Beside him Bennett tapped intermittently on the side of the table with his fingers. He could tell the boy wanted to be elsewhere; in truth, he didn’t seem to have the focus needed for business. The other day he had caught a gang of miners mimicking his obsession with cleanliness, pretending to rub at their blackened overalls as he passed. They straightened when they saw him watching, but the sight of his son being mocked pained him. At first he had been almost proud of Bennett’s determination to marry the English girl. He had seemed to know his own mind, finally! Dolores had cosseted the boy so, fussing over him as if he were a girl. He had stood a little taller when he informed Van Cleve that he and Alice were to be married and, well, it was a shame about Peggy but that was just too bad. It was good to see him hold a firm opinion for once. Now he watched the boy gradually emasculated by the English girl and her sharp tongue, her odd ways, and he regretted the day he had ever been convinced to take that damn European tour. No good ever came from mixing. Not with coloreds and, it turned out, not with Europeans neither.

“You’ve left crumbs here, boy.” He stabbed a fat finger on the table so that the waiter apologized and hurriedly combed them off onto a plate. “A bourbon, Governor Hatch? To round things off?”

“Well, if you’re going to twist my arm, Geoff . . .”

“Bennett?”

“Not for me, Pa.”

“Get me a couple of Boone County bourbons. Straight up. No ice.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bennett. You want to head over to the tailor while the governor and I talk business? Ask him if he’s got any more of those dress shirts, will you? I’ll be there shortly.”

He waited for his son to disappear from his table before he leaned forward and spoke again. “Now, Governor, I was hoping to discuss a matter of a certain sensitivity with you.”

“Not more problems at the mine, Mr. Van Cleve? I hope you’re not dealing with the same mess they’re having down there in Harlan. You know they’ve got state troopers lined up to head in if they can’t sort themselves out. There’s machine-guns and all sorts heading back and forth across state lines.”

“Oh, you know we work hard to keep a lid on that kind of thing at Hoffman. No good can come of the unions; we know that. We’ve been sure to take measures to protect our mine at the very whisper of trouble.”

“Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. So . . . uh . . . what seems to be the problem?”

Mr. Van Cleve leaned forward over the table. “It’s this . . . library business.”

The governor frowned.

“The women’s library. Mrs. Roosevelt’s initiative. These women taking books to rural families and the like.”

“Ah, yes. Part of the WPA, I believe.”

“The very one. Now, while I’m usually a great supporter of such enterprises, and I absolutely agree with our president and the First Lady that we should be doing what we can to educate our populace, I have to say that the women—well, certain women—in our county are causing problems.”

“Problems?”

“This traveling library is fomenting unrest. It’s encouraging all sorts of irregular behavior. For instance—Hoffman Mining was planning to explore new areas on the North Ridge. The kind of thing we’ve been doing entirely legitimately for decades. Now, I believe these librarians have been spreading rumors and falsehoods about it, because the next thing we’ve been hit with is a series of legal orders forbidding us our usual mining rights in the area. Not just one family but a great number of them have signed up to block our path.”

“That’s unfortunate.” The governor lit a cigarette, offering Mr. Van Cleve the packet, which he refused.

“Indeed. If they do this with other families, we’ll end up with nowhere to mine. And then what are we supposed to do? We are a major employer in this part of Kentucky. We provide a vital resource to our great nation.”

“Well, Geoff, you know it doesn’t take a lot to get folk up in arms about mining, these days. Do you have proof it was these librarians stirring things up?”

“Well, here’s the thing. Half the families now blocking us through the courts couldn’t read a word last year. Where would they have got information on legal matters if it wasn’t for these library books?”

The bourbons arrived. The waiter lifted them from a silver tray and placed each one reverently in front of the two men.

“I don’t know. From what I understand it’s just a bunch of girls on horses taking recipe cards here and there. What harm are they really going to do? I think you may just have to chalk this one up to misfortune, Geoff. The amount of trouble we have around the mines just now, why, it could have been anyone.”

Mr. Van Cleve felt the governor’s attention starting to slide. “It’s not just the mines. They are changing the very dynamics of our society. They are fixing to alter the laws of nature.”

“The laws of nature?”

When the governor looked disbelieving, he added: “There are reports of our women engaging in unnatural practices.”

Now he had his attention. The governor leaned forward.

“My son, God bless him, my wife and I raised him according to godly principles, so I admit he is not entirely worldly in conjugal matters. But he tells me that his young bride—who has taken up work at this library—mentioned to him a book the women are passing among them. A book of sexual content.”

“Sexual content!”

“Quite!”

The governor took a gulp of his drink. “And—uh—what would this ‘sexual content’ comprise exactly?”

“Well, I don’t want to shock you, Governor. I won’t go into details—”

“Oh, I can take it, Geoff. Go into all the—uh—details you like.”

Mr. Van Cleve glanced behind him and lowered his voice. “He said his bride—who was, by all accounts, brought up like a princess—from a very good family, you understand—well, she was suggesting she do things to him in the bedroom that one might expect at a French whorehouse.”

“A French whorehouse.” The governor swallowed hard.

“At first I thought this was maybe an English thing. Due to their proximity to the European ways, you know. But Bennett told me she said it was definitely from the library. Spreading filth. Suggestions that would make a grown man blush. I mean, where will it end?”

“That’s the, uh, pretty blonde? The one I met last year at dinner.”

“The very one. Alice. Finer than frog hair. The shock of hearing salaciousness proposed by a girl like that . . . Well . . .”