It was going to be a spectacular year. All three of them—Marc, Marie and Claire—had been working harder than ever, and enjoying every minute of it.

Only one thing was missing from their lives.

“It’s time you girls got married,” he remarked to Marie and Claire one day.

“I have been married, and very happily,” Marie replied.

“It’s you who ought to get married,” Claire told her uncle.

“I’m too old,” he said with a smile.

“He’s too selfish,” Marie observed to her daughter.

“Unfair,” said Marc. “Look at all the things I do for you.”

“I can’t imagine Uncle Marc allowing any wife to rearrange the pictures in his apartment,” said Claire.

Marc considered.

“She could do what she likes in the kitchen,” he said. “And maybe the bedroom. I have my dressing room, after all. But seriously”—he turned to Claire—“your mother was wonderfully fortunate in marrying your father, but it’s nearly five years since he died. Don’t you think your mother should marry again?”

“If she wants to,” said Claire. “If she finds a man she really likes.” She looked at her mother. “I think you should.”

“I haven’t the time,” said Marie.

And they were all certainly going to be busy as the month of May approached, when the Olympic Games officially began.

By July, Roland de Cygne would normally have been in the country at his château for the summer. This year, however, he had lingered because of the Olympics. Not that he was interested in most of the proceedings, but there was a week of polo at Saint-Cloud at the start of the month and the equestrian events were taking place toward the end. So he’d decided to stay for them. As he would still be in the city then, he’d bought a couple of tickets for the ballet at the Opéra right at the end of the season and told his son, despite the boy’s protests, that he’d take him. “It will be good for your education,” he said cheerfully.

As compensation, however, he’d taken him out to the stadium on the western outskirts of the city where the track events were being held, and they’d seen some thrilling races, culminating in the hundred-meter final when a British athlete named Abrahams had taken the gold.

“One doesn’t think of a Jew being an athlete,” he’d remarked mildly to his son. “There was once a famous boxer named Mendoza, mind you, but he was a Spanish Jew, which is different.”

Today, he’d made sure to be back in his house by early evening so that he could attend a small social event. Yet as he set out to walk from his house toward the Luxembourg Gardens, he wondered if he was making a mistake.