It was a gracious thing to say, considering the general mood in the room, and her smile became a little easier. “I was very impressed with your firm’s work on The Principles of Interior Decoration,” she said, taking a delicate sip of water intended to show the rest of the room how at ease she was. The angry whispers were still buzzing around her. “I thought the photographs you included were especially helpful. You were an obvious choice for my own work.”

The waiter returned to pour their wine, and Alva saw Mrs. Henry Biddington sail from the room in fury, her sister and two daughters trailing meekly behind. One of the girls snuck a glance in Alva’s direction as she left, as though she wanted one last look at the tiger before she had to leave the zoo.

“Yes,” Smithson said. “I must tell you, though, we’re not convinced the market will bear another home decoration book, so soon after Mrs. Bellingham’s. Your angle, though … it’s interesting, at least. You’ve concluded the purchase of the house?”

“I signed the papers yesterday,” she said. Smithson’s shoulders had relaxed slightly since they’d started talking about business. She thought, overall, that she could have done worse with her choice of publisher. Now she just had to convince him to feel the same about her. “Work should start there next week.”

The house was the basis upon which the whole mad project rested. The plan was to take a house that was on the cusp of being torn down, turn it into a showpiece of modern design ideas, and document the entire process in a book, along with photographs, illustrations, and general design principles that anyone could follow. Even now she could picture the keys to her new house sitting on her desk at the hotel, a certain imagined sheen glowing around them. They were extremely metaphorical keys.

“The Principles of Interior Decoration is an excellent book,” she said, “but it’s directed almost entirely to a very small, very wealthy portion of society. This must, by necessity, limit its sales. My book would attempt to distill my experience refitting Liefdehuis—that’s the name of the house—into ideas the middle class could apply as well. There are a lot more people in that category than in the upper class, and they still have money to spare on books and home decoration schemes.”

“We have been looking for titles for that audience,” he said. He looked over her shoulder again, but this time with an appraising gleam.