As the staff car pulled from his hotel into the Sunday quiet of the deserted avenue, Derrick sighed. Every week, he looked forward to his fencing bouts with Mademoiselle Colbert, but today he wished they could lay aside their foils and talk—in English. He imagined Victoria Grayson would enjoy the pleasure of speaking in her native tongue, and he would have the opportunity to practice her language. He longed to tell her that he knew the truth of her identity and nationality but that she had nothing to fear from him. He was not her enemy. He understood her reason for being in France, and he admired her for it. He should be so fortunate to win the affection of a woman willing to sacrifice so much on his behalf. He would invite her to tell him about her home, her family, her life in Virginia, and he would tell her about his time in America, the experiences he’d had, the states he’d visited, the friends he’d made. Was she by any chance familiar with the works of two of his Harvard classmates—the film critic James Agee, who wrote for The Nation, and Elliott Carter, who was making a name for himself as a brilliant teacher and composer at Julliard? Jim was a very gifted writer who had aspired to become a novelist. Derrick hoped to visit him and Elliott in the United States when the war was over.

Mademoiselle Colbert would no doubt scoff at this idiocy. Did he really believe a reunion possible with his American friends—him, a Nazi? He would be a pariah to them.

And so he probably would be. Another regret, one almost as searing as his remorse that he would always be a pariah to Victoria Grayson. Another time, another place, and he might have had a chance with her. “An image,” Celeste had called her last night, having reminded him that he hardly knew the girl. “You’re in love with an image of the perfect woman for you.”

Love? Maybe. Image? No. He did not have to get into the mind and heart of Victoria Grayson to know that she was the woman of his hopes. She possessed it all—every quality he desired in a wife, a mother for his children, a companion, a lover. He had known it the moment he laid eyes on her.

But alas…