'You shall have your dance, my dear Count – or so I hope, if Princess Sant'Anna will forgive you your Tartar manners, but do not be in such a hurry. Leave her to me for a while longer. There are a host of people here wishing to meet her before she will be free to indulge in dancing.'

Chernychev stepped aside at once and bowed in a way that Marianne could not help but find a trifle menacing.

'I yield,' he said briefly. 'But I shall be back. Until then, Madame.'

As they resumed their way to the ballroom, Marianne permitted herself a faint sigh of relief and the smile she turned on her escort was full of gratitude:

'Thank you, Prince, for rescuing me. That Russian is quite inescapable!'

'So most women appear to think. True, they usually say it rather more languishingly, but who knows, perhaps you too may sigh one day? He has great charm, eh?'

'Don't count on it. I am afraid I prefer people to be civilized.'

There was no mistaking the surprise in the look he directed at her. However, he said merely: 'Hmm… I should not have thought it.'

The much talked-of ballroom which had been erected for this one night was a miracle of beauty and elegance. The blue canvas which formed its fragile walls was hung with shining gauze and swathed in garlands of many-coloured flowers made of fine silk and tulle. A profusion of gilded candelabra carried innumerable candles, lighting up the room like fairyland. The passage leading into it was decorated in the same style. A tall aperture provided a view of the lighted gardens and the ballroom, which had been built over a large, dry pool, was illumined outside by oil lamps in sockets.

When Marianne entered on Talleyrand's arm, the floor was already filled with couples dancing to the strains of a Viennese orchestra: glittering dresses and uniforms whirling delightfully in the waltz which had been sweeping Europe for some years now.

'I shall not offer to dance with you,' Talleyrand said. 'It is not an exercise I am fitted for. But I am sure you will not lack for partners.'

This was true. A crowd of young officers was already forming about Marianne, jostling one another in their eagerness to lead her away in time to that seductive music. She refused them all kindly, fearful of the scene which the Russian was quite capable of enacting, for she could feel his eyes still fixed on her. She had just seen her friend Dorothée de Périgord talking to Countess Zichy and the Duchess of Dalberg and was about to join them when she was prevented by the arrival of Their Majesties, the Emperor and Empress. The orchestra stopped dead and the dancers ranged themselves obediently at either side of the room.

'We were just in time,' Talleyrand observed, smiling. 'A little later and the Emperor would have been before us. I can't imagine he would have been pleased.'

But Marianne was not listening to him. Her attention was riveted suddenly on a man whose head rose above those of most of the crowd of guests standing on the far side of the space left for royalty to pass. For a moment she thought she must be seeing things, suffering from a delusion brought about by some wish of her own, so deeply buried in her heart that not even she was aware of it. But those keen features, that thin, fine-boned face, the taut, bronzed skin, dark almost as an Arab's, with the deepset, twinkling blue eyes and firm lips crooked into a half-smile that was both gay and impudent, the thick, unruly black hair that always looked slightly windblown, the careless set of the dark coat across those broad shoulders… surely there could not be another man like that in all the world. And suddenly, quite inexplicably, Marianne's heart gave a joyful leap and cried out his name with certainty long before her lips could bring themselves to frame the word: 'Jason!'

'Eh, so it is, upon my word!' said Talleyrand's voice placidly in her ear. 'Our friend Beaufort, to be sure. I knew he was expected but I had no idea he had already arrived.'

Marianne's eyes unfastened themselves briefly from the American and regarded the diplomat in surprise:

'You knew?'

'Don't I always know everything? I knew that a more or less unofficial envoy from President Madison was due in Paris some time soon, ostensibly on a goodwill mission from the United States government, and I knew who it was to be—'

'Jason! An ambassador? You can't be serious!'

'I did not say ambassador. I said envoy, and a somewhat unofficial one at that. It is not difficult to understand. Now that his brother is King of Spain, the Emperor is eager to get his hands on the Spanish-American colonies and is carrying out a propaganda campaign there which President Madison is very far from disliking. He has no respect for the deposed king, the imbecile Ferdinand VII and besides, he hopes to get Florida as a reward for his benevolent neutrality. It's Spanish territory but Bonaparte sold Louisiana to the Americans in 1803, so it would appear to be a logical move. Ssh now, here comes the Emperor.'

Napoleon, dressed as usual in the green uniform of a colonel of Chasseurs of the Guard, had already entered the ballroom. On his arm, Marie-Louise was in pink satin, shimmering with diamonds. They were followed by a brilliant train which included, as well as the Emperor's sisters and his military staff, the charming Prince Eugene, viceroy of Italy, with his wife Princess Augusta of Bavaria, the Duke of Würtzburg, the Queen of Spain, and a whole galaxy of other highnesses.

Like everyone else, Marianne sank into a stately reverence but her head remained obstinately unbowed, her green eyes still on the tall figure of Jason as he made his bow. He had not seen her. He was not looking in her direction. All his attention was fixed on the doorway through which the royal couple had entered and on the Emperor himself. His direct gaze swept past the new Empress and fastened with a curious intentness on the pale face of the imperial Corsican. He seemed to be seeking something in those Roman features.

