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salon. Inside I was shaking. I knew I was ill prepared to engage in small talk, let alone flirtation. For several days now my mind had been bursting with questions for him. I wanted to ask him how he chose his palette, how he learned his craft. Had he ever envisioned himself as something other than a painter?
    But now conversation eluded me and my tongue failed to utter a single word.
    “You play Chopin beautifully,” he finally said as we entered the room.
    “Thank you,” I said with a small laugh.
    Outside I could hear Henrietta making sounds at the chickens. It was strangely comforting to me, especially when Vincent smiled when one of the roosters cackled.
    “When I hear you play, something about you transforms. I have been trying to place it exactly…. It’s not that your hair becomes more golden…or the fact that your hands flutter like two white doves…. It’s—it’s just—” He stopped himself. “I am sorry, the right words are difficult to find. I only want to say that I was so moved by your performance.”
    “Oh, you are most kind…. But really, I lack the talent that my mother had. She was the most magnificent pianist.”
    Vincent’s brow furrowed when I said this, as if he was troubled that I was selling myself short.
    “That is rather inconsequential. Your talents are real—as real as the blood in my own blue veins!” He tapped on his forearm to reinforce the dramatic tone in his voice. “When I saw you in the garden that first afternoon, I noticed there was something special about you. Underneath that milk-white skin of yours, there is great passion for life. I can see it.”
    “Monsiuer Van Gogh, hush! If my father hears you going on like this I will never be allowed at the piano again!” Again, I giggled nervously, as I had never had anyone flatter me before.
    “Ah, so you are not used to this attention,” he said, and a small smile crept over his face. He was still sitting a comfortable distance from me but I could feel his gaze begin to intensify. Now he was staring.
    I felt my face growing hot from his stare. “What you say is true. It is strange for me.” My blush now spread: a stroke of pink on a wet page.
    Vincent stood up from his chair. He was suddenly more confident and his voice was stronger. “I look around your father’s house and I see all this bric-a-brac.” He pointed to the ebony pedestal in the corner, the shelves lined with porcelains. “There is too much distraction. But, you, mademoiselle, stand out among all this dark furniture and gilded ormolu.”
    “You are much too kind,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat.
    “No, I am not,” he insisted. “A painter yearns to paint that which others fail to see. If someone tells me the sky is full of clouds, I am the artist that rushes outside to find what is hidden behind. “He now came closer to me so that he was standing only inches from where I sat. And even though I tried to force my pupils to burrow into my lap, his eyes were still planted firmly in my direction. His gaze began to fixate on my features and I began to suspect he was studying my face, imagining how he might build the flesh from layers of thin, blended pigment.
    When I finally did raise my head, I could now make out each of his lashes, the creases at the corners of his eyes, the follicles of his whiskers.
    His mouth remained perfectly still. The feather-soft lines in his lips looked like the tiny veins of an autumn leaf, and the sweep of skin below his eyes was so pale it appeared almost blue.
    “I would not be so distracted if I could paint you, mademoiselle.”
    I looked up at him. The irises of his eyes were not solid aquamarine as I had believed, but speckled with gold and apricot.
    “Monsieur Van Gogh,” I stammered. My skin felt as if it was burning right through the silk of my dress. I had never been so close to a man before and I was trembling.
    “You will need to ask my father,” I finally blurted out. “He will be here