
load the pistol, one of you must do it for me."

As he often did, Elysee was attempting to use humor to put out the fire.
Pierre glanced at Raoul to see if their father had drawn a smile from
him. But Raoul stood with arms folded across his chest, his mouth hidden
under his black mustache, his eyes narrowed. Except when he smiled--and
today he was far from any smiling--the mustache made him look
perpetually angry.

"Raoul," Elysee said. "Be assured that we are listening to you. Tell us
what has driven you to destroy one of our family treasures."

"Just because Pierre soiled himself with a squaw," Raoul demanded, "do
we have to live with what came of it?"

Pierre felt his face burn. He wanted to slap Raoul.

_My life with Sun Woman was as honorable as my life with Marie-Blanche._

He forced himself to control his temper. If he became as angry as Raoul
was, this day would surely be the ruin of the house of de Marion.

Pierre felt a sudden twinge of pain in his belly. He fought down an urge
to rub himself there. He wanted no one to know about his illness. Worse
than the pain was the fear it brought on, the chilling suspicion that he
was a dying man.

Fearfully he wondered what death would be like. Though Pere Isaac said
such notions were foolish, he could not help seeing God the Father as an
enormous white-bearded judge, seated among th