“But,” Judy continued. “You stayed, Mada—Sophie. You stayed and you kept going over all the papers . . . even though he gave you every report . . . you are still here. I think the only way to understand it is that you do not believe what he has told you about the company. You do not trust him to run it, and you do not trust his assurances.”

Sophie looked shocked.

“Of course that is your right . . . you have a perfect right not to trust anybody,” Judy went on smoothly. “You’re the chairman of the board.”

Sophie put down her cup of coffee, stood up, and started to pace back and forth in front of the window. What if the American girl were right? What if that was 100 percent how Gregoire saw things? No wonder he had not declared himself . . . had not said anything open.

“And this is how he sees it?” she asked Judy.

Judy shrugged, a little slither of cream and palest blue.

“If you were him, how would you interpret it?” she asked. “Of course, I only know him professionally, as a colleague . . .”

She hardly knew Lazard at all; she had made it her business to stay out of his way until very recently.

“. . . but he’s very proud of his work,” she concluded.

Sophie looked despairingly at the reams of paper scattered across her desk. She couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.

“Are things going well at House Massot?”

“Exactly the same as they have been for the last several years,” Judy responded, quickly and, she noted with internal amusement, accurately. “Nothing’s happened here. We put out collections . . . we sell them . . . we put out new collections.”

It was a slightly depressing recital, the truth, and as she thought about it, Judy added carelessly, “Nothing’s actually happened since the last Hugh Montfort episode.”

“The last what?” Sophie asked.

Judy could have kicked herself.

“Oh, nothing very interesting,” she said. “There’s a guy named Hugh Montfort who works for an English company called Mayberry.”

“Never heard of them.”

With Sophie’s classic styling, this did not surprise Judy. So much the better, since she would not be fascinated by the mere name, like so many others.

“They make cheap jewels. Nothing like House Massot.” Again, the best lie was simply to tell part of the truth. “Hugh Montfort thought he could expand and take this company over, gobble it up.”

Sophie asked “What happened?”

“Your husband couldn’t stand the man. Told him what to do with his bid.”

“So this took place years ago.”

“Yes, well, he sniffed around after that, a few times.”

Sophie thought about it. “He’s obviously persistent.”

“Nothing to worry about, Sophie. Gregoire told him where to get off. There’s no way he could do us any damage with Gregoire taking care of your family’s interests,” Judy said, warmly.