The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace

tray, the floor rolling under his feet. He pulled the cork from a bottle and splashed red wine into a glass.
    “Good health,” the painter said, raising it.
    “We haven’t been introduced,” Louisa said. “I am Mrs. Heron, this is my sister-in-law, Miss Heron, and my daughter, Miss Harriet Heron.”
    “Heron.” He rolled his wine around the inside of his glass. “I don’t know the name.”
    “Why should you?” Louisa said gaily.
    He turned to Harriet again. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
    Harriet pulled strands of meat from a chop with the large knife and fork. She’d never tasted wine. Throughout her childhood, Louisa had said she was too young. Later, when other girls her age were marrying, giving birth, running households, Louisa had insisted that wine might bring on an attack.
    “I believe I would,” Harriet said. “Yes.”
    “She doesn’t take it,” Louisa said. “My daughter is an invalid.”
    “Mother, I—”
    “I see. And Miss Heron, being the mainstay of the Reverend’s congregation, will most likely be a teetotaler. But Mrs. Heron”— he carried on looking at Louisa—“will join me.”
    He reached out and poured another glass. Putting down the bottle with a bump, he held out the wine to Louisa. There were streaks of oil paint on the back of his hand, bronze and sage and dark mustard, raised spots of it on his nails thrown into relief by the light from the chandelier. Louisa’s eyes were fixed on the man’s hand. She hesitated as she took the glass.
    “You must be a painter,” she said.
    “I am. Why, Mrs. Heron? Are you interested in painting?”
    Louisa shook her head. “Not especially.”
    Her voice was flat. Harriet shifted on her chair and glanced at her aunt.
    “Do you intend staying long in Egypt?” Yael asked, peering at the man through the spectacles that magnified her eyes and made her appear as if she were capable of clairvoyance.
    “Until it becomes tedious,” he said. “Which I expect will be soon. I’ve been a half-dozen times before.”
    Louisa interrupted the silence that followed.
    “I don’t believe you told us your name, Mr. . . .?”
    The air of giddiness and elation had leached away from her and her voice was clipped.
    The man leaned back in the revolving chair. “I don’t believe I did. It’s Soane. Eyre Soane.”
    It seemed to Harriet that Louisa flinched. “You have an unusual name,” she said.
    “You are not familiar with it, Mrs. Heron?”
    “There are so many names, these days,” said Yael.
    Louisa had barely touched the slice of steak pie, the mound of tinned peas, before she laid down her knife and fork, declared herself unable to eat another morsel, and asked Mr. Soane to excuse her. Picking up her fan, she began ushering her skirts out from under the table.
    “Will you take some water, Mother?” Harriet said. “Oh . . .”
    Louisa, half out of her seat, had knocked over her wineglass. A ruby sea was seeping over the white damask.
    “Come, Harriet. It’s time we retired,” she said. “If you would excuse us, Mr. . . .”
    “Soane.” He raised his glass to her again. “Not an easy name to forget.”
    “Come, Harriet,” Louisa repeated.
    Calling the dog out from under the table, concealing her chop bone in her napkin, Harriet had no choice but to follow Louisa out of the saloon.
    As she reached the sliding doors, Harriet glanced back at their table. The steward who had poured the wine now dabbed at the spilled wine with a napkin. Yael was eating pudding as if she were alone, her head bent over her dish. Eyre Soane sat upright in his chair, an unlit cigar between his lips, one ankle crossed over his knee. Mrs. Cox’s prediction made its way unbidden into Harriet’s mind and, as if he could read her thoughts, the painter turned and looked straight at her, his dark eyes fixing on her own gray ones. There was no doubt this time that it was she who attracted his attention.
    Feeling her face begin to burn, Harriet