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 scribing the house of Jean's mother, her friends, the people whom one met at her dinners, all there was to tell about her.

"She's the sort of woman who has existed since the beginning of time. There's some mystery about her early life. It has something to do with Jean's father. I don't think she was happy with him. He's never mentioned. Of course, she's married again now to a Frenchman . . . much older than herself . . . a man, very distinguished, who has been in three cabinets. That's where the boy gets his French name. The old man has adopted him and treats him like his own son. De Cyon is a good name in France, one of the best; but of course Jean hasn't any French blood. He's pure American, but he's never seen his own country until now."

Sabine finished her tea and putting her cup back on the Regence table (which had come from Olivia's mother and so found its graceful way into a house filled with stiff early American things), she added, "It's a remarkable family . . . wild and restless. Jean had an aunt who died in the Carmelite convent at Lisieux, and his cousin is Lilli Barr . . . a really great musician." She looked out of the window and after a moment said in a low voice, "Lilli Barr is the woman whom my husband married . . . but she divorced him, too, and now we are friends . . . she and I." The familiar hard, metallic laugh returned and she added, "I imagine our experience with him made us sympathetic. . . . You see, I know the family very well. It's the sort of blood which produces people with a genius for life . . . for living in the moment."

She did not say that Jean and his mother and the ruthless cousin Lilli Barr fascinated her because they stood in a way for the freedom toward which she had been struggling through all the years since she escaped from Durham. They were free in a way from countries, from towns, from laws, from prejudices, even in a way from nationality. She had