Silently she reached into the closet for the long, ivory, silk robe. She looked young and delicate in the early morning light, her dark hair falling softly over her shoulders like a sable shawl. She stooped for a moment looking for her slippers. Gone. Pilar must have them again. Nothing was sacred, not even slippers, least of all Deanna. She smiled to herself as she padded barefoot and silent across the thick carpeting and stole another glance at Marc, still asleep, so peaceful there. When he slept, he still looked terribly young, almost like the man she had met nineteen years before. She watched him as she stood in the doorway, wanting him to stir, to wake, to hold his arms out to her sleepily with a smile, whispering the words of so long ago, “Reviens, ma chérie. Come back to bed, ma Diane. La belle Diane.”

She hadn’t been that to him in a thousand years or more. She was simply Deanna to him now, as to everyone else: “Deanna, can you come to dinner on Tuesday? Deanna, did you know that the garage door isn’t properly closed? Deanna, the cashmere jacket I just bought in London got badly mauled at the cleaner. Deanna, I’m leaving for Lisbon tonight (Or Paris. Or Rome).” She sometimes wondered if he even remembered the days of Diane, the days of late rising and laughter and coffee in her garret, or on her roof as they soaked up the sun in the months before they were married. They had been months of golden dreams, golden hours-the stolen weekends in Acapulco, the four days in Madrid when they had pretended that she was his secretary. Her mind drifted back often to those long-ago times. Early mornings had a way of reminding her of the past.

“Diane, mon amour, are you coming back to bed?” Her eyes shone at the remembered words. She had been just eighteen and always anxious to come back to bed.