Robert was watching Genevieve out of the corner of his eye as they were driven home from the party in the Bentley. There was a restlessness about her tonight. She kept running her right hand through her glossy, bobbed hair. When he first knew her, in Suffolk, her hair was long and luxuriant, but perhaps little-girlish. Now it was cut short and chic, fashionably waved at the salon of Lina Cavalieri on the Rue de la Paix. It showed off her long neck.

Her left hand was held to that long neck—to the throat, where it agitated her necklace (large glass beads wrapped in snippets from poetry journals). It was something her mother did too—this unconscious clutching at the throat. Genevieve wouldn’t be pleased if he were to point this out to her.

“Did you see Violet de Frémont’s shoes?” she said suddenly, without turning to look at him. They were driving past the Hôtel de Ville and up the Rue de Rivoli, and it was raining. The streetlights blurred and seemed to dance.

“Can’t say I did.”

She made a noise that was somewhere between a tut and a sigh, and straight away he felt he’d let her down. He’d never noticed shoes until he met Genevieve. Dresses, yes. Jewelry, yes. A neat figure and a pretty face—yes, of course. He was a man, after all. The mid-1920s had seen hemlines rising up toward the knee for the first time, drawing the gaze to the ankles, their narrowness, their fine bones. But Genevieve had taught him to look, too, at the shoes themselves. Beautifully designed, flamboyant shoes, made from expensive, richly colored materials, promised a sensuality in the wearer. High heels were so provocative, the way they emphasized the arch of the foot, the fulsome curve of the calf. Genevieve prided herself on being one of the first women to really understand that shoes could be the focal point of an outfit. She was way ahead of the pack.

“Were they special in some way?” he asked eventually.

“They were special in every way.” She pulled so hard on her necklace that the string snapped and the beads scattered. “Don’t!” she snapped as he bent to gather them. But he did it anyway.

“Robert—what’s more important, do you think—to be beautiful or to be talented?”

“Well…” He slipped some beads into his coat pocket and bent to retrieve more.

“Beauty’s enough to make a man want to marry you, but it doesn’t win respect, does it? It doesn’t make people take you seriously. Not the people who really count.”

“Which people?” There was a bead stuck down the side of the seat. He was almost getting his fingers stuck, too, as he tried to fish it out.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, leave it!”