Say a few more words in French, Mathinna. All right, then, she would. “Bientôt je te danserai sous la table.”

Sir John wagged his finger. “No doubt you will dance me under the table, my dear. She has been practicing, and I have not!”

“She appears quite comfortable with you,” a woman mused.

He inclined his head in agreement. “Natives are surprisingly capable of forming attachments.”

“I must say, I am impressed,” the dowager said. “To have rescued this savage from a life of primeval ignorance—and to have given her an appreciation of art and culture—is a tremendous accomplishment. Almost as great, perhaps, as conquering the Arctic.”

“And nowhere near as dangerous,” Sir John said.

The dowager arched an eyebrow. “That remains to be seen.”

When Sir John was distracted by a pile of cakes, Mathinna slipped away and wandered through the crowd. Someone handed her a small goblet filled with a golden liquid, and she took it with her as she made her way toward the far corner of the tent, near the dance floor, where the musicians were setting up their instruments: a small piano, an accordion, a fiddle, a harp, a wide shallow drum. Watching them warm up, chatting among themselves with easy familiarity, she felt an aching loneliness.

As she took a sip from the glass, her throat filled with molten fire. After a moment the heat subsided, leaving a sweet, warm taste in her mouth. She took another sip. Then drained the glass.

“Are you ready, ma fille?” Sir John said, bowing to the ground in a showy display of formality. Lightly he took Mathinna’s hand in his white-gloved one for the Grand March. Partygoers began flocking to the dance floor two by two, falling in line behind Sir John and Mathinna like Noah’s animals as they circled the large wooden dance floor, the ladies as colorful and fragrant as freesia, the men as sleekly tailored as pigeons.

Mathinna put her shoulders back and her chin up. Here she was, the girl in the portrait in her red satin dress.

The first dance was a quadrille, one of her favorites. Following Sir John’s lead, she executed each move fluidly, her footwork light and precise as she glided around the floor. One–two–three–four, one–two–three, step-step-step-step, stepstepstep. But the joy she’d felt in mastering the dance was gone. At the round tables just beyond the perimeter, people chattered behind their fans, exclaiming and pointing, but she ignored them. (She was two-dimensional, after all. Impervious to stares and whispers.) Circling her, Sir John whispered, “You are making quite an impression, my dear. You know that, don’t you? Twirl! Show them what a lady you’ve become.”

Taking small steps in time to the music, the girl in the portrait turned, the scarlet skirt billowing around her. As she and the three other ladies in her group came together in the middle, it meant nothing to her that two of them only pretended to touch her hands.

Between dances—as was the custom—accompanied by a jaunty piano tune, Sir John and Mathinna made a show of visiting the other dancers, pantomiming conversation and laughter. She widened her eyes and stuck her chin even higher in the air, imitating Lady Franklin’s obsequiousness when dignitaries from London came to stay. Sir John, who seemed to recognize the mimicry, observed her with bemused delight.