Tea was served from a silver urn, but Genevieve remained glued to her seat. All around her, poetic lesbians nibbled on harlequin-colored cakes and limp cucumber sandwiches, lamented the demise of the Transatlantic Review, welcomed the arrival of This Quarter and gossiped about other events at the respective salons of the Princesse de Polignac and Gertrude Stein. Genevieve stared glumly down at her own hands folded in her lap, wishing her host would serve up something more potent—a little Dutch courage.

At length, Valéry emerged from a back room, looking pale and shaky, as though his collar was too tight, and clutching a sheaf of papers. The audience began to take seats, perching with their teacups on chairs arranged in neat rows, or lolling on those couches.

And now—hurrah!—a small Oriental man bearing a magnum of champagne entered at the rear of the room, followed by a maid with a tray of glasses. Then came Ezra Pound, wearing a ridiculous beret and greeting Genevieve, along with practically everyone else in the room, with one all-encompassing, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree wave. And finally Norman Betterson, in cape and bow tie, emerged from behind Pound, accompanied by the handsome Guy Monteray in his cream suit. Things were definitely looking up.

Genevieve couldn’t follow the reading, try though she might. She wasn’t sure whether the problem lay with her failure to grasp the complexities of the French language or with her inability to properly grasp poetic expression itself. Eventually she brought her notebook and pen out of her bag, thinking it might help to try to jot down a few of the more memorable phrases. But this proved too tricky, so she gave up altogether and began sketching a little line drawing of Ezra Pound, showing him simply as a huge beret with some unruly hair, a pointy beard and a pair of feet protruding from beneath—a sort of animated wig—while Valéry’s poetry drifted and scattered over her like so much blown blossom. She only realized he’d finished when everyone began clapping.

“Why, hello, Mrs. Shelby King. Did you know that I was watching you throughout that interminable reading? You’re about the only thing worth watching here, after all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Monteray.”

The audience were all moving about again, and Genevieve had extended her glass for a top-up just as the champagne bottle ran dry. When the man in the cream suit had come over and tapped her on the shoulder, she’d been contemplating the disappointing prospect of the tea urn. Now she smiled uncertainly up at him, not entirely sure how much of a compliment this actually was, in present company.