He arrived at her apartment at quarter past eight. She met him at the door with a kiss, then led him into a sitting room. It was pretty much what he had expected: a careful approximation of a real home. There were timid etchings of snow-laden fields, a seascape and a copy of an early Raphael. There was also a clock on the mantle with suspended brass weights, and two imitative oriental prints.

"So what do you think, darling? Respectable enough?"

"Oh, very."

"And naturally I also have my studio."

Nor was Spangler any surprise: first appearing on the landing, then floating down the staircase to shake his hand. He wore a smoking jacket and a burgundy cravat, charcoal gray trousers and a silk shirt. His face was somewhat cleaner than Gray recalled, but the eyes were decidedly familiar.

"So, you are the painter that I've heard so much about."

"Nothing too compromising, I hope."

"Oh, no, Margaretha greatly admires your work."

Then there came the sherry, appropriately dry; then an amusing story about a trip Spangler had once made to Africa. The meal was of a piece: cold poached salmon, iced lettuce, potato soup, sherbet.

Yet there was at least one telling moment, one critical juncture in the evening. It came later after Zelle had retired to her bedroom— obviously another calculated gesture. Spangler had poured the brandy and laid a box of cigars on the table. The servants had been dismissed. The curtains had been drawn back to reveal still one more blue evening with only traces of that earlier fog.

"So you see," Spangler said, "Berlin, too, can be quite inspiring."

The moonlight only tended to accent the man's profile, turning the skin to porcelain.

"Yes, it's very nice."

"Oh, I know what they say. It's not nearly as charming as Paris . . . but still, I think, very interesting, no?" Then, sliding his hand on the window pane, examining a residue of dust, "Tell me, do you miss England much? I think I would . . . assuming that I were an Englishman."

They were both watching one another's eyes in the glass.

"I haven't been home in a long time," Gray said.

"Yes, but does one ever forget one's home?"

His fingers might have also been procelain, the nails like translucent pearls.

"No, I suppose one doesn't."

"Then, too, I remember England as so inviting. Yes, that's definitely the word. Inviting. In fact, I've often had the notion of living there myself ... in the country."

"I think you would find it cold. And damp."