Roland de Cygne gazed at Le Sourd. He could have told him that he wasn’t going to be charged, but that would have looked as if he were trying to curry favor, a weakness for which Le Sourd would have rightly despised him. Roland was too proud for that.

“Perhaps,” he said calmly, “when you have shot me—and I advise you to stick with the story of the sniper, it’s worth a try—you will do me a small favor. In my pocket, you will find a lighter that a trooper once made for me. It’s just a little thing. You can send it to my son, and tell him that I asked you to do so. I should like him to know that I was thinking of him. That is all.”

“You are asking me to do you a favor?”

“Why not? With my death you have avenged your father. Matters between us are settled. You have no reason to refuse a small kindness to my son.”

Le Sourd gazed at him.

“Even in death, the aristocratic pose. I am not impressed, Monsieur le Vicomte. You are merely playing a role. Here in the middle of this desert of the spirit, you act out a part that belongs to …”—he searched for words—“a great illusion. It’s absurd. Perhaps you imagine that, in the afterlife, God is going to tip His hat to you in courteous recognition, like the Roi Soleil.”

Roland de Cygne said nothing. Even if he had agreed with Le Sourd, he would not have told him.

Le Sourd aimed. Roland waited.

“Merde,” said Le Sourd. And instead of firing, he turned and walked away through the trees.

Chapter Twenty

•  1918  •

James Fox looked thoughtfully at the young woman who sat across the desk from him.

It was a November day. As usual, the offices of Fox and Martineau, of which he was now the senior partner, maintained an almost sepulchral quiet. Occasionally a sound from the narrow alley off Chancery Lane intruded through the window, but seldom enough to challenge the soft hiss of the coal fire in the grate.

The young lady had arrived a little while before, without appointment, and asked to see the senior partner. He had no meeting at that moment, and when he’d heard her name, and realized who she must be, he’d told his clerk to usher her in.

She was quietly, almost severely dressed—a white shirt, a simple pearl choker, dark gray coat and skirt, her dark hair swept up and pinned under a sensible hat. Appropriate, for the country was still at war. But the material was expensive. One could tell that she came from the well-to-do upper-middle class.

Her face was rather beautiful, he thought. Her eyes large, almost violet in color. There was a certain elegance in her movements. Was there something French about her, or did he just imagine it because of what he knew? Her name was Louise.

“How can I help you?” he asked.