He checked his watch again. It was nearly time to go. He decided to leave early, if only to escape the sudden closeness of his room.

At the doorway he paused, key in hand. When next he saw these quarters, he would be a married man, the last brick in the edifice of his respectability set firmly in place.

And he would have a woman—the thought prickled him with disquiet and strange anticipation—a woman all his own.

***

The ceremony was brief and solemn, the minister first asking Hare if he would love, cherish, and protect his wife, then asking her if she would love, honor, and obey her husband. Each affirmed, “I will.”

Smiling fiercely, Hare kissed the bride.

He did love her, which was to say, he loved possessing her. He enjoyed dangling her before other men like an expensive bauble on a chain. He relished their envy, thrived on their salacious jokes. With the approach of his wedding day—and more particularly his wedding night—such jests had been increasingly frequent. What the jesters did not know was that the prospect of conjugal relations repulsed him. Though he had known women with his knife, he had never explored their questionable charms with a lover’s hand. He supposed he must simply shut his eyes and do his duty. The bedroom would be dark, and he could make it quick.

Maddie was good breeding stock, at least—long-boned, wide-hipped, healthy, strong, and twenty years his junior. His years among ranchers had not been wasted. He was a fair judge of cattle.

She would bear him sons—the prospect of daughters never entered his mind—and in his sons, his blood would live on. His blood and, he believed, his mission.

The wedding feast followed the ceremony. In a sunlit hall, the long tables were decked with flowers and starched napkins, platters of flesh and fowl, bowls of cabbage, piles of bread. Whiskey was poured. Cigars were lit. Speeches were made. In a corner of the room, a trio of musicians played fife and fiddle and dulcimer.

Over and over he was informed of his great good fortune in choosing such a splendid wife. He accepted the compliments, the hard claps on the back, the manly winks and nods.

“How’d you ever charm her papa? You must be the very devil himself.”

“You’re a regular lady-killer, old man.”

“Got to hand it to you, chum. You do know the way to a woman’s heart.”

Indeed he did. His knife had mapped that territory many times.

He traded quips and pledges, relaxing in the warmth of conviviality. He had never been a social man, but today he saw why people took pleasure in one another’s company.

Madeleine’s father approached him. The man was only a year or two older than Hare, but luxury and self-indulgence had taken their toll. With his white beard and flushed cheeks and his stomach overspilling his belt, he might have been old Saint Nick. And he was sotted.

“Congratulations, my boy, congratulations. It’s a great day, a great day.” He had the habit of repeating his words. “You’ll make my daughter very happy, very happy.”

“I’ll do my best,” Hare promised.

“Know you will, know you will. I must say”—he leaned closer, speaking confidentially—“I never doubted you a bit. Always saw you as a man of affairs, a man to reckon with.” His shaggy head nodded. “To reckon with. Yes. And I’m proud—proud to call you my son.”

Hare pumped the man’s hand, which was greasy and hot. He thought Maddie’s father was an imbecile.

Her mother, however, was a different story. A sharp one, she was. From the start she had looked askance at the man courting her only child. Her clear, cool gaze had studied him in a manner that was distinctly unsettling.

When Hare glanced down the length of the table, he saw that she was studying him now.

He felt he ought to say something. Mend fences, as the saying went. He walked over to her and lightly took her hand. She was younger than himself by several years, and it seemed odd to think of her as his mother-in-law.

“Evelyn,” he said courteously, “believe me when I tell you that your daughter is all the world to me.”

“Is she?” Those watchful eyes would not look away. “I had not imagined there was room in your world for anyone besides yourself.”

He bristled. Here he was assaying diplomacy, and she would have none of it. Well, he knew a way to wound her.

“You wrong me,” he said with fawning sincerity. “For me, the world is only Madeleine. She is my sunrise and my sunset, and will ever be, no matter how far we travel.”

She picked up on the last word. “Travel...down the road of life, you mean?”

“We have in mind more definite travel plans than that.”

She stiffened in her chair. For the first time he saw anxiety in her face. “What are you saying? You’re not taking her away?”

“Sadly, I must pursue my business opportunities wherever they lead. They are taking me to California, and your daughter with me.”

“California?”

He might as well have said the moons of Mars. “That is where we are headed, she and I. We have already discussed it. She is most eager to go. She has never seen the ocean. And”—he could not resist a twist of the knife—“she is weary of these parts. The provincial life chafes her.”

Evelyn’s face was taut. “You mean she regards us as rubes.”

“I would never use such a word.”

“You filled her head with these thoughts. You turned her against us. Against her family.”

Hare smiled. It was a smile of genuine pleasure. “I am her family now..”

“Where in California are you taking her?” she asked bleakly. “San Francisco?”

“Los Angeles. Now there’s a town that’s growing fast. They’ve two hundred thousand people there at last count.”

“It’s so far away.”

“Now, now, Evelyn. I’m sure you’ll visit us someday. And think of the lovely postcards you’ll receive.”

He withdrew, returning to his seat. When he looked her way again, he saw that she was weeping.

No one else noticed. It was natural for a mother to weep on her daughter’s wedding day.

***

When plates were empty and bellies were full, the tables were carried out of the room to make space for dancing. Hare and his wife shared the first waltz. Some among the guests chuckled at his missteps, but for once he didn’t mind being laughed at.

He remembered his first night on American soil, alone in a flophouse, his head in his hands as he mourned the life he’d lost. Never could he have imagined the triumphs that awaited him. His success had taken him by surprise even as it unfolded. He had seen no reason for it.

But latterly, he had understood. He knew why he had risen in business. He possessed the very traits of character required of the successful competitor. He was ruthless, unscrupulous, and when necessary, savage. The men who came up against him might fancy themselves sharp operators, but none of them had ever sunk a steel blade into a whore’s belly.

He disarmed them with his charm, his becoming modesty. He recited poetry. He attended church. He allowed himself to be rated a fop and a naïf. Only after he had outmaneuvered his rivals and driven their enterprises into bankruptcy did they understand with whom—with what—they had been dealing. By then it was too late.

His financial success was gratifying. But it was the blood sport that fascinated him. He savored the game. In Iowa he harried a man to suicide after taking his business and his home. No one thought less of him for it. On the contrary, he was respected all the more. He embodied the prevailing ethic, the domination of the weak by the strong. A society that coddled weakness would encourage its own degeneracy. This, at least, was the substance of countless editorials and stump speeches and even the occasional sermon.

It was the one moral lesson in which Hare needed no instruction. He was, by nature, a man who knew how to get ahead in life. Americans honored such men. They were an uncouth people, easily impressed by an English accent and a smattering of erudition, and still more impressed by riches and the will to increase them. Hare could have been their king, their god. Had he not been of foreign origin, he might have been their president.