She hadn’t realized it at first. Roland had all sorts of quirks about the way he did things: small prejudices—things one didn’t say, or wear, or do—which belonged to his class. As a man of the world, her father had shared some of these, but Roland had others that she had not encountered. She found these amusing, and he had no objection if she teased him about them, since they were all signs that he was an aristocrat.

But behind them lay something more fundamental. And this she found harder to understand.

Despite his heroic social life, there were still times when Charlie was moody. And during those periods, he could still seem a little lost, and vulnerable, like an adolescent boy. Marie assumed that it was partly just his character to be this way. But she could not help thinking that if he had more to do, Charlie might be happier.

It used to astonish her how little he accomplished in a day. If he spent the morning being fitted for suits by his tailor, Charlie thought he’d had a fruitful day. When she considered how much she had crammed into a day when she was running Joséphine, she found the pace of his life almost comical. Not that he was inherently lazy. If, for instance, there was some new agricultural method that might be useful for improving the estate, he would throw himself into it wholeheartedly. When he and his father decided they might grow mushrooms, Charlie turned himself into an expert on the buildings for the mushroom beds, and on the entire process, and the ensuing business was a big success. But when that was all set up and running, he immediately returned to his social life again.

“I suppose, being a bourgeois, that deep down I feel that a man should go out to work each day,” she remarked to Roland one evening. “He should have a job, an office, an occupation.”

“The noble tradition—at least in France,” he replied, “is that we are there to lead in battle. To fight and die for our king, or our country. And when we aren’t doing that, we manage our estates, and dress up to look elegant. This last is very important.”

“It’s not the way most people see things.”

“We are not most people.”

“You’re not ashamed of not working at a regular occupation. A job.”

“On the contrary. I’d be ashamed if I had a job.”

“Ordinary work is beneath you.”

“I suppose so.”

“And by cutting a handsome figure in the world, of course, Charlie is bringing honor to the family name.” She nodded. “This is what it means to be an aristocrat.”

“Not only an aristocrat, I think. It’s the same with a matador, a great opera star, or a sporting hero. It’s a human instinct.”

“That is true,” she acknowledged.