Anton dared to look at Delphine as the final notes faded and saw her eyes shining. He felt a sense of vindication, almost as though he himself had had a hand in writing the music.

The applause was unambiguous and the audience left the hall with animated faces.

‘Yes, I liked it,’ said Katrin as they went downstairs, ‘especially the bit that sounded like “Frère Jacques”.’

Anton had reserved a table in a restaurant he had scouted with Friedrich the week before. It was good value for such a solid-looking place, with wooden booths and chandeliers, though the service was erratic and the food tasted as though it had been kept warm. He was not in a mood to care, because he was too fascinated by Mlle Fourmentier. He could hardly bear the wait while she and Katrin were in the powder room; he passed the time by ordering a carafe of Grüner Veltliner and downing the first glass himself.

Katrin settled herself on the plush-covered bench and Delphine slid in beside her, leaving Anton to face them, badly placed to catch the attention of the waiters. Katrin might in other circumstances have interested him, being arguably closer to his own age, with wide eyes and a ready laugh. But he could sense no character in her; she was a page on which no one had yet written and it was possible, he thought, that she might stay like that for ever in her father’s muffled rooms. Delphine was the opposite – shaped by experience, with cloudy contours and jagged, possibly painful, edges. He pressed her for details of her life and every answer suggested five further questions there would be no time to ask.

‘No, I wasn’t classically trained, but I spent some time learning from a soloist who’d fallen on hard times.’ ‘My uncle had lost an arm in the Franco-Prussian War.’ ‘Isabelle was the beauty of the family, then she married a man who … Never mind.’ ‘A financial difficulty meant we had to move in a hurry.’ ‘This dress? It was made for me in Rouen. I knew a seamstress who owed my father money for some reason.’ ‘The convent was strict. But we sometimes found our way into town.’ ‘We used to visit the garden at Giverny, but we never saw the great man.’ ‘She called herself a cook, but she was barely capable of stoking the range.’

When Delphine asked him the odd question in return, Anton answered as briefly as possible so that he could resume his interrogation. To start with, Katrin made the occasional remark, offering opinions in which he could hear the influence of her parents, but after a while she fell silent and began to glance about the restaurant.

The waiters, for some reason, stopped avoiding Anton’s eye and became prompt. The plates were cleared, dessert was brought and a bill was presented in the space of a few minutes. Suggestions of coffee were declined and Delphine consulted her watch.