Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella

actually holding them.
    ‘Laure has modelled for me on many occasions. You remember the painting with the woman on the blue chair? The one you’re particularly fond of? That was Laure. She’s an excellent model.’
    ‘You’re too kind, Monsieur,’ she said.
    I smiled warmly. ‘I do know the painting. It’s a beautiful image.’ The woman’s eyebrow lifted just a fraction. I realized afterwards that it was unlikely she was often complimented by another woman. ‘I always think it an oddly regal work.’
    ‘Regal. Sophie is quite right. That is exactly how you appear in it,’ Édouard said.
    Laure’s gaze flickered between us, as if she was trying to work out whether I was mocking her.
    ‘The first time my husband painted me I looked like the most awful old maid,’ I said quickly, wanting to put her at ease. ‘So severe and forbidding. I think Édouard said I looked like a stick.’
    ‘I’d never say such a thing.’
    ‘But you thought it.’
    ‘It was a terrible painting,’ Édouard agreed. ‘But the fault was entirely mine.’ He looked at me. ‘And now I find it impossible to paint a bad picture of you.’
    It was still hard not to meet his gaze without blushing a little. There was a brief silence. And I looked away.
    ‘My congratulations on your wedding, Madame Lefèvre. You are a very lucky woman. But, perhaps, not as lucky as your husband.’
    She nodded to me, and then to Édouard, as she lifted her skirts slightly from the wet pavement and walked away.
    ‘Don’t look at me like that in public,’ I scolded him, as we watched her go.
    ‘I like it,’ he said, lighting a cigarette and looking ridiculously pleased with himself. ‘You go such an endearing colour.’
    Édouard saw a man he wanted to speak to over in the
tabac
, so I let him go, walked into the Bar Tripoli and stood at the counter for a few minutes, watching Monsieur Dinan at his usual spot in the corner. I asked for a glass of water, and drank it, exchanging a few words with the barman. Then I walked over and greeted Monsieur Dinan, removing my hat.
    It took him a few seconds to register who I was. I suspected it was only my hair that gave me away. ‘Ah. Mademoiselle. And how are you? It’s a chill evening, is it not? Is Édouard well?’
    ‘He is perfectly fine, Monsieur, thank you. But I wonder if I might have two minutes to discuss a private matter.’
    He glanced around the table. The woman to his right gave him a hard look. The man opposite was too busy talking to his companion to notice. ‘I do not believe I have any private matters to discuss with you, Mademoiselle.’ He looked at his female companion as he spoke.
    ‘As you wish, Monsieur. Then we shall discuss it here. It is a simple matter of payment for a painting. Édouard sold you a particularly fine work in oil pastels –
The Market at Grenouille
– for which you promised him …’ I checked my paper ‘… five francs? He would be much obliged if you could settle the sum now.’
    The convivial expression disappeared. ‘You are his debt collector?’
    ‘I believe that description is a little strong, Monsieur. I am merely tidying Édouard’s finances. And this particular bill is, I believe, some seven months old now.’
    ‘I am not going to discuss financial matters in front of my friends.’ He turned away from me in high dudgeon.
    But I had half expected this. ‘Then I’m afraid, Monsieur, that I will be forced to stand here until you are ready to discuss it.’
    All pairs of eyes around the little table had now landed on me, but I did not so much as colour. It was hard to embarrass me. I had grown up in a bar in St Péronne; I had helped my father throw out drunks from the age of twelve, had cleaned the gentlemen’s WC, had heard talk so bawdy it would have made a street girl blush. Monsieur Dinan’s theatrical disapproval held no terrors for me.
    ‘Well, you will be there all evening, then. For I do not have such a sum on me.’
    ‘Forgive me, Monsieur, but I was standing at the bar for some time before I came over. And I could not help but notice that your wallet was most generously stocked.’
    At this his male companion began to laugh. ‘I think she has the measure of you, Dinan.’
    This seemed only to enrage him.
    ‘Who are you? Who are you to embarrass me so? This is not Édouard’s doing. He understands the nature of a gentleman’s friendship. He would not come here so gauchely, demanding money and embarrassing a man in front