“I’ll be all right. You’re a brick.” Sophia squeezed the other girl’s shoulder through the soft cashmere cardigan. Very odd—but her mind was so clear now that she felt she could actually look right into Jessica’s soul, understand her down to the ground, even see into her future. Blond and cherub-cheeked, vulnerable, deferential and not terribly bright, Jessica would have her pick of the gallery’s most opulent clients. She would marry one, would enjoy his luxuries, would suffer his adultries and would learn to live for her children and her comforts, resigned and only slightly frantic. It really was very odd; Sophia looked into Jessica’s big eyes and saw the whole thing right away. She squeezed the girl’s shoulder again, with compassion this time. “Sir Michael wants The Magi,” she went on, and then wittily imitated her father’s huffy baritone, “at all costs!” Jessica smiled uncertainly. Gently, Sophia said, “It won’t go much past fifty, I’m sure, but he said he would go to three times that, so we have the wherewithal. Just be firm, you know, top the bids quickly, and you’ll scare the rest off.”

“Yes … yes, all right,” said Jessica, not very firmly at all. “If you really need me to.”

Sophia gave her an encouraging smile. It would be a big moment for her, she thought. Something to remember in her later days. On an impulse, she unclasped the brooch from her own cardigan and pinned it onto Jessica’s. “Now listen, if Antonio’s there, I want you to flirt with him a little, yah? Especially when the Antwerp lots come up, distract him. Tell him I’ve got a perfectly good Reubens Pan for him and I don’t want him spending all his money before I get my hands on some of it. Tell him I was very severe about it. He likes that; it excites him, makes him feel English or something. All right?”

“Isn’t this your mother’s brooch?”

“It just suits you. The little lapis pieces set off those flecks in your eyes.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t possibly—”

“No, I want you to wear it,” Sophia said. “It looks much better on you than it ever did on me. I’ll consider it yours until I see you again. All right?”

At that, Jessica looked so confused and grateful and admiring that Sophia’s heart welled with pity for her and her humiliating future. But she only smiled back, wryly. In her clarity, she understood that what would be, must be. And she continued down her lucid corridor, through her dreamy day.