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want a salon?” Dubon had his first inkling that perhaps their conversation was not entirely lighthearted.
    “No, of course not. I don’t have such pretensions. But still, it would be nice to entertain a little, not always be locked up here alone.”
    “You’re not locked up here alone. You were at the exhibition this afternoon with Lucie.”
    “I just mean it would be nice to have a little more space to invite my friends over. I get lonely during the evenings, you know.”
    “I know you, you are out at the cafés. You tell me you are sewing but you are probably at Montparnasse.”
    Madeleine laughed. “I really don’t go out much, my dear. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the means.”
    “Why should it cost anything? Your friends will always entertain you.”
    “That’s so typical of a man. You buy the dinner, you pay for the glass of wine, you don’t realize that I have to wear a dress. And how am I to get to the café? Am I to walk alone in the dark?”
    “Well, no, of course not, my sweet.” He was surprised and a little hurt by her tone and responded quickly to quell any threat of discord between them. “I can give you more if that’s what you need … a little increase …”
    “I don’t like to trouble you …”
    “Perhaps an extra fifty? No, not enough for all these cafés and dances you are planning on attending? One hundred it is.”
    “No, no really. It isn’t necessary.”
    “I’ll pay a call on the bank manager tomorrow.”
    “Oh, don’t bother. You don’t need to.”
    Dubon looked at her. She had got her way but was now retreating, as though she did not wish to appear to have asked. Such social squeamishness was quite unlike her.
    “It’s no trouble,” he said.
    “No, my dear. Please don’t bother.”
    Did she not want the money after all? What was her game? Angered, he persisted, “This is ridiculous, Madeleine. I will go to the bank tomorrow.”
    “Well, if you insist …”

    About a quarter of an hour later, Dubon rounded the end of Madeleine’s street and started down the boulevard des Italiens, thinking he would find a free cab on the busy boulevard before he got as far as the Opéra. As he passed the café on the corner of the rue Grammont, a small but tidy establishment frequented by some of the local journalists and businessmen, he saw with surprise that Masson was sitting at a table near the window. Hardly seems like his neighborhood, Dubon thought. This was the business district at the heart of the bourgeois Right Bank. Masson was a man of the Left Bank, the seat of government and learning, the home of the aristocracy. As though sensing his friend’s stare, Masson looked up from his newspaper and caught Dubon’s eye. He mimed a jolt of surprise and beckoned him inside. Dubon had better not be long about it; he needed to get home. Masson, on the other hand, seemed in an expansive mood.
    “Greetings. Good to see you. Are you going to join me for a drink?”
    Dubon pulled out his pocket watch. He could afford about ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour. It would be nice to have a little glass of something.
    “I can’t stay long. You know it’s my policy never to be late for dinner. It keeps Madame Dubon happy.”
    “Yes, the ladies. Have to keep them happy. You have a lot more experience there than I do, Dubon. An old bachelor like me can eat whenever he wants, but in truth longs only for your cozy family dinners.”
    A waiter appeared at Dubon’s side.
    “A red wine,” Dubon said. “And not any of your Beaujolais. A Bordeaux.”
    “What are you doing in these parts?” he inquired of Masson. “Slumming it with the press and the stockbrokers, eh?”
    “I might ask the same of you.” Masson laughed. “But, of course, your office is not that far away, is it. Your clients behaving themselves today?”
    “Oh yes, my clients always behave themselves.”
    “How dull. No revolutionaries who need defending?”
    “You know I gave up that stuff long