“So you’re Lily’s little friend,” Mrs. astral cooed at Sacha. “I’m so very pleased to meet you. Lily’s told me so much about you.”
“No I haven’t,” Lily said churlishly.
“But, darling, don’t be shy! Of course you have! I’ve heard no end of charming stories about the fun you two have together!”
Sacha doubted that. But he thought it was nice of Mrs. Astral to say so. Unlike her daughter, she apparently cared about making people feel welcome and comfortable. Basking in the warmth of Mrs. Astral’s smile, he tried to be charitable toward Lily. It must be hard to live up to such a dazzling mother. Not that Lily wasn’t pretty enough in her own way. But she couldn’t hold a candle to her mother. As for personality, he supposed Lily must take after her father there. And while that sort of personality was no doubt very useful in a captain of industry, it was hardly the thing for a girl!
The tea arrived, and Mrs. Astral made a point of serving Sacha personally. She asked him how much milk and sugar he wanted in his tea as if he were a grown man instead of a boy. And when she handed him his cup, her hand brushed his in a way that made him feel very grown-up indeed.
“Now, Sacha,” she said, fixing him with her brilliant green gaze, “you must tell me all about your fascinating work with Inquisitor Wolf! He’s my hero! I’m simply desperate to meet him!”
“Then why don’t you invite him to dinner?” Lily interrupted.
Mrs. Astral cast a cool eye upon her daughter, as if she’d just noticed her presence and wasn’t entirely pleased about it. “Darling, what are you wearing? If you must go out in public like that, can you take some decent clothes in a bag and change before you come home? What if someone saw you?”
Before Lily could answer, Mrs. Astral turned back to Sacha.
“Where has Inquisitor Wolf taken you so far, Sacha? I hope he’s not keeping you too much under wraps. I hope he’s introducing you to the kind of people who can help your career. Has he taken you to see Teddy Roosevelt yet? They’re great friends. Or at least they used to be, back when poor Teddy was still the commissioner of police.” Mrs. Astral’s lovely face clouded over as if it made her unutterably sad to even think about “poor Teddy” not being police commissioner anymore. “It was so hard on him, being run out of town by that distasteful scandal! Why, he was so mortified that he ran off to Africa on safari and still hasn’t come back.”
“Yes,” Lily said with relish. “and when J. P. Morgaunt heard Teddy was gone, he went straight down to the Union Club, opened a case of champagne, and made a toast: ‘May the first lion Teddy meets do its duty!’”
“Lily!” Mrs. astral chided. “I’m sure dear Mr. Morgaunt would never say anything so bloodthirsty!”
Actually, Sacha thought this sounded like exactly the kind of thing dear Mr. Morgaunt would say. But it did seem rather coarse of Lily to mention it in polite company. And Mrs. Astral’s shock seemed like just another proof of her refined nature and womanly delicacy.
She leaned forward to pour Sacha another cup of tea. “You must be a tremendous help to Inquisitor Wolf. I’m sure he’s made use of your extraordinary talents already. Is it really true that you can see witches?”
“Well,” Sacha said modestly, “I don’t like to brag about it.”
“Oh, but you can tell me. I wouldn’t think it was bragging. I know all sorts of extraordinary people. I cultivate extraordinary people.”
“Like mushrooms,” Lily muttered. “By keeping them in the dark and burying them in mounds of bull—”
“What’s that, darling?” Mrs. Astral interrupted. “You really should learn to stop mumbling. And try not to frown like that. It makes you look even more ill-tempered than you are. I’m sorry, Sacha, you were telling me about how you help Inquisitor Wolf catch witches. How do you spot a witch? What is it that gives her away to you?”
On the other end of the sofa, Lily slammed her teacup into its saucer with an outraged rattle, but Sacha ignored her. “Well, uh… I don’t see the same thing every time. Sometimes it’s a kind of aura or halo. and other times it’s more like feeling than seeing.”
Mrs. Astral rested her chin on one hand and leaned forward as if she couldn’t wait to hear more. “And does a witch have to do magic for you to see these emanations, or can you see them all the time?”
“They have to do magic in front of me,” Sacha said. But this sounded rather unimpressive to him. And he definitely wanted to impress Mrs. Astral. So he added, in what he hoped was a grown-up and mysterious voice, “Most of the time.”
Mrs. Astral sat up and seemed almost to catch her breath at this. “Most of the time? What about the other times?”
“Well, you know … there are different clues.”
“Such as?”
“The usual,” Sacha said haltingly, trying to stumble out of the lie he’d tangled himself in. “Pointy noses, and warts, and wrinkles—”
“Oh!” She laughed in a way that struck Sacha, just for an instant, as not very nice. But then she smiled at him, and he forgot about it. Her green eyes glittered as she leaned forward to pat his hand. “How very clever of you!”
Mrs. Astral yawned and glanced over Sacha’s head at the monumental grandfather clock. “My, how late it’s gotten!” she cried. “How time passes when one’s in such charming company! Tell me, Sacha, how were you planning to get home? Is your family’s car coming to fetch you, or can I offer you a ride in ours?”
“No, thank you!” Sacha practically yelped. He could just imagine the look on the chauffeur’s face when he got his first glimpse of Hester Street.
“Really, I insist. In fact, I can’t think why I never thought of it before.” Lily’s mother rang the bell and a uniformed maidservant appeared so fast that Sacha wondered if she’d been listening at the keyhole.
“Biddy,” Mrs. Astral ordered, “instruct the chauffeur to drive Mr. Kessler home. And tell him that from today forward I desire him to drive Mr. Kessler home every night when he picks Lily up. That will give you two a little time to relax and chat after work every day. Won’t that be fun?” She smiled graciously at the two children and swept out of the room in a fragrant cloud of frangipani and orange blossoms.
As soon as her mother was gone, Lily kicked the coffee table hard enough to send tea sloshing into the saucers. “I don’t know why she’s being so nice to you!” she snarled. “She must want something, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is!”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You think I have nothing to offer because I’m poor? You think that makes me not worth talking to?”
“Frankly, yes. at least as far as my mother’s concerned. She’s a dreadful snob.”
“It seems to me like you’re the snob, not her. She’s not the one who could barely bring herself to invite me here!”
She rolled her eyes. “I knew you were rude. But I didn’t know you were stupid, too!”
“I’m stupid? How stupid is it to take a job where you’re too embarrassed to even introduce the people you work with to your mother?”
He expected Lily to fire back a blistering retort, but instead she just stared at him with her mouth hanging open. “Wait a minute. You think I was embarrassed to introduce you to her?”