I didn’t tell her that the pain of missing Fuseli was intense and real. I wanted relief but still believed joy impossible for me, in this life, anyway, even if I saw it all around me, couples throwing off social mores, and living for the sake of love alone.

Perhaps out of fear of being hurt and humiliated again, I was suspicious at first of the tall, handsome American, Gilbert Imlay, who appeared in my life like a leading man on the stage. Frontiersman, adventurer, businessman, land speculator, diplomat, writer—he was charming, direct, often lighthearted, sometimes shrewd to the edge of unscrupulousness—almost anything one wanted to see in him. Like that great shape-shifter Zeus, Imlay could be gopher, swan, cloud, or a shower of gold.

It was April, spring finally peeking through, and I felt it all the way to my toes. Tulips in Luxembourg Gardens. The fruits of my French study finally paying off, a feeling that I belonged and was right where I ought to be. We English who’d chosen to stay drew together anxiously—at salons, the theater, parties, and private dinners, where I was celebrated as author and philosopher, where women and men flocked around, flattering me: I had a charming grace, a fascinating look; I was voluptuous; they admired the way I let my hair fall carelessly out of its pins, the softness of my voice, the sharp blade of my wit. They liked the sound of my muscular name in their mouths: Wollstonecraft.

We were at White’s Hotel in the 2nd arrondissement, at a gathering of French, English, and American cosmopolites who considered themselves stalwart citizens of the world, all love of liberty and hatred of kings. Helen Maria was there, people from Paine’s circle, others I’d met once or twice at Johnson’s table, including the American pamphleteer and poet Joel Barlow and his wife, Ruth. After a toast to the British women authors who’d been friends to the Revolution, I could feel Imlay watch me as I threw about my new French, laughed with my head tossed back, interrupted, argued, said precisely what I thought about everything, to everyone. And when I didn’t know how to say what I meant, I said simply “Oui, oui, oui!”

“Be careful with your ‘Oui, oui, oui,’” said the mystery man. “In case you chance to say ‘Oui’ when you don’t mean to, par habitude.”