THE SHELBY KINGS WERE at the theater that evening, with some Boston acquaintances of Robert’s who were visiting Paris as part of a European excursion. The Fanshaws were, of course, quite dreadful. On meeting them for the first time in the foyer—Druscilla fussing with a ridiculously heavy coat; Charles polishing his spectacles obsessively until they shone almost as much as his bald head—Genevieve knew she should have persuaded Robert to stick with Folies. At Folies you were guaranteed brevity. You could hide yourself in the noise, the laughter, the champagne. It was always a great show, and American tourists like this pair always loved it. But Robert was keen to show off his “Parisian sophistication” and instead had picked up tickets for a play that he’d heard was receiving rave reviews (not that he’d actually read any of them). A play that turned out to comprise two men and a woman dressed as circus clowns, talking to each other rapidly and ardently in French (it was so typical of Robert to have assumed the play would be in English) as they rode back and forth across the stage on bicycles.

They had a box, something Genevieve usually enjoyed for the opportunity it gave to people-spot with her opera glasses, but the drag of it, on this occasion, was that Druscilla took advantage of their not being surrounded by strangers to talk loudly in her ear.

“What are they saying now?” Druscilla bent toward Genevieve and enveloped her in a cloud of cloying cologne.

Genevieve’s head was full of Paolo Zachari. I am hungry for him, she said to herself. I am ravenous. Why must I wait until tomorrow?

“What are they saying?” Druscilla hissed again.

“Oh.” Genevieve shifted her attention to the stage just long enough to catch a snippet of dialogue. “The tall one told the woman she looks like a fish. She replied that his mother is a prostitute.”

Druscilla blanched—you knew she had blanched even in the darkness of the auditorium and even through her thick rouge.

“Then the short one said he’d known the tall one’s mother for years and could vouch for her—she was really very good in bed and he wouldn’t hear a word said against her.”

“Mercy!” Druscilla fanned herself with her program. “Are you sure that’s what they’re saying?”

“Quite sure.” Genevieve was peering down at the stalls. There were plenty of diamonds here tonight, much cleavage and a lot of bad toupées. Not many faces she recognized.

Druscilla scrutinized her program. “I thought it must be nearly over, but there’s another intermission and a whole other act to come.”

Genevieve tried to smile. Someone in a box on the other side of the auditorium was looking at her through opera glasses. A woman. She couldn’t make out who it was, but she had her suspicions.