paperman who brought me here first. Or the waiter tells you, and so on. I've made a painting of this room."
"You never see women with high collars in New York but the Bittner Sisters, where Mother worked in Congress, dress like that. Without pearls of course."
A solitary diner caught Lucy's inquisitive eye and raised his glass in what easily could have been mistaken for a toast. Vermillion, catching the exchange, glowered and the gallant cleared his throat and changed the direction of his glass and glance.
Lucy's eyes sparkled at this unexpected sign from Vermillion. "I've made a conquest," she said delightedly. "I'll bet he's been doing that for years."
At her effervescent laugh the woman in black and the hennaed one raised their eyebrows, uniting forces against the foreigner.
"You've made no conquest of the women."
"Oh well, poor things, they're not young any more."
"I thought you said you were old."
"Not that old! Is she a good actress?"
"So so, but she has style on the stage."
"I've been trying to figure out what that word means. I know it when I see it but I don't know why. Maybe it's what we call personality in show business."
"In the sense that the performer radiates something uncommon, and which cannot be imitated because it is unique."
But because they were looking at each other when he said it she heard not a word. It was as though there was a wonderful secret only they knew and he was part of her and she of him. He kept telling her things and every once in a while she ate a bit of this and that and looked at his nose, mouth, ears, hands, but was afraid to look at his eyes again until after the last drop of cognac.
The balmy air outside isolated them from other strollers.
"We'd better go this way." He touched her arm gently and they moved across the Boulevard down the rue de Richelieu to the river and up the me de Rivoli into a doorway opposite the Louvre.
A presence awakened her from dreamless sleep and, across a ray of sun, she shimmered a moist smile up at him, dressed and standing there with two steaming cups.
"Coffee?"
