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business.”
    Isabel’s head was in a whirl. “Are you serious?”
    “Perfectly. There is, however, one condition.”
    “What is that?”
    “The portrait had better be good.”
    “Yes,” Isabel said faintly as she leaned back against the cushion. “It had better be, hadn’t it?”
     

Chapter Four
     
    Isabel’s mind was a jumble of thoughts as she went to bed that evening. Could Leo have been serious? Did he really intend to launch her into Washington society?
    “The portrait had better be good,” he had said. Certainly, Isabel thought as she lay sleepless on her antique four-poster bed, she could not have found a better subject for her first commissioned portrait. Leo Sinclair had a face any artist would give his right arm to paint.
    He had extraordinary coloring, so fair and yet so vivid. She would paint him with the light striking his hair, she thought. The features of his face, so strong and yet so good-humored, reminded her of a man well-accustomed to having the world go his way. He was golden and royal, just like a lion, she thought. Isabel smiled to herself in the darkness. Of course. Leo the lion. And on that thought, she fell asleep.
    * * * *
    Leo was reading the newspaper at the breakfast table the following morning. He looked up as Isabel came in, and he lowered the paper a trifle. “Good morning,” he said.
    If Isabel had a fault, it was that she was too serious. She had grown up a solemn and responsible only child and had never learned the trick of light-hearted teasing. But now, looking at Leo as he sat in the sunny breakfast room, his eyes very blue in the morning light, she felt an unusual surge of gaiety.
    “Good mawnin’,” she replied demurely, and sat down at the table.
    Simon came in to ask what she wanted to eat and Leo said, “Miss MacCarthy is making fun of my accent, Simon.”
    “It’s not you that has the accent, Mr. Leo,” Simon replied.
    Isabel laughed. “Touché, Simon.”
    The black man asked her for her order and left the room. Being waited on by black servants made Isabel extremely uncomfortable. Simon hardly seemed like a humble Uncle Tom type; in fact, Isabel had heard him and Leo laughing and arguing in the kitchen after dinner last night. Yet there was just something a little pre—Civil War about it all.
    “I’m getting spoiled,” she said lightly. “I’m not used to servants at home.”
    He looked at her shrewdly. “Do you think Simon is our resident slave?”
    She flushed. “Of course not.”
    Leo stirred his coffee. “Would it surprise you to learn that Simon has one grandson at MIT and another at Stanford?”
    Isabel stared at her own coffee and then bravely looked up to meet his eyes. “Yes, it does surprise me,” she said honestly. “And it is my turn to beg your pardon for being insulting.”
    His mouth remained grave, but a slow smile crept into his eyes. For what seemed like a very long moment they just sat there looking at each other, the blond, blue-eyed man and the dark, intense-looking woman. When Mrs. Sinclair entered the room, the intangible something that had been floating in the air between them dissipated.
    “Good morning,” Leo’s mother said cheerfully.
    “Good morning, Mama,” said the senator.
    “Good morning, Mrs. Sinclair.” This time Isabel spoke the words in her own accent. Leo cast a swift, amused glance in her direction before he asked if he could pour his mother some coffee. Simon came in with Isabel’s breakfast and some melon and toast for Mrs. Sinclair.
    “I think we’ll head back to Washington tomorrow, Mama,” Leo said as his mother sipped her coffee. “Isabel is anxious to get to work. And so am I, for that matter.”
    “All right, dear,” Mrs. Sinclair said tranquilly. “Will you drive up in Isabel’s station wagon?”
    “Will that be all right with you, Isabel?” Leo asked.
    “Of course.”
    Mrs. Sinclair smiled at Isabel. “Leo told me last night about his idea of introducing you around in