MUCH TO HER CHAGRIN, BEATA WAS NOT PREPARED FOR the reaction of her mother, when she casually suggested lunch with Antoine to her when they got home. Beata said that they had met at the hotel at teatime, had spoken for a short while, and Antoine had suggested they all have lunch the following day. She didn't have the courage to suggest to her mother that she and Antoine have lunch alone. Her mother looked horrified at the suggestion, as it was.

“With a total stranger? Beata, have you taken leave of your senses? You don't know this man. What were you doing that he invited you to lunch?” Her mother looked highly suspicious, she had only left Beata alone for a few hours, and it wasn't like her to have a conversation with a strange man. He was obviously some sort of masher, trying to prey on young girls, and loitering around the hotel. Monika Wittgenstein was not as innocent as her daughter, and she was incensed that this man had made advances to her, and even worse, that Beata seemed to find it appealing. It only proved to her mother that she was desperately naïve and still a child. And she assumed only the worst of Antoine.

“I was just having tea on the terrace,” Beata said, looking upset. This had not gone well, and she didn't know what to say to Antoine. “We started speaking, about nothing in particular. He was very polite.”

“How old is he? And what's he doing here instead of in the war?”

“He's Swiss,” Beata said primly. That was something at least. She never lied to her mother, although Brigitte did frequently, and this was a first for her. But somehow seeing Antoine seemed worth any risk she had to take or any breach it involved. In a single afternoon he had won not only her loyalty but her heart.