“Fine,” she said. “If anyone thinks of a way out of this, it will be Jasper. Or maybe Charlie: unless Henrietta succeeds in sending him away. Or unless her little niece turns his head completely.”

“Alice?” Henrietta said, shocked at Chloe’s bitterness.

“Alice,” Chloe repeated. “Isn’t that why you’re encouraging him to go so far away to school? Although I’m sure I can’t imagine how we’ll pay for it.”

Almost accidentally, Henrietta gestured at the warmly lit and fragrant room, overflowing with guests.

“Should we act as if the business isn’t still thriving?” Chloe said.

Once, Henrietta remembered, not long after Didier had brought Chloe and Charlie home, she’d found Chloe sitting by herself on one of the docks, disconsolately watching the Penn Yan steam away. She’d been crying, but when Henrietta asked if she could help, Chloe’s face went blank. Now she erased her expression again as Charlie and Alice bumped into Didier, who tugged his elbow away from her hand.

“There you are,” Didier said to his son.

He spun Charlie ninety degrees, until he was facing the kitchen door. Alice, as if yoked to him, spun too. “Could you see if the girls in the kitchen need any help?”

CHASED UPSTAIRS EARLIER, now to the back of the house: no one seemed to want him in the thick of the party, which since he’d found Alice was fine with Charlie. He walked straight through the kitchen with her at his side, ignoring the sink filled with cooking pans and the two young women bent over the pies. When he reached the back door, which was set at a right angle to the door to the cellar stairs, he opened one with either hand before whistling into the yard. Then he stepped back, using his body to channel the flying gray shapes down the stairwell.

Alice fit herself next to the doorframe and touched the dogs as they passed. “Olive!” she said. “Oscar!” Bearded, wiry-haired, with tufts around their eyes and fluffy paws: descendants of those his father claimed to have brought back across the ocean. He couldn’t remember either that trip or the family vineyard in France, and the breed’s fancy name had disappeared by the time he could talk. Here, people called them “the French dogs” and cursed their fence-jumping skills. All over town, mutts bore tufty heads and beards, wiry gray patches on their chests, or, sometimes, just the gigantic hairy feet. This pair, looking much like their ancestors, pounded off in search of mice.

He and Alice followed more slowly. “Can I show you something?” he asked.