She was standing in the service hall that led to the manager's tiny office, to the kitchen and the servants' stair.

At the sound of the opening door she whirled, her face a pale blur under the mask and the streaks of war paint. She'd been watching through the little door that led into the.corner of the lobby, and for a moment, as she lifted her weight up onto her toes, January thought she'd flee out into the big room, into which he could not follow. He noted, in that instant, how absurdly the cheap buckskin costume was made, with a modern corset and petticoat beneath it, and a little beaded reticule at her belt. Her dark plaits were a nod to Monsieur Cooper, but she wore perfectly ordinary black gloves, much mended, and black slippers and stockings, splashed with mud from the street.

She seemed to lose her nerve about the lobby and turned to flee up the narrow stair that led to the upstairs supper room and the little retiring chamber beside it, where girls went to pin up torn flounces. January said, "It's all right, Mademoiselle. I just wanted to be sure you were all right."

"Oh. Of course." She straightened her shoulders with a gesture he knew-he'd seen it a hundred times,

or a thousand, but not from an adult woman... "Thank you, Monsieur Janvier. The man was... importunate." She was trying to sound calm and a little arrogant, but he saw from the way the gold buckskin of her skirt shivered that her knees were still shaking. She nodded to him, touched her absurd headdress, loosing another two cock feathers, and started to walk past him toward the courtyard again. It was well done and, he realized later, took nerve. But when she came close January got a better look at what he could see of her face and knew then where he had seen that squaring of the shoulders, those full lips; knew where he had heard that voice.