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perhaps devoutly personal.
    If compatibility was measured in decorating tastes, Flora thought, she wondered that Adam and his wife had survived marriage for so long.
    "Come see Papa's knives," Lucie coaxed, interrupting Flora's jaundiced speculation, already moving toward the dressing-room door. And moments later, when Lucie threw open the doors of one of the built-in armoires lining two walls of the narrow room, Adam Serre stood revealed. Arranged on shelves or hanging from brass hooks inside the double doors, a colorful array of decorated sheaths held dozens of knives. Bone-handled, bronze-handled, large, small, plain, and embellished—a lethal collection of exquisite Indian craftsmanship.
    "How spectacular," Flora declared, struck powerfully by the latent force, each weapon potently functional. This wasn't a glass-cased museum display.
    "These are pretty too," Lucie went on, moving to the next cabinet. "Maman says they're barbaric, but Papa and I like them." Two more doors opened as she released the latch, and before Flora's fascinated gaze appeared a stunning display of fringed, beaded, fur-draped leather clothing. Lavishly decorated moccasins lined the floor of the armoire. The hanging garments were constructed of pale, almost white leather or buttery yellow skins soft as heavy silk, ornamented with ermine tails, wolf tails, liquid leather fringe, embellished with elaborate beaded designs on shirtsleeves, shoulders, sweeping down the length of fringed leggings. Obviously Adam Serre was proud of his Absarokee heritage.
    "They're very lovely," Flora said, her voice subdued before such magnificence. She understood the lengthy, skilled process necessary to produce clothing of this quality.
    "This is Papa's special spirit sign," Lucie declared, pointing at the stylized portrayal of a wolf repeated within a fretwork border decorating a shirtfront. "And here too," she added, pulling out a sleeve with a beaded medallion of a wolf head in black on red. "His people call him Tsé-ditsirá-tsi." She spoke the words with the quiet sibilance of the Absarokee language. "It means 'Dangerous Wolf.' Although Papa is ever so nice, even if Maman doesn't think so." She sighed a curiously grown-up sigh for a child so young. "Maman always screamed at Papa. Even though she told me it was unladylike to raise your voice, she screamed a lot. Papa said she was un-sym-pa-the-tic"—Lucie struggled slightly with the long word, an obvious new addition to her three-year-old vocabulary—"to the outdoors. And I'm glad she didn't ask me to go with her to Paris, because I like Montana the best."
    The artless disclosures left Flora feeling like a voyeur in a very personal relationship, and for a moment she wasn't sure how to respond. Although shamefully, she felt an ungracious elation at being reminded that Adam and his wife weren't deeply in love. "I'm so glad you enjoy Montana," she said, opting for a neutral reply. "My father and I think the country is beautiful. And now we should see if we can find your quirt," Flora suggested, deliberately changing the topic, "so we can take Birdie out for a ride. She's going to wonder what happened to us."
    "I'll use one of Papa's," Lucie said with the kind of decisiveness Flora was recognizing as a Serre trait. "And I'll show you the lodges where Papa's cousins live when they're at the ranch."
     
    As evening approached, Mrs. O'Brien entered the drawing room where Flora and her father were playing a simple card game with Lucie. "I'm afraid Adam's not returned yet," she said, apologizing for Adam's continued absence, "and dinner won't wait. He'll be here tonight, though," she firmly added, opening the doors into the dining room. "If he said Tuesday, he means Tuesday. Now, there's huckleberry pie for dessert, Lucie," she went on, gazing at the little girl swinging her feet over the edge of an embroidered chair, "but you have to eat some vegetables first. You like new peas, and Cook made a small Cornish pasty for