American Front

"A date which will live in infamy for the British fleet," Forbes agreed sadly.

The butler approached with a silver tray. He wore white tie but, as if his dark brown skin were not enough to mark his status, his vest had stripes and the buttons on his cutaway were shiny brass, just as they would have been in London. "Something to drink, madam, sir?" he asked, his voice the bass pipe of an organ.

"Thank you, Scipio," A

Forbes took one, too. Scipio headed into the drawing room to serve some of the other art aficionados. "He's well spoken," Forbes remarked. "Can't say that for most of the niggers hereabouts-I can scarcely fathom their jargon."

"We had him specially trained in elocution," A

"Very true." Alfred Forbes raised his glass. "And here's to culture on the Congaree! Let New York keep the rancid Rhine; the wave of the future is here!"

A

A couple in their fifties came up to scrutinize the Picasso. "Isn't it exciting?" the woman said. "You can see her back and her, er, bosom both together there. It's a whole new way of looking at the world."

"Maybe it takes special eyesight," the man replied with a dubious chuckle. The left sleeve of his jacket hung limp. A

"Oh, Joseph, you are such a philistine," his wife-the wedding band sparkled on her ring finger-said in mock despair. They both laughed, comfortable as old shoes together, and, with a nod to A

The salt of the earth, she thought with mingled admiration and scorn. Joseph and his wife, obviously, would never do anything scandalous, but they'd never do anything interesting, either.

Life should be interesting, she thought. If it's not, what point to living it? She felt like Eleanor of Aquitaine, free beyond the common limits of the world in which she lived. Royal birth had given Eleanor that freedom. Modern times were simpler: money did the job for A

She tapped a finger against the gleaming mahogany banister. Brains hadn't hurt Eleanor of Aquitaine, and they didn't hurt her, either. She'd doubled profits from the land in the five years since her father died, and they hadn't been low before. After a couple of protests more for form's sake than because they really wanted the job, her brothers had let her run the plantation as suited her. Why not? She let them have allowance enough to get into all the mischief they liked, and they liked quite a lot.

She'd grown used to patronizing Tom and Jacob in her mind. What they were getting into these days was worse than mischief. The casualty lists in the newspapers were hideously long, and the battles not going so well as everyone had been sure they would. Too many damnyankees, she thought bitterly.

And who would remember the Marshlands Exhibition of Modern Art now, except as the show that was going on when war raced around the world? She knew to the pe

But, even if not quite so notorious as she'd hoped (in this modern age, what difference between notoriety and fame?), she was still free, and still reveling in that freedom. As she sometimes had before, she wondered how best to enjoy it.

Work for the vote for women? That thought had crossed her mind before, too. As she had when it last did, she shook her head. For one thing, advocates of suffrage were earnest to the point of boredom, and she did not want to be bored: life was too short for that. The cause, while worthy, reeked of bourgeois respectability. And, for another, South Carolina had only recently come to grant the vote to all white men, and its districts were so arranged that half of those white men or more might as well not have had it. Making headway against such resolute conservatism struck her as a long, slow job.

What then? She didn't know. She had time to find something. She was only twenty-eight, with the whole world stretched out before her.

That thought had hardly passed her mind when some sort of commotion broke out at the front of the mansion. She hurried forward to see what was going on. Looking out the window, she spied a new automobile near the mansion: a dusty Manassas, probably hired in St. Matthews. But getting out of it was…

She threw open the door and hurried forward, stopping to curtsy as her grandmother might have done before the War of Secession. "Mr. President!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea you would honor me with a visit here." Part of that was, Why didn't you telegraph ahead, dammit? But another part, a gloating part, said, Now people will remember this exhibition, by God!

Woodrow Wilson tipped his hat to her. "This is entirely impromptu, Miss Colleton. I'm due in Charleston tomorrow to christen a new submersible as she goes off the shipway there. When I remembered your showing was on the way down from Richmond, or at least not too far out of the way, I decided to stop and see the paintings that have the world so intrigued." His smile soured. "Frankly, this is more congenial to me than blessing another instrument of war."

"You are very welcome," A

"I am glad to hear you say it," Wilson replied. "Your support for the Whig Party has been generous, and I certainly hope it may continue."

"I don't think you need to worry on that score," A

Wilson smiled back. From everything she'd heard, he'd never been averse to smiling at a pretty woman. A

Servants-all save Scipio, who remained gravely impassive-gaped as the president of the Confederate States came into the Marshlands mansion, A

After gravely studying several of the paintings, the president turned to her and said, "This is why we fight, you know. To me, it is even more important than ties of blood and sentiment. Nothing so… so progressive as these works could possibly come into being in the United States or the German Empire. We truly are preserving civilization."