The song was about a girl whose shadow starts to misbehave, refusing to follow the girl about as shadows are supposed to, and instead dragging her off to wild parties where it dances all night, forcing its owner to dance too, and wearing her out.

Genevieve, still knotted up with jealousy and needing a drink, ordered a cherry, and, spotting Norman Betterson, went to perch on the empty stool next to him.

“I didn’t know Lulu was collaborating with a dancer,” she whispered. “They’ve obviously rehearsed pretty thoroughly, but she’s never once mentioned it.”

“You make it sound as though she’s been fraternizing with the enemy.” Betterson was wearing a formal black suit. He had oiled his mustache to make it curl at the tips.

“We’re supposed to be best friends. We tell each other everything.”

“Do you now?” Betterson gave her an odd look.

On stage, the shadow was gaining the upper hand. Lulu sang of how, in the last days before the girl’s wedding, she becomes wan and exhausted—shadowy, in fact—while the shadow grows more vivid and real.

“The story’s vaguely familiar,” said Genevieve. “I think it must be based on a folk tale.”

“It comes straight from the heart,” said Betterson. “That’s the kind of girl she is, our Lulu.”

Genevieve shot him a daggers glance. Our Lulu, indeed!

Someone at the back of the room started heckling. His voice was so slurred with drink that you couldn’t make out the words. Another man shouted, in English, that he should shut up if he wanted to keep his teeth. Genevieve couldn’t see either of the men over the sea of heads, but she recognized the voices. The heckler was Joseph Lazarus, Lulu’s penguinesque admirer. The second man was Frederick Camby, her on-again-off-again true love.

“Everybody loves her,” whispered Betterson. “Everyone.”

Genevieve, irritated for some reason she didn’t entirely understand, was about to bring up the subject of the magazine when Betterson piped up again. “Did you hear about your friend Guy Monteray?”

“My friend?”

“It happened earlier this evening. He punched the owner of La Rotonde. Clean knocked him out. I saw the whole thing. Someone called the gendarmes, and they took him away. That girl of his—Whisper—she was shouting and cussing at them and flashing her money for all she was worth, but they weren’t having any of it. She’ll have to wait till morning to bail him out.”

Genevieve rolled her eyes. “Sooner her than me. That man is trouble.”

“Have a heart, Vivi. Poor Guy’s locked in the pen for the night. That sleazebag from La Rotonde has the police eating out of his hand. Haven’t you heard, he once reported on a conversation Lenin was having at one of his tables? He’s an informer—has been for years. We good guys have to stick together.”