There was something very special about getting your feet measured—having an adult bend down and actually kneel before you. The slide rule was cold against Genevieve’s foot, so that she wanted to wriggle her toes. But it was a nice kind of cold. The lady with the gray hair told her that her feet had grown a whole size. Not just half a size—a whole size.

“Walk around for me.” The assistant sat back on her heels. “See how they feel.”

The shoes had that perfect new stiffness. They pinched a little, but it was a good sort of pinch. Genevieve examined her feet, turning them this way and that. They looked almost like proper grown-up feet. She glanced at herself in the mirror and thought she was very nearly a proper grown-up. One day she would be just like her mother, waltzing around in a floaty chiffon dress. She would be beautiful like her mother, but happier.

“What do you think, Mummy?” And she twirled around fast to see what Lady Ticksted’s face was doing. But her mother wasn’t looking at her. She was talking to a man.

“Mummy?” she called again, more loudly.

“Oh, they’re very nice, dear,” said Lady Ticksted, looking flustered.

“Pretty as a picture,” said the man, in a voice that had an odd twang to it. “Say, how would you two ladies like to join me for tea at Fortnum’s?”

Mr. Slattery—for that was the man’s name—was a “gentleman from New York.” The fact of his being from New York rendered him very glamorous. Genevieve had never met anyone from America before. She was particularly impressed by the description he gave of his boat journey across the Atlantic Ocean, by the strangeness of his accent, and by the size of his shoulders when he removed the big overcoat. Also, he ordered a huge plate of cakes, and she was able to eat three before her mother noticed the way she was cramming them in and warned her to slow down.

“Which is better—New York or London?” asked Genevieve.

“Well, that’s a very difficult one to answer.” Mr. Slattery stroked his big chin. “They’re both fine cities. London has all those centuries of history, but New York—well, nowhere buzzes like New York.”

“What a silly question.” Lady Ticksted kept touching her hair. Her movements had a shy girlishness to them that Genevieve had never noticed before. And although she kept her gaze mostly on the bunch of flowers on the table, she was casting Mr. Slattery odd, sidelong looks. “New York is Mr. Slattery’s home, after all.”

“Oh, I’m not sure that it is, these days.” His cheeks turned pink. “Not anymore.”

“Do you have a wife, Mr. Slattery?” asked Genevieve.

“Genevieve!”