Mrs. French’s villa occupied a beautiful garden that was a series of lawned terraces that hung on the edge of the rocks above Villefranche and looked as if it had been landscaped by someone from Babylon with a head for heights. The semi-rusticated pink stucco house had a round corner tower and an elegant first-floor terrace with an awning. There was a pool and a clay tennis court and a guest villa and a caretaker’s house with an empty dog kennel that was only a little smaller than the place where I lived. I took one look at the basket and the dog bowl and thought about applying for the vacancy. We sat on the terrace that faced the floodlit, aquamarine pool and she handed me a bottle of Tavel that matched the color of the stucco and helped take away the taste of my cologne.

Inside, the place was full of books and art of the kind that takes a lifetime to collect, or paint, depending on whether it’s taste or talent you have, and since I have neither, I just stood in front of it all and nodded, dumbly, careful not to admit that I thought it was all a bit like Picasso, and which she might reasonably have taken as a compliment but for the fact that I can’t stand Picasso. These days all his faces look as ugly as mine and it seemed unlikely that my face should be of any interest to a woman who was at least ten years younger than I am. I wasn’t sure what she was up to; at least not yet. Perhaps she really did want me to teach her bridge, but there are schools for that, and teachers, even on the Riviera. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but she showed no real interest in the book when I gave it to her and it stayed unopened on the table for as long as it took us to finish one bottle and open another.

We talked about nothing in particular, which is a subject on which I am something of an expert. And after a while she went into the kitchen to prepare us some snacks, leaving me alone to smoke and go inside the house to snoop among her books. I brought one back to the terrace and read it for a while. But finally she came out and soon after that, to the point.

“I expect you’re wondering why I’m so keen to learn the game of bridge,” she said.

“No, not for a minute. These days I try to do as little wondering as possible. The guests tend to prefer it that way.”

“I told you I’m a writer.”

“Yes, I noticed all the books. They must come in handy when you’re thinking of something to write.”