The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

what title and which estates—but she had known, and it had been part of her fondness for him, that such painstaking alertness arose from his own lack of a title and his occupation of yet a middling position in government—which is to say from his naturallycautious character. Now, she saw that this was changed, that Roger’s ability to juggle in his mind the different interests and ranks of many people was no longer in service to his own defense but, on the contrary, to his own explicit, manipulative advantage. She had no doubt that he watched the other members of the Cabal like an unfailingly deferential hawk, waiting for the slightest misstep (as she was suddenly sure Francis Xonck’s bandaged arm had been a secret delight to him). Before when Roger had grimaced at her outbursts or expressions of opinion, it had been at her lack of tact or care for the delicate social fabric of a conversation he had been at effort to maintain—and his reaction had filled her with a mischievous pleasure. Now, despite her attempts to bait or provoke him, all she saw was a pinched, unwillingly burdened
tolerance
, rooted in the disappointment of wasting time with one who could offer him no advantage whatsoever. The difference made Miss Temple sad in a way she had not foreseen.
    “I have presumed to briefly join you,” he began, “at the suggestion of the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza—”
    “I am sure the Contessa gives you all manner of suggestions,” interrupted Miss Temple, “and have no doubt that you follow them eagerly!”
    Did she even believe this? The accusation had been too readily at hand not to fling … not that it seemed to find any purchase on its target.
    “Since,” he continued after a brief pause, “it is intended that you undergo the Process upon our arrival at Harschmort House, it will arise that, although we have been in the last days
sundered
, after your ordeal we shall be reconciled to the same side—as allies.”
    This was not what she had expected. He watched her, defensively expectant, as if her silence was the prelude to another childish eruption of spite.
    “Celeste,” he said, “I do urge you to be rational. I am speaking of facts. If it is necessary—if it will clarify your situation—I willagain assure you that I am well beyond all feelings of attachment … or equally of resentment.”
    Miss Temple could not credit what she had heard. Resentment? When it was
she
who had been so blithely overthrown, she who had borne for how many evenings and afternoons in their courtship the near mummifying company of the condescending, starch-minded, middling-fortuned Bascombe family!
    “I beg your pardon?” she managed.
    He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say—what I have come to say—is that our new alliance—for your loyalties will be changed, and if I know the Contessa, she will insist that the two of us continue to work in concert—”
    Miss Temple narrowed her eyes at the idea of what
that
might mean.
    “—and it would be best if, as a rational being, you could join me in setting aside your vain affection and pointless bitterness. I assure you—there will be less
pain
.”
    “And I assure
you
, Roger, I have done just that. Unfortunately, recent days having been so very busy, I’ve yet had a moment to set aside my virulent
scorn
.”
    “Celeste, I speak for your good, not mine—truly, it is a generosity—”
    “A
generosity
?”
    “I do not expect you to see it,” he muttered.
    “Of course not! I haven’t had my mind re-made by a
machine
!”
    Roger stared at her in silence and then slowly stood, straightening his coat and, by habit, smoothing back his hair with two fingers, and even then in her heart she found him to be quite lovely. Yet his gaze, quite fixed upon her, conveyed a quality she had never seen in him before—undisguised contempt. He was not angry—indeed, what hurt her most was the exact lack of emotion behind his eyes. It truly made no sense to her—in Miss Temple’s body, in her memory, all such moments were rooted in some sort of
feeling,
and Roger Bascombe stood revealed to her as no kind of man she had ever met.
    “You will see,” he said, his voice cool and low. “The Process will remake you to the ground, and you will see—for the very first time in your life, I am sure—the true nature of your shuttered mind. The Contessa suggests you possess reserves of character I have not seen—to which I can only agree that I have
not
seen them. You