Napoleon passed on, smiling now at his young bride, now at his host, Prince Schwarzenburg, speaking to no one, only nodding genially from time to time to one or other of the guests. He appeared to be in a hurry to reach the gardens where a grand firework display had been arranged and did not spare so much as a glance for the throne which had been set for him; but perhaps his haste was not to be wondered at, for the heat inside the canvas pavilion was growing more oppressive every moment, in spite of the fountains playing everywhere in the grounds.

Behind the imperial pair and their suite, the mass of guests flowed together like the Red Sea after the passage of the Jews, inspired in part by the courteous wish to keep as close as possible to their sovereigns and, to a still greater extent, by a purely human anxiety not to miss any of the fun. Within seconds, Marianne was submerged in a sea of silks and laces and separated from her partner by a twittering, shrieking throng which bore her irresistibly outside. Jason had vanished amid the swell and not all her efforts could give her a glimpse of him. Talleyrand, she had forgotten altogether. Doubtless he was somewhere in the tide of people.

Her mind was in a strange, feverish state, raging impatiently against all these people who had come between them just as she was on the point of running to Jason. It did not occur to her until much later to be surprised at the indifference with which she had regarded the Emperor's passing when, not so long before, he had been the centre of all her thoughts. Even Marie-Louise, gazing complacently around the assembled company with her pale eyes brimming with gratified vanity, had failed to irritate as she usually did. Indeed, Marianne had scarcely seen the newly wedded pair, so full was her heart of the new, wholly unexpected and revitalizing joy of seeing Jason once again: Jason, for whom she had waited for so many days in vain! She was not even angry at the thought that he was here, that he must have had her letter and yet had not come to her. Without being aware of it she was already seeking, and finding, all sorts of excuses for him. She had always known, after all, that Jason Beaufort was not like other people.

She did not catch sight of him again until the first rocket sent a gigantic spray of rose-coloured sparks rushing across the dark sky to fall back softly towards the terraces where the women's jewels rivalled the splendour of the milky way in a shower of light that silhouetted every figure sharply against the massed banks of flowers and shrubs. He was standing with some other people, a little apart, by the balustrade of one of the terraces leading to a grotto illuminated within by a soft, pearly light. He was standing with folded arms, watching the dazzling display as calmly as if he had been watching the courses of the stars from the deck of his own ship. Deftly catching up the long train of her dress over one gloved wrist, Marianne threaded her way between the knots of people, intent on joining him.

It was not easy. The terrace between Marianne and Jason was packed tight with guests, all pressing inward around the carpeted area where chairs had been placed for Napoleon and Marie-Louise. Marianne had to push her way past a number of persons who stood gazing upwards, wholly absorbed in what was, beyond a doubt, a very remarkable spectacle. But she was, almost without realizing it, in the condition of a swimmer who, at the end of her strength, had felt her foot touch on the shifting, sandy bottom. She wanted to reach Jason and to reach him now. She had waited too long already.

At last she climbed the three steps leading up to the grotto and as she did so the sky blazed into golden fire from innumerable rockets, surrounding her with such a halo of bright light that the eyes of the occupants of the little terrace were drawn instinctively to the lovely creature who, in her gown and her fabulous jewels, seemed the very spirit of the ball incarnate.

Jason Beaufort, standing a little apart from the group, leaning against an outsized urn filled with flowers, saw her too. A world of feelings flashed for an instant across his set face: surprise, disbelief, admiration, happiness – but only for an instant. Then he was moving forward very coolly to bow before her:

'How do you do? I confess that, coming to Paris, I had hoped to have the pleasure of seeing you, but I did not think to find you here. Allow me to compliment you – you are exquisite tonight.'

'But I—'

Thrown off her balance, Marianne stared at him uncomprehendingly. His tone, so coldly formal, almost ceremonious – when she had come to meet him with hands outstretched, a heart overflowing with gladness, within an ace of casting herself into his arms? What could have happened to turn Jason – her friend and the only man, apart from Jolival, whom she trusted in this vile world – into this polite, disinterested stranger? What, not even a smile? Nothing but worn-out conventionalities?

Stiffened by pride, she managed with a painful effort to dominate her disappointment and accept the slap which fate had dealt her. Up went her head, while her fan fluttered quickly, hiding the trembling of her fingers as she schooled her features to a smile and her voice to the necessary social lightness.

'I thank you,' she said sweetly. 'For myself, your presence took me wholly by surprise.' She laid the faintest of stresses on the 'your'. 'Have you been in Paris long?'

'Two days.'

'Indeed…'

The words were nothing, the merest commonplace such as might have been exchanged by virtual strangers. All of a sudden Marianne found herself wanting to cry. She could not understand it. What had happened to her friend? Could this cold, handsome stranger be the same man who, in the summerhouse at the Hôtel Matignon, had begged her to go with him to America, who had snatched her from the quarries of Chaillot, who had sworn never to forget her and charged Gracchus to watch over her every second of her life?

Even as she sought in vain for something to say that would not be either stupid or inept, she was aware of his eyes scrutinizing every detail of her appearance and she resented it, as if he were doing her an injustice. He had only just reached Paris. He could not have heard yet of her marriage and must be thinking that Napoleon maintained his mistress in extravagant style. His bright eyes went from the emeralds to the gold dress, then back to the emeralds, merciless and accusing.

The silence grew uncomfortable, despite the noise of the fireworks. Marianne dared not raise her eyes to Jason's now, for fear he should see the tears in them. She was about to move away, telling herself wretchedly that there was nothing more to be said between them, when his voice stopped her: