‘I know she’s kind and looked after me,’ replied Hélène.

‘Indeed she did,’ agreed Rosalie carefully. ‘Now, chérie,’ she went on, anxious to change the subject, ‘have you done your piano practice today?’

‘No,’ Hélène admitted, and finding herself dismissed to the music room, she left her mother deep in thought in the drawing room.

Rosalie’s thoughts were interrupted again when the door opened and Emile walked in. She knew a moment’s surprise. With everything that had been happening, including Madame Sauze’s unexpected visit, she had forgotten he was arriving in Paris today. She stood up to greet him and for the moment the question of Madame Sauze and Annette was pushed to the back of her mind.

‘Emile,’ she said, presenting her cheek for the touch of his lips. ‘I hope you had an easy journey.’

‘Easy enough,’ replied her husband as he flung himself down into his armchair. ‘Ring for Didier, will you?’

Rosalie did as she was asked and then said, ‘Madame Choux looked after you well?’

‘Well enough, I suppose,’ grunted Emile. ‘But she’s getting very forgetful. Forgot to have my dinner served in the morning room as I’d asked. Laid us up in the dining room.’

‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about Madame Choux,’ Rosalie said. ‘I think that after Clarice’s wedding, we must suggest she retires. Find someone experienced but younger. There is always a great deal to do in a house such as ours and I think she’s struggling.’

‘Whatever you decide, my dear,’ Emile replied dismissively, and picking up the paper Didier had laid out on the side table, he began to read.

‘Will you be joining us at the opera tonight?’ Rosalie asked him.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Emile looked up from the paper. ‘The opera?’

‘Yes, we’ve been invited into Madame Descamps’ box to see The Pearl Fishers.’

Emile shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so, my dear. I shall probably go to my club.’

Rosalie was not surprised at his refusal. Over the last few years she and Emile had drifted apart, the first coolness between them occurring when eleven-year-old Hélène had been missing in Paris during the siege of the Communards. Rosalie had blamed Emile for not bringing Hélène to safety when he had had the chance, and if he were honest, he knew she was right, but could not admit the fact.

Outwardly they continued to live together as they always had, but the rift had gradually increased between them. Emile, always rather a distant father, had little to do with the day-to-day upbringing of his daughters. All such matters he left to Rosalie, and the atmosphere in the house was one of detached civility. Rosalie transferred all the love she had once had for him to her daughters and her son Georges and his children, her beloved grandchildren.

Now, as she watched him sipping his cognac, reading his paper, entirely unaware of her scrutiny, she thought, How he’s aged over these last years!

Stooped where once he had been so erect, his hair receding to a fringe around his bald pate and the muscles of his face drooping to soft, fleshy pouches, she realised with a pang of regret that he looked older than his fifty-four years. Where, she wondered, had her Emile gone? The handsome young man who had swept her off her feet and married her when she was just eighteen? Only the ghost of him remained.