He was a sleek figure with silver hair and narrow chiseled features. He nodded slightly as Gray approached, then turned back to Margaretha. "So, this is your young painter."

"Yes, my painter."

"Well, I very much like your work, Mr. Gray."

"Thank you."

"Also I like your model."

"Yes."

"But unfortunately not for sale too, correct?"

Followed by a burst of laughter.

It was late when he brought her back to his studio, nearly dawn again. By this time the walls were covered with drawings of her: seated, reclining, pensive, asleep. None, however, seemed as deeply revealing as that portrait that the colonel had purchased.

"You didn't like him, did you?" she said.

"Who?"

"Michard."

He shrugged. "I don't know, he bought my painting, didn't he?"

They were lying together on the bed, but not touching. It appeared that the day would be cold—possible rain, definite fog.

"He told me that he liked you," she said suddenly.

"How nice."

"Yes, he said that he's always been fond of the English."

"Lovely."

She turned, running her fingers through his hair, tracing his lips with her nails. "Don't be jealous, Nicky. I could never love someone like the colonel."

"But you intend to see him again, right?"

She pulled at a loose thread on her nightgown. "I don't know. He asked me to lunch."

"Did you accept?"

"I can't remember."

But she was gone in the morning, leaving telltale signs everywhere: lipstick on a glass, a camisole dangling from a chair, torn stockings. He made himself a cup of coffee and drank it by the window. Fog had settled in the courtyard below, pouring over the rooftops, obscuring the ranks of chimneys. He picked up a novel she had been reading, a vapid romance of obsession in the tropics. He turned and reached for a cigarette, then caught a glimpse of her profile in pencil.

You've changed.

He descended to the courtyard, climbed the crumbling staircase to de Massloff's room. The photographer was hunched at a sagging bench, carefully dismantling a camera. There were dozens of photographs scattered on the floorboards—seated nudes, reclining nudes, pensive nudes.

"Care for a drink?"

De Massloff continued staring through an oval lense. "Where's Zelle?"

"Out."

"I'll get my coat."

They found a cafe in the shadow of a hotel filled with refugees and prostitutes. They ordered rum because of the cold. They ate because there was nothing else to do.

"She's left you, hasn't she?" de Massloff said.

"Of course not."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Nothing." But after another hollow pause, "Who's Rolland Michard?"

De Massloff smiled. "Dear boy, everyone has heard of Rolland Michard, playboy of the General Staff."

"Fine. And beyond that?"

De Massloff smiled again, tracing his jaw with a finger, a slightly devious gesture. "Son of a ruined countess. Loves war, loves women, especially loves women. Also fancies himself as something of a patron and moves in all the appropriate circles."

"Married?"

"Good God no."