Marc Blanchard had not expected the proposal from his brother, nor was it welcome. Though he was forty-five, he’d been wondering whether to enlist.

“What about Father?” he said. “He could do it far better than me.”

“He doesn’t want to,” Gérard answered. He gave a wry smile. “I already asked him.”

It was more than five years since Jules Blanchard had finally retired to Fontainebleau. He still kept the big apartment on the boulevard Malesherbes, but he went there less and less.

“The store manager and two of my best clerks have all gone to fight. I couldn’t stop them,” Gérard continued. “I need help, and I want someone in the family. If anything happened to me …”

“You look pretty robust.”

“That may be. But all the same …”

“James could do it. He’s a lawyer, and far more competent than I.”

“Your sister and brother-in-law are in England. They can’t come over.”

“You’ve already asked them?”

“Of course. I knew you wouldn’t want this. You have your own life—though that may be somewhat curtailed while this war lasts, I imagine.”

Marc’s career had been moderately successful. Every year he got a commission or two for a portrait. When a gallery put on a show of his work, a large and fashionable crowd turned up and the paintings would sell. He had talent, but not genius. Had he wanted to, he could have become the director of a museum or an art school, or he could have run a gallery, but he disliked administration. Instead, while carrying on his own work, he became a critic and promoter of the work of others, a respected fixture on the art scene and a man with many friends. Now that the war had started, he had wondered whether to offer himself to the government as a war artist.

And now his brother wanted him to come and help run the family business.

“I could be called up,” Marc objected. “I’m probably just young enough.”

“I already have an exemption for you,” Gérard told him. “The wholesale business is part of the war effort, you know. We’re already supplying food to the troops.” He paused. “I need you to understand the wholesale business, but your main task would be to keep the store going—if we can.”

“Joséphine? You’d close Joséphine?”

“I know you like the store. It would break Father’s heart if we had to close it. But if the war drags on, fashion goods are going to be tough to sell. It may be hard to keep Joséphine going. I know I wouldn’t be able to do it. I haven’t got the talent. But perhaps you could succeed.” He glanced at his brother with mild amusement. “Funnily enough, if you put your mind to it, I think you’d run Joséphine rather well.”

Marc gave his brother a long look.

“But I’d have to work for you.”