She began to tear at the wrappings eagerly. She opened the tiny box with its folded scrap of gold faille.

“What is it, Jean? Oh, what can it be?”

She looked up at him, her lovely face rosy with anticipation. Her wide, dark eyes fixed themselves on his. Her lips were parted: that look, so trusting, so innocent, so childlike, had always cut his heart.

“Don’t tell me—let me guess! It’s something tiny, and very beautiful. Is it a ring, Jean? Or a shell? An emerald? A scarab? A pretty stone—you remember those lovely stones we found that time in Thailand? Yes, it’s small, and hard—I think it’s a stone.”

Lazare smiled. It touched him, and had always touched him, that Maria’s delight in the beautiful was so hectic and so catholic. Was there another woman in the world, he wondered, who could be equally entranced by a priceless diamond as by a lovely but worthless shell or stone?

“None of those things, darling,” he replied. “This is very tiny, indeed—and a little magical. Would you believe me if I told you you held a bird in your hands?”

“A bird, Jean?” She stared at him.

“Yes, my darling. You have a little dove in your hands, a little White Dove—that’s what they’re called. You take it—you see, I have a glass of water here, all ready for you. You must take it with water, darling, never wine—and then, you’ll see. This little dove is very powerful. It will give you a new set of wings.”

“You’re sure?” She kept her eyes fixed on his. “You promise me, Jean? Last time…”

“I know, darling. No mistakes now. I swear to you. Try.”

She opened the scrap of gold faille. She inspected the tiny white pill solemnly, then took the glass of water from him. She swallowed the tablet like an obedient child taking preferred medicine from a concerned parent. Five minutes passed, perhaps ten; Lazare watched her face and listened to the water tumble from the fountain. Some while later, she pressed one of her tiny hands against her breast and gave a cry. Then, very shortly afterward, it began: a day and a night of fevered activity: a drive to the souk, her arms spilling over with small purchases; a swim in the pool; a desire to dance, a desire to lie down, a desire to talk as she had not talked to him in many years, a shifting, endless, fragmented day and night.

Seated beside her in the antique Rolls, Lazare could still feel on his skin the now-unaccustomed caress of her lips and her hands. For him it had been an agony; for Maria it had been twenty-four hours, more, of unadulterated happiness. Or so she had said, many times. The happiness, he judged, was wearing off now.

“This looked so pretty yesterday.”

She was holding up for his inspection a bracelet she had purchased in the souk the previous day. It was made of silver, with coral and turquoise beads. It was old, and indeed pretty, and would once have comprised part of an Arab girl’s dowry. It was exactly similar to twenty or thirty other bracelets Maria had purchased in that same souk before. “And this.”