The effects from Jane’s over exertion at the glass factory extended into the following day. She woke the next morning feeling as if she had an ague, though she tried to hide it from Vincent. For the first time since their arrival, she counted herself fortunate that the Chastains did not take breakfast in the English fashion, as Jane could not manage more than a slice of dry toast.

She had overdone glamour before, but never coupled with the heat of a glass furnace. Despite her attempts to behave normally, her head spun so severely that when Vincent pressed her to return to her bed, she did not argue with him. She did, however, make him promise to wake her the moment he had retrieved the glass Sphère Obscurcie from M. La Pierre’s.

The sun was low in the sky when the sound of the apartment door awakened her. She pulled herself out of bed, feeling aches in every joint in her body. Her head throbbed yet, and even the low light pained her eyes. Still, Jane recognised the sound of Vincent’s tread in the room beyond, and hoped that he had been out fetching the glass Sphère. Pulling on her dressing gown, she secured the ties as she went into the outer room.

Vincent sat at his desk, writing, with the ball of glass on the table beside him. Both Vincent and the Sphère were in plain view. Jane’s heart sank for a moment before apprehending that it might be one of the balls that had failed. Vincent’s forehead had deep furrows running across it, and his pen scratched furious lines across the surface of his page.

Not wishing to disturb him, Jane quietly took her place behind his chair and laid her hands on his shoulders to rub some of the tension away. Vincent gave a muffled cry and rose half out of his seat, spattering ink across the page. ‘Jane! You have surprised me.’

‘So I see.’ Laughing, she reached for the blotter, her illness momentarily forgotten.

Vincent snatched it from her, blotting the ink from the page quickly and tucking it into his writing desk before it could fairly be dry. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Thank you, I am. To whom are you writing?’

He compressed his lips at that and locked the writing desk, pushing it away from him on the table. ‘I am making notes for myself, though it has occurred to me to write to Herr Scholes.’

‘One might almost think you were hiding something from me. You never locked your desk in London.’ He coloured at that, and Jane, surprised at his self-consciousness, tried to tease it away. She shook her finger at him. ‘Have you taken a mistress, in the manner of the French?’