She ran a knuckle across his shoulder, then lower to the nipple. "Besides, the spring is so lovely in Paris."

He sat up, wrapping himself in a sheet and frowning. "Paris? But my parents are expecting me in London."

She took his head in her hands, pressing his face to her breasts. "Then it seems that your parents will be disappointed, won't they?"

They left Berlin on an afternoon train the second Tuesday in May. Four scribbled pages to Herr Kierpert explained nothing and said everything. An outstanding bill of three thousand marks was discreetly settled by Dunbar. Buried in her luggage were two porcelain figurines for Jules Cambon and a tiny Rembrandt etching for Gray.

There was also a letter to a woman that Zelle had befriended earlier that year, an occasional singer and mistress of an officer. Margaretha's message to her was essentially a note on a familiar theme; all men are basically the same, she wrote, with the same obsessions, the same demands and insecurities. A beautiful woman need only cater to their fantasies in order to get whatever she wants. There were also references to old jokes concerning desire as a weapon and love as a means to an end—all notions they would later dredge up to destroy her.

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

GRAY'S first impressions of Dunbar were informally recorded one evening in pencil along the Champs Élysées. Like other sketches from the period, the portrait of Dunbar seems slightly exaggerated, perhaps even a little comical. The man had showed up with Zelle in the doorway of the Chinese Pavillion, and his seated pose is framed by interlocking dragons enameled on a screen. Zelle is shown leaning on his shoulder with adoring still-brook eyes.

Given the setting, the portrait seems to be an obvious enough statement. Here, Gray seems to be saying, is a pleasant but somewhat naive young man entertaining extravagant friends. His clothing is fashionably conformist with a modest pinstripe and a tight-budded rose in the left lapel. The smile is faintly bemused.

Beyond what is evident in the work, Gray's initial feelings for the man were equivocal, possibly clouded by alcohol, definitely clouded by jealousy. Dunbar, he would later say, was like a lot of fellows one met in English public schools: simple, affable, too concerned with what others thought. Indeed, Dunbar's first conversation with Gray concerned Oxford and various dons they had known. Apparently Dunbar had been something of a figure on campus, remembered for his lavish dinner parties. He had also run successfully for the better clubs, the Carlton in his freshman year, then the Grid and the Union.