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matter was settled and she would not make her visit.
    “I appreciate your concern, m’sieur, but Margot and I will be talking about old times, not new ones. I think that I have intruded on a conversation, so I will leave now and return in a few hours.” She let
her
tone convey that she would indeed make her visit, even if it displeased him.
    “You intruded on nothing important,” Daniel said. “In fact, we were discussing you. I will be attending the opera tonight, and you will accompany me. Please be back from your visit in time to prepare for it. Also, if you are walking there, take a servant as an escort.”
    Diane took her leave, glad to escape the tense mood in the sitting room. She doubted that they had really been discussing her. She truly was unimportant and would not account for an argument.
    She also could not ignore that she had not been invited by Daniel to attend the opera, but ordered to do so.
             
    The crowds at the Palais Royale irritated Gustave Dupré. He had been spoiled by the way the war had thinned the population of Paris. Now, with peace, with defeat, the classical arcades surrounding the gardens bulged with not only French but also English and Prussians of every class. In particular, it appeared that the soldiers of the occupying army had nothing to do except stroll through Paris. On a fine day such as this, with the sun alleviating the northern bite still in the air, it would be difficult to find a seat in a cafe or on a bench in the gardens.
    It surprised him, therefore, to spy several empty benches. They were in a prized spot, too, where one could watch the fashionable ladies stroll close by, but be spared the noise from the restaurants. Only one man sat on the middle one, reading a book.
    Gustave hurried over and settled himself on the stone seat. Cane upright between his knees to support his hands, he basked in the sun. He tried to do that every day it shone. He was convinced that it stimulated his mind.
    Today he also hoped that it would calm him. Before tomorrow came, he would know if he was right about that manuscript he had bought from St. John. He would know if his life would change forever.
    Two lovely, young women approached. Gustave waited for them to take the free bench, or perhaps even sit on his. To his surprise, something made them turn away.
    Gustave checked his garments. Perhaps his breeches . . .
    “You are not falling out, Dupré. It is me they avoid.”
    Gustave’s head snapped around. The face of the man sitting on the next bench lifted out of the book that he read. Framed with strands of long dark hair and decorated with an old-fashioned mustache, it broke into a cynical smile.
    No wonder all of these benches had been left useless. Gustave began collecting himself, to rise and go.
    “Don’t be an insufferable hypocrite,” his neighbor snarled. “It would be unwise to insult me.”
    Gustave froze. He eased back down. He gazed toward the arcade with determination, so that anyone watching would know that he was not welcoming any association with the man on his left.
    “No greeting, Dupré? No acknowledgment, for old time’s sake?”
    “I do not greet traitors.”
    “My, you draw some very fine lines. No doubt your rational analysis has found a way to put some things in one category and similar ones in another.”
    “Do not try to drag me into your current fall, Hercule. Everyone knows that you sold information to the English. It is why even they despise you now. They gladly took what you offered, but they will have nothing to do with a man so dishonorable.”
    “Napoleon was going mad, Gustave. He was going to destroy France in his hunger for power. The man who went to Elba was not the same man whom we made emperor. He had lost all notion of reality.”
    “So, you are a physician now.”
    “I am a soldier who worshiped a hero, only to watch him become a tyrant. I do not regret what I did. For one thing, it means that I can always find plenty of