It was as shabby as the rest of the house, with a sagging bed and cracked leather armchair, but somehow neater. No spiderwebs, no jumbles of knickknacks, no riotous confusion of colors. His room was more somber library than bedroom. An old, gilt-edged desk, monstrous and magnificent, stacked with books and drawing pads. That leather armchair tucked near the side, with a curved desk lamp next to it. Deep yellow bed curtains—the color of marigolds, of French mustard. The gray walls were unpainted and mostly bare. A tennis racket, its wood worn bright, hung like a work of art. Two watercolors of the crumbling château, signed C. Crépet were as soft and blotted as though viewed through a rainy lens.

One painting was done in haunting oils—a thin woman, all angles and edges. She wore a drapey dress, touched with gold where the light hit, and slouched against the armrest of a square throne with arms carved into dragons’ heads, staring challengingly at the painter. She might be a queen, but she was no damsel in distress.

That queen, she wouldn’t let anyone put her in a corner. She wouldn’t let anyone leave her behind. She wouldn’t be overlooked.

And, in the middle of this room, this room of books and art and attempted respectability, stood Luc.

For a moment I didn’t say a word. He stood without a shirt on. His chest was thin and pale. A smooth brown stone, threaded on a thong, nestled beneath his collarbone. Standing shirtless, with head bowed, he looked so private and almost vulnerable. But I saw tacked above his desk that drawing of me, the drawing where I looked more like Mother than myself.

I stepped over the windowsill. “I thought you were my friend.”

His head snapped up and his eyes opened wide.

“I thought you were my friend, but now I can’t even trust you. You saw a painting of my mother in Paris, and yet you never told me. Why?”

But he didn’t answer my question. “You can’t just…push in like this,” he cried. He picked up his damp white shirt from where he’d dropped it on the floor and yanked it on.

“Push in?”

“That’s all you’ve been doing since you arrived. You’ve made me miss tennis matches and weekend studying. You made Stefan Bauer come all the way here and now he’s met you and I’m hearing about it. And then I had a lecture from Maman, as though it were my fault that you held my face like that.”

None of what he said made sense. I’d been the one dismissed earlier, when he introduced me to Stefan Bauer, but now he was acting as though I’d done wrong merely by being there.

“Push in?” I repeated.

“Into my room, into my life, into my mind, into my—”

“I haven’t pushed into anything. I was invited.” Now I was furious, too.

“I didn’t invite you.”

“But yet you come almost every weekend. You wrote me letters and brought me fruit under the chestnut tree. You’ve been always here.”

He angrily buttoned his shirt. “When Maman asks me to come to meet her newest stray, what am I to say?”

“I see.” I pulled myself back up into the windowsill. “I’m just another of Madame Crépet’s dogs or cats. Somebody else’s castoff. You’re only here to be sure I’m walked and watered, no?”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what you said,” I shot back. “One more person who doesn’t want the burden of having me around.”

“Now you’re twisting what I’m saying.”

“I heard your maman say that she didn’t think my place was here.” I swung my legs out of the window. “Don’t worry. I’ll find someone who does. I’ll find someone who cares.”

I slid down the roof to my own window, only realizing after that Luc hadn’t answered my question about the painting, the whole reason I’d gone looking for him. But what did I expect him to say? Confess that he’d kept things from me? Confess that, all along, my mother had been a train ride away?

I opened the door to my room. The little brown-eyed maid was in the hallway right outside my door, looking concerned. Clearly, she’d heard the shouting all the way from Luc’s room upstairs. “Please tell Madame that I am feeling unwell tonight. I won’t take any supper, thank you. Tell her I will be going to bed early.”

The maid left and I pulled my small travel valise from the wardrobe. I filled it quickly, watching the door, afraid she would come back in. I buttoned up my new gray jacket and tucked in my little purse of money. From the valise, I took a yellowed envelope. In the corner was an inked fleur-de-lis. I opened it and, in my coat and hat, read the short note inside, though I could recite it by heart.

My Clare, I must go, to see the world, to find the art that I lost long ago. It’s no longer in Scotland. I’ll wilt away here if I stay. Forgive me.

I folded the note, folded the envelope, and put it in my coat pocket. Maybe she found that art. Maybe I could find her.

I slipped from my room and down the back staircase to the kitchen. Marthe was out cutting herbs, so no one saw me leave the kitchen and Mille Mots.

I only had the faintest idea of how to get to the train station. When Madame had brought me to Mille Mots all those weeks ago, it had been in a borrowed automobile, my first. I retraced my steps as best I could, along the river, through a village, up a ridge, until I saw the gleam of train tracks in the distance.

The waiting room at the station was empty, but there was one more train to Paris due.

“You can wait outside on the platform,” the stationmaster said.

I patted my pocket to be sure I had my small purse and stepped outside.

But the station wasn’t empty. I saw, in the shadow of the platform, a pale suit.

“Mademoiselle.” Luc’s friend stepped from the shadow, wheeling a motorbike. “Or, as we say in my country, ‘fräulein.’ ” He touched his chest. “Stefan Bauer.”

“Ah, yes.” I looked back over my shoulder. “How do you do?”

He followed my glance. “Are you being followed, fräulein?”

“Yes.” I shifted the valise in my hands. “I mean, no.”

“May I?” He gestured towards my bag.

I hesitated, then handed it to him. “I’m going to Paris, too.”

“How exciting for you.” His English was so correct, like I imagined the king’s to be. “Visiting friends?”

Hands behind my back, I crossed my fingers. “Visiting family.”

He leaned forward, almost confidentially. “All alone? You are brave, fräulein.”

“I’m not alone right now, sir.” I hoped I sounded confident.

“No, you are not.” He offered an arm. “You are certainly not.”

Stefan Bauer was a gentleman. After he loaded his motorbike, he led me onto the train. He found a quiet carriage and spread out a clean handkerchief for me to sit on. I watched as he hung his hat and patted his jacket pockets, finding a little candy tin. Though the car was empty, he sat right next to me and offered a sweet.

“The family you are visiting…Luc did not say you had family who lived in Paris.”

I pressed my pocket to hear the crinkle of the envelope. “My mother is there.” He glanced down at my hand over the pocket. “I just have to find her.”

“Fräulein.” He took my hand in his. It was cool and dry, like paper. “You have my help.”