“I paint her as I see her,” the little Spaniard said.

“I clearly see two breasts,” the well-dressed one commented, eyeing me a little too closely. “Anyway, mon cher Picasso,” he went on, “you know very well that Fernande would kill you or maybe her if you dared to paint another woman. You know how jealous she is.”

I felt this banter had gone on long enough. They clearly had all the time in the world. I was racing against the clock. “So nobody knows where I can find Monsieur Bryce?”

“La Stein would know, don’t you think?” one of them suggested.

“Possibly she knows, but she wouldn’t tell. They hate each other. He is an anti-Dreyfusard of the worst order.”

“That’s true.” They nodded agreement.

The word, “anti-Dreyfusard” meant nothing to me. “What’s that?” I asked.

“You have not heard of the Dreyfus Affair? The army officer who was sent to Devil’s Island, falsely accused because he was Jewish?”

A vague memory of something Sid had written came back to me. “Oh, yes, I think I was told about this.”

“The affair has divided Paris. There are those for Dreyfus who think that he should be reinstated and restitution should be made, and those who are against him—the anti-Semites. And there are plenty of them.”

“Speaking of which, there goes our friend Degas,” one of them muttered. “In a hurry again.”

A lean man with a black beard strode out on the other side of the road.

“I don’t know why he can so hate Jews, when he himself is of mixed race,” someone muttered.

The well-dressed one turned back to me. “So naturally Bryce hates La Stein as she is Jewish and she hates him with equal passion because he is so intolerant. No, she would be no help to you.”

“So you don’t know where I might find Reynold Bryce?” I repeated. “It is very important that I locate him quickly.” It was like trying to herd cats to keep them from branching out on tangents, and my head was beginning to spin from having to speak and understand so much French.

“Somewhere more expensive and civilized than this place, I am sure,” someone answered. The others chuckled.

“Try the cafés on the Champs-Élysées. Try the other bank of the Seine. I hear the Americans are fond of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.”

“No, no,” another insisted. “She should try one of the hotels where rich Americans stay. They will surely know there. They come to buy his paintings.”

“Where are these hotels?” I asked, desperation now showing in my voice.

“Have you just fallen from the moon, mademoiselle?” one of them asked. “How do you know so little about Paris that you have not seen the Ritz, the Meurice, the Regina?”