They met in Rotterdam on the first of June. Zelle had hardly slept the night before. She had also had difficulty securing a room, and sudden rain had all but ruined her hat. Still, the hyacinths were in bloom and reflections of shifting clouds tended to break the monotony of water.

Rudolph MacLeod was nearly sixty by now, his daughter—Margaretha's daughter—had just turned sixteen. Her eyes and hair were dark, like her mother's, but she seemed to have her father's gaze and that hint of strength in the jaw. Her one painfully formal letter had essentially described a life that Zelle had left some fifteen years earlier. She was studying to be a teacher, with the hope of securing a position in one of the secondary institutions. She was very fond of horses, and believed that with faith and determination a person could accomplish anything.

It was about noon. Jeanne-Louise and her father were making their way along the quay, she in white, he in drab blue. Margaretha saw them first from the window of a small cafe adjacent to her hotel, then briefly lost them against a darker stretch of wharf. Closer, she saw that MacLeod had hardly changed—no doubt a consequence of a rigidly disciplined life. He took the child aside before entering the cafe, then sent her across the promenade to wait while he tested the water.

His eyes had never been particularly good, and he hesitated in the doorway, scanning every face before approaching. He moved awkwardly at first, stiff from boots to collar. He did not smile a welcome, and looked only at the waiting chair. Even after he sat down he hardly looked at her.

"How are you, Margaretha?"

"Well enough. And you?"

"The same."

A waitress brought him a café crème, laid it on the table beside his folded hands.

"I thought it best that I spoke to you alone first," he said.

"All right."

"Because there are certain things you should understand about Jeanne-Louise . . . about her life."

She glanced out the window. Her daughter was sitting on a bench in a treeless park.

"She's very beautiful, isn't she?" Zelle said at last.

He smiled, briefly. "She looks like her mother."

"But has her father's temperament?" Then carefully sliding her hand to his wrist: "Rudy, I'm not here to make trouble. I just want to be part of her life for a while. I want to help."

"She has a stepmother, I married again."

She nodded. "I heard."

"And they're very close—Jeanne-Louise and Elisabeth."

"Yes, that's very nice . . . but I'm the mother, Rudy."

She saw his hand closing to a fist, then gradually relaxing again. "Tell me what you propose."

"Let her live with me for a while."

"Where?"

"In The Hague. I have a house. She can enroll in the conservatory—"

"She wants to be a schoolteacher."