"And how do you feel about it? Do you love it?"

"I love people, not places."

"Then let me put it another way. What would it cost me to hire your services on behalf of the French people?"

"And what sort of services would you have me perform?"

"Oh, I think you know."

She was watching the back of his head, those deceptive scarecrow shoulders. "Do I really, monsieur?"

"Yes, definitely, I think you know." Then suddenly turning from the window to face her again: "Give me a price, madame. Purely for the sake of argument, give me a price."

She sighed, thinking that it was a dream, the worst kind of repetitious dream. "A million francs."

"Excellent. A million francs."

"And my pass to Vittel."

He moved back to his desk, and scrawled a signature on her application. "There, you are free to join your gallantly wounded fiancé in Vittel. The million francs, however, will require somewhat more discussion."

She slipped the application into her pocket, said nothing.

"I should like to see you when you return from Vittel."

"Is that an order, captain?"

"I think so, yes."

In fact, she spent eight days in Vittel, visiting the spa in the mornings, returning to Merrick in the afternoons and evenings. It would be said that she made a brief side trip to Contrexeville, to inspect a new French airstrip for her German masters, which was untrue. Nor did she attempt to recruit a young corporal, or glean information from Thomas Merrick regarding British troop strength at the Somme. Indeed, after the fifth or sixth day she was mostly concerned about how she would tell him that she did not love him after all. . . not compared to her feelings for Nicholas Gray. It was also Gray who would have us see her as a rather foolish opportunist without any notion of how the world really worked. It seemed he was right, but also wrong—an opportunist out of necessity as she saw it; a steadfast romantic for whom the world had little room or time.

It was a Friday morning when she returned to Paris and Georges Ladoux. By this time Ladoux had exchanged several cables with Charles Dunbar to finalize a plan designed to bring her closer to the British net. The city was in the grip of an early summer heat wave and the streets were virtually empty. On her way to Ladoux's office a man trailed her on bicycle. If she had been aware of it she probably would have made a joke of it.

"Perhaps if you had stayed another week," Ladoux told her, "you might have escaped the heat."

"I suppose so. But I thought it was important to see you, to have our further discussion, or whatever."

Her smile irritated him. He leaned forward. "We know all about your relationship with Karl H. Cramer."