“I wish you would buy one,” she said. “Business has been a little slow today.”

“It’s the Föhn,” I told her.

She unbuttoned her jacket and flapped herself with half of it. I sort of enjoyed that myself. Not just the perfumed breeze she made for us but also the low-cut silk blouse she was wearing underneath. If I’d been an artist I’d have called it an inspiration. Or whatever artists call it when they see a girl’s nipples pressing through her shirt like two chapel hat-pegs. She was worth a bit of charcoal and paper anyway.

“I suppose so,” she said and blew a lipful of air and cigarette smoke at her own forehead. “Tell me, did you come in here to look or just to laugh?”

“Probably a bit of both. That’s what Lord Duveen recommended, anyway.”

“For an artless vulgarian, you’re quite well informed, aren’t you?”

“True decadence involves taking nothing too seriously,” I said. “Least of all, decadent art.”

“Is that really what you think of it? That it’s decadent?”

“I’ll be honest,” I said. “I don’t like it one little bit. But I’m delighted to see it exhibited without any interference from people who know as little about art as I do. Looking at it is like looking inside the head of someone who disagrees with you about nearly everything. It makes me feel uncomfortable.” I shook my head sadly and sighed, “That’s democracy, I guess.”

Another customer came in. A customer chewing gum. He was wearing a pair of enormous brogues and carrying a folding Kodak Brownie. A real connoisseur. Someone with lots of money, anyway. The girl went to squire him around the pictures. And a little after that Father Gotovina showed up and we went out of the gallery, to the English Garden, where we sat down on a bench beside the Rumford Monument. We lit cigarettes and ignored the warm wind in our faces. A squirrel came bounding along the path, like an escaped fur tippet, and stopped near us in the hope of some morsel. Gotovina flicked his match and then the toe of a well-polished black boot at the furry oscillation. The priest was obviously not a nature lover.

“I made a few inquiries regarding your client’s husband,” he said, hardly looking at me at all. In the bright afternoon sunshine his head was amber-colored, like a good bock beer, or maybe a Doppel. While he spoke, the cigarette stayed in his mouth, jerking up and down like a conductor’s baton bringing to order the riotous orchestra of hydrangeas, lavender, gentian, and irises that was arrayed in front of him. I hoped they would do what they were told, just in case he tried to kick them the way he had tried to kick the squirrel.