“So why don’t you look happier? I believe you used to be quite something of a couple—like Hem and I—but wasn’t that a while ago?”

“Jessica May and Emile Robard. Model and photographer. Bohemian artistes,” Jess mused.

“You’re selling yourself a little short by calling yourself a model. From what I’ve seen, you’re as good a photographer as he is. You’ve had work published.”

“It’s what everyone thinks. See.” Jess reached out and opened the newspaper on the sideboard to the social pages, pointing to a picture from a party two nights ago. Celebrated photographer Emile Robard with Jessica May, model. “Apparently I’m not even celebrated,” she said with a sardonic smile. “The thing is, only this morning I was thinking that I didn’t know how much longer I could parade around in dresses and smile at cameras. You’re doing something useful,” she said to Martha. “What am I doing?”

“Keeping up morale?” Martha said teasingly. “I bet there’s a soldier or two who has a picture of you posted above his bed in his training camp.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Just what I want to be remembered for.”

“There you are.” Bel joined them, kissing both Jess’s and Martha’s cheeks.

“You look as frowny as I feel,” Jess noted as Belinda sat down.

“You never look frowny, Jessica May,” Bel said. “You two look as if you’re having the most interesting conversation at this party.”

“Cheers to that,” Martha said, raising her glass.

“Maybe we can wipe your frown away,” Jess said to Bel. “A problem shared and all that.”

Bel took a sip of champagne. “I spent the afternoon foxtrotting with the government. The price of paper has gone sky high since the war started, and they’re talking about paper rationing. I need to stay on the good side of the politicians if I want to keep Vogue alive during the war. But during today’s meeting, I was asked if I could do more to contribute to the war effort than it’s felt we’re currently doing.”

“I take it by ‘asked’ you mean ‘blackmailed’?” Jess said.

“Exactly. I told the government that women are a valuable part of the propaganda machine and that Vogue can and should help with that. The government wants women here to let their men go and fight, to shrug off rationing as their moral duty, to work in order to keep the economy going. And Vogue’s market is the women the government wants on their side. But I need pictures, not just words; Vogue is visual. I don’t suppose you’d quit Collier’s and come work for me?” Bel said pleadingly to Martha.

As Bel spoke, an idea at once so outrageous and so perfect began to form in Jess’s mind. Four years ago in Paris, when she’d joined the anti-fascism demonstrations, she would never have imagined that, in the near future, while fascism claimed life after life and country after country, she would be sitting at a party in a Park Avenue penthouse drinking champagne. Back then she had marched and she had protested and, most of all, she had cared deeply about what was happening in the world. She still cared, but in a helpless and hopeless way. Writing and photographing those pieces for Bel had re-inflamed that care and given her a sense that she could do something more, like Martha did. Jess couldn’t shoot or fly or fight but she could write and she could photograph.