“I miss you, you know.” She smiled at him as he walked into the apartment one night to find her hanging a painting. As usual, she had created the effect of a home they had lived in for years and he was grateful to her. He came to kiss her now and helped her down from her perch, and he held her in his arms for a moment longer.

“I miss you, too, little one. I hope you know that.”

“Sometimes I do.” She sighed and set her hammer down on the desk, and then she looked up at him with a sad smile. “And sometimes I think you've forgotten I'm alive.”

“I could never do that, little one. I'm just very busy.” She knew that much already.

“Will we ever have a real life again?”

He nodded. “Hopefully soon. It's just that now there's such an increase in tension. We have to wait and see what happens … we must prepare. …”

There was such a bright light in his eyes as he spoke that her heart fell at his words. She felt that she had lost him to France, it was almost like losing him to another woman, only worse, because it was an opponent she couldn't fight. “What if there's a war, Armand? What then?”

“Then we'll see.” Always the cautious diplomat, even with her, but she wasn't asking about his homeland, she was asking him about her.

“I'll never see you then.” She sounded tired and mournful and tonight she didn't feel like putting up a cheerful front for him.

“These are unusual times, Liane, surely you understand.” He would be disappointed in her if she didn't, and she knew that. It was a heavy cross to bear. She had to be willing to make the same sacrifices as Armand, and sometimes that was too much to ask. If they'd just have a quiet night together, some time to talk, an evening when he wasn't too exhausted to make love … her eyes told their own tale.

“Never mind. Do you want something to eat?”

“I've eaten.” She didn't tell him that she had waited for him. “How are the girls?”

“Fine. I promised them I'd take them for a picnic in Neuilly next week, when I've finished the house.” It was lonely for them too. Once they were in school, they would make new friends. But for the moment all they had was their mother and their nurse.

“You're the only woman I know who can put a house together in a week.” He smiled at her as he sat down in a chair in the living room, almost afraid to tell her that all he wanted was to go to bed and sleep.

“I'm just happy to be out of the hotel.”

“So am I.” He looked around at their familiar things, and it felt like home to him at last. But he hadn't really noticed much of anything in the last month. He was so busy at the office, that he could have come home to a shanty or a tent and it wouldn't have mattered to him, and Liane suspected that as she followed him to their bedroom.

“Would you like a cup of chamomile?” She smiled gently at him, and he reached out and kissed her hand as he sat down on their bed.

“You're too good to me, little one.”

“I love you very much.” And there had been so many times when he had been good to her too. It wasn't his fault that he was so busy now, and it couldn't go on forever. Sooner or later the problems would be resolved. She just prayed that they wouldn't erupt in a war.

She went to the kitchen to make him the promised cup of tea, and when she returned with a delicate porcelain tray and the Limoges cup she'd unpacked that afternoon, she set it down gently on the bed table with a smile. But when she turned to hand it to Armand, she saw that he was already asleep on his pillow, without the assistance of the chamomile.





“Yup.” For the past hour he had pretended he was a cowboy on a ranch. He was enchanted with the tall, gentle white horse he was riding, and his father was astride a pretty chestnut mare. Johnny glanced over at his father then. “I wish we could eat hamburgers tonight, just like on a ranch.”