About ten o’clock the closing of a car door woke me. The cream-colored Bentley was lit up like a television set and already on the move in the Rose drive. In the moonlight it resembled a boat in the harbor at the Cap. I waited until it had disappeared up the road and then got out of my car and I walked to the front door. There was no knocker but I saw a brass handle the size of a horse stirrup that I was supposed to pull. I pulled it. The bell sounded as if there should have been a cow attached to it, probably in a Swiss meadow. Julia came to the door holding a martini glass, which was maybe why she seemed pleased to see me.

“Walter. What a pleasant surprise. But if you were looking for Jack, I’m afraid you just missed him.”

“That’s a pity. Never mind.”

“He went to play baccarat.”

“I can never understand that. Bridge requires skill. Baccarat is all luck.”

“Jack’s always been lucky. Don’t underestimate luck.”

“Oh, I don’t. Not for a minute.”

“Now that you’re here, would you like to come in for a drink? I just mixed a jug of martinis.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She stood aside with a smile and ushered me through a wide hallway into a huge drawing room. The French windows were ajar and a light current of air blew through the room off the sea, just enough to stir the petals that had fallen from a vase of roses on a table. Julia Rose was wearing a ruffed white shirt and tapered wafer-colored pants; there was a little red clasp on her fair hair that was shaped like a cherry; she looked like an ice-cream cone. She poured me a large one from a tall glass pitcher and we sat down on one of the several sofas there were to choose from.

“Nice room. You should send out a missionary sometime. See what new plants and undiscovered tribes he comes home with.”

Julia smiled. “It is kind of large, I guess.”

“But I like Èze and La Turbie. The view of Monaco is the best there is.”

“Nietzsche thought so. He used to stay down the road in Èze.”

“That explains it. Why I feel so very much at home here. It’s the kind of place that mad Germans take to.”

“We like it.”

“You’re English. You’re almost as mad as us Germans.”

“But you always seem so very sane, Walter. I’m afraid I find it hard to imagine the concierge at the Grand Hôtel in Cap Ferrat doing anything mad at all.”

“It’s usually the sanest people who turn out to be the craziest, Julia. Who do the most insane things. That’s how history is made.”

“I can see I’m going to have to keep a close eye on you, Walter.”