I had scarcely been settled in my new residence for a day before the acquaintance I had formed began to call upon me there. Just as she had promised, my dear friend appeared with regularity in my apartments, and when she was not present, I could be found at the rue de Miromesnil in her drawing room or at her table. However, the visits to the theatre, the rides in her chariot and constitutionals along the Champs-Élysées and the colonnades of the Palais-Royal were no more. While the absence of her society saddened me, she was quick to spy my downturned look and upbraid me for it.

‘It is for the best,’ she would insist, smiling with a look of reassurance. ‘Think on your prospects, ma fille.’

Mrs Elliot continued to do her best to further these and remained tireless in her efforts to puff my talents to all her associates. Requests for my miniature likenesses did not cease. Indeed, I believed it was her intention to drive every opera dancer, chanteuse and diamond-decorated mistress to my drawing room. Within a fortnight, I had sketched the countenances of the notorious La Clarion, an actress who lived with great extravagance, as well as her nimble-footed sister who danced and sang with the Comédie-Italienne. A Swede of Mrs Elliot’s acquaintance, a ship-owner called Major Backman, came too, along with the tattle-tongued Madame de Flaghac in her elaborately flounced skirts.

She sat next to me in my sunlit drawing room, where I had assembled an easel upon a small table. Like Mrs Elliot, I had acquired a fondness for this toy-like grand matron who arrived in attire far too formal for morning. A vast tucker of embroidered black gauze was crossed along the front of her plum-hued bodice. It reached to her very ears, which were covered with a starched balloon cap hung with a profusion of blue ribbons. I could scarcely spy her features between these frills and froths. Politely, I invited her to arrange the gauze. She responded by whipping away the garment.

‘I am pleased to see Madame Elliot is not present,’ she muttered as I traced my pencil across the sheet.

‘And, pray, why is that so, madame?’

‘So we can speak candidly, of course.’

‘Upon what matters could we not speak freely before Madame Elliot?’ I enquired, attempting to disguise the amusement as it curled over my mouth.

‘Matters of the truth, my child,’ she parried. ‘Matters of love, of course.’

I let out a little laugh at her teasing.

‘It is said that Madame Elliot intends you for the young Duc de Chartres . . .’ she probed.

I did not so much as raise my eyes from my work.

‘That is nonsense,’ I replied, smiling.