“She used to live just around the corner but I hear she has moved away.”

“To a better neighborhood,” someone else commented. “Her paintings actually sell for real money.”

“Do you know where this neighborhood might be?” I asked impatiently.

They shrugged, having little interest in a woman painter. Then one of them looked out of the window. “Monsieur Degas would know,” he said. “Surely he and La Cassatt were good friends?”

“And where would I find this Monsieur Degas?”

“He usually stops in here for an absinthe.” They looked at each other for confirmation.

“I haven’t seen him since he heard of the death of Reynold Bryce. Those two were great friends, were they not?”

“They were both anti-Dreyfusards. I don’t know about friends. I thought it was with Monet that Bryce was so friendly. Not that one sees Monet anymore, now that he has gone into hibernation outside the city.”

Really they were most annoying in the way they went off on tangents.

“So does anyone know where M. Degas lives?” I asked.

“Around here somewhere. One often sees him.”

My frustration was about to boil over when one of them said, “You are in luck, madame. Here he comes now.” And the thin, dark man with the glowering face was striding toward the café door.

“That must be my signal to leave,” Maxim said. “I know what he thinks about me and it’s not pretty.”

“Sit down, Maxim.” Picasso yanked on his arm. “He won’t want to join us. You know what he thinks of our painting. He despairs of all of us equally.”

The tall man pushed open the door, looked across at the group at the table, glanced at me with a glimmer of interest, then nodded to the waiter. “The usual, Bernarde.” Then he sat himself down with his back to the rest of the company and took out the newspaper to read.

“Monsieur Degas,” the well-dressed member of our table whose name I had not yet learned called across to him. “Will you not join us?” The speaker grinned to his friends and I suspected he had only said this to annoy.

“Thank you, but no. I am mourning the loss of a good friend and have no wish for companionship or light banter,” Degas replied.

“Then perhaps you can assist this lady who visits from America. She wishes to know the address of Mary Cassatt. She has recently moved, no?”

Degas turned to look at me. “Mary Cassatt?” he said. “Yes, she moved away. She now lives in the civilized and rarefied air of the first arrondissement. On the Rue de Marignan, madame. Just off the Champs-Élysées. I believe, if my memory does not fail me, that it is number ten. In any case there is a small café directly opposite with a striped awning and her house has an impressive green front door.”

“Thank you, monsieur.” I could have hugged him.