They began to walk, slowly drifting to a circle of chestnut trees and an iron bench on the lawn.

"The fact of the matter is that I saw you dance. In Vienna."

"Oh, really?" As if no one had ever approached her like this before.

"You were sensational, truly smashing."

"Thank you," said in her coolest, most professional voice.

"So it was a coincidence, really. I mean first seeing you dance in Vienna, and then spotting you here." He laughed to cover the silence. "Then, of course, I just had to know whether or not it was really you."

She paused, holding his gaze for another suggestive moment. "Well, it's me."

"Yes," he grinned. "It is you."

They settled onto the cold bench, his hands resting on his walking stick, hers demurely folded in her lap. The mist appeared to be receding, leaving everything marginally brighter.

"My name is Dunbar, Charles Dunbar," and he produced a card from his waistcoat to prove it, a tastefully delicate card with a London address.

"And what brings you to Berlin, Mr. Dunbar?" she said softly, consciously trying out the name.

"Business. Family business."

"Nothing too dreary, I hope."

He gave her a wistful smile. "Investments."

All around them it seemed that the gardens were awakening with voices of pensioners and children. The earlier magic hour had passed, and the city was once more respectable.

"I don't suppose I might see you again . . ."

She caught a glimpse of his button eyes, his plump hairless hands. "Well, that depends upon what you have in mind."

"Dinner?"

She smiled again, toying with the fringe of her dress. "Dinner is awfully serious, don't you think?"

"Then how about lunch?"

She bit her lower lip. "Well, actually I'm more or less involved at the moment."

"Involved?"

"With a man."

"Oh, I see."

"But perhaps if you were to give me the name of your hotel, then possibly—"

"The Esplanade."

As with other intriguing men in her life, her first response to this brief encounter was merely a harmless fantasy: she and Charles Dunbar sculling on some provincial river, he in white flannels and a boater, she in mauve crinoline. Following wine and chicken in aspic they would return to his mock-Tudor cottage—she and her fine Englishman with his handsome foreign investments.

Apart from these solitary daydreams her thoughts were mainly idle reflections. She wondered how it would feel to be loved by a nice inconspicuous youth. She wondered what it would be like to spend a night in the Esplanade. Once, she even found herself lingering in the Tiergarten, hoping to see him again—not that she would have known what to tell him, not with Herr Kierpert still paying the bills.

It was a Tuesday when Kierpert came again, a typically drab Berlin Tuesday. He arrived in the late afternoon smelling of beer and his wife's perfume. The sky by now was cloudless and steel blue. Their voices were once again flat and expressionless.