The last sentence came in a rush, a flutter of uncertainty abruptly modulating her tone, betraying her sudden fear that she had been too presumptuous in her self-assessment. Chance wavered. Even though she showed herself as a woman of ordinary appearance, the old pull was there, the power to persuade, seduce, mesmerize. He found himself leaning toward her in instinctive anxiety, wanting to please her, to make her happy, but then he caught himself and smiled at her with an admonishing shake of his head.

“Madame, you are good, but I have been a man for only a fraction of my existence. I have retained a certain amount of immunity.”

She ducked her head and smiled, both pleased and embarrassed that he had been able to catch her out. “I see you do not even pretend to lie. How fortunate your friends are! Very well, then. Tell me what you truly think.”

“I could not help but give your play my attention, my sympathy even, but the lead female was at times too present.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded, not offended but intrigued.

“She might have said more by speaking less. I think she communicated most clearly when dancing.”

She frowned and nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. The narration is superfluous, no?”

“It is hard to blend your history and your dreams,” he offered. “Emotional attachment is natural, but it will rob you of objectivity.”

She continued to frown and nod as she stood up and allowed her imagined world to dissolve into desert. “Fyodor doesn’t like masked autobiographies. He says that an author building on the subject of his own life will write the truth too large to be credible as fiction.” She sighed. “As for my part in his life, I wonder how small he will have it written to suit his comfort. Ah, well. Let us be off.”

Chance felt the awkwardness of knowing that there was no delicate way to press for the information he needed. “Ah . . . before we go, are you the only one here?” He looked at her discreetly, his gaze lingering at her waist, where a simple sarong was wrapped and tied over a tucked-in tunic. Her figure was lacking in no area—no void, no bloody bandages, nothing to hint at her loss. Accustomed, perhaps, to feigning wholeness, he thought.

She gave a little shake of the head, part puzzlement, part irritation. “Who else should be here?”

He was too baffled for courtesy. “But . . . your performance . . . the child? Your child?”

Her expression was unreadable. It was both artfulness and sincerity, with her eyebrows quizzical but her eyes blank. “My child? I have no child.”

There were several counterquestions to that, but Chance faltered into silence. The performance was more than mere play; it was tragedy at a safe distance. It appeared there were sorrows beyond her capacity after all.