The English Tudor room with its heavy oak four-poster bed also contained two Elizabethan portraits that caught his attention at once.

“They look genuine,” he remarked.

“They’re seventeenth-century copies, and heavily restored,” she told him. “But I got them through an English dealer I trust. They look well, don’t they?”

This caused him to ask if she had English connections, and she smiled.

“My parents were English, in fact. Highly respectable. My father was a banker. Fortunately they can’t see me now.”

“So that’s why your French is so pure. You learned it.”

“I did. In the valley of the Loire.”

Were her parents still alive? he asked.

“They were killed in a car accident, I’m afraid. Driving in the mist.” She shrugged sadly. “A long time ago.”

She could see he was intrigued by her creative efforts. She showed him the Wild West room next. Then a room draped as if it were a tent, with a low bed and many cushions.

“It’s like something from the Valentino movie: The Sheik,” he cried.

“Of course. It’s quite popular. We have one man—he comes once a week, always the same girl, always this room. He’s tall and handsome. They’re both into role-playing. They really get into it.”

Charlie admired the Oriental room, and the Spanish room. Recently, Louise had created a German room, modeled after the romantic castle of Neuschwanstein. “I wanted music for this room,” she said. “You know: Wagner. It’s difficult to arrange it short of having a full orchestra in the house. I tried a gramophone playing Carmen in the Spanish room, but it didn’t really sound right.”

By the time she had shown him all the rooms, almost half an hour had passed.

“That’s everything?” Charlie asked.

“There was a girl who wanted to make a dungeon in the cellars. You know, chains … everything. But I said no.” Louise shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll change my mind, one day.”

Did she ever take on any of the customers herself? he ventured to ask.

“Absolutely not,” she answered firmly. “In fact, I haven’t had a lover for quite a while. It would have to be someone who interests me.”

“And may I ask what your next design is going to be?”

“I’ve got a girl—very beautiful—from Senegal. I want to make an African room for her. But I haven’t yet decided how to do it.”

He accepted her offer to take a little tea, in the English manner, in her apartment. She asked a few questions about his life. He was intrigued to know how she came to make such a transition from upper-middle-class England to being a madam in Paris.

“The transition was not as great as you might think,” she said. “I was sent to France. I liked it. I modeled for Chanel. I became the mistress of a rich man, then another. I inherited a little money.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t marry. And I wanted a business.”

“But you hadn’t lived the life of the streets.”