“I see that you intend for it to happen, regardless of my answer,” André said, giving Sophie a resigned smile. She seemed highly entertained.
“Dinner sounds wonderful,” Remy pronounced. “LaSalle and I just offered to treat these two beauties to a bowl of mussels in exchange for their beguiling company.”
“Mussels—that sounds like a splendid idea,” Sophie said, turning her gaze toward André. He ordered a bowl for the two of them, as well.
The waiter brought out the bowls just as it was growing dark outside. The restaurant was warm and noisy, and André felt a calm, contented feeling as he sat across from Sophie, even in spite of his brother’s uninvited presence. The mussels arrived steaming in a frothy broth of butter, white wine, and garlic. Watching Sophie enjoy the dish, laughing as she did with Celine and Henriette at the foolish banter of Remy and LaSalle, André did not mind spending an entire week’s wages on buying her wine and dinner.
Between the six of them, they made quick work of several bottles of wine. Remy signified he was at last full by releasing a loud belch, to which Sophie gasped, laughing as she said: “Remy! You have half the manners of your brother.”
Remy glanced sideways at André, his face turning serious for one moment. “That is the truth. There is no better man than my brother.”
“Come now.” André lowered his eyes to the table. “No need to be serious.”
“Says the man who is always serious,” quipped LaSalle.
“It’s true, though,” Remy said. “My brother is the best man you will ever meet.” Perhaps sensing his older brother’s discomfort at the uncharacteristic flattery, Remy shifted in his chair. “Say, LaSalle and I had hoped to take these two lovely ladies dancing, farther up the hill toward Pigalle. Care to join us, André? Sophie?”
Looking to Sophie, who shook her head slightly, André answered: “Not this time, brother.”
“Then we will force you to join us next time,” LaSalle said.
Leaning in toward Sophie, feeling a bit more comfortable after several glasses of wine and a warm meal, André whispered to her. “Please allow me to walk you home?”
She looked at him sideways now, her lips stained pink from the wine, and he thought to himself that he had never seen a more irresistible woman. “But, Captain Valière, what would people say if I was escorted home after dark by a man such as you, and no chaperone?”
“You have a better chance with me beside you than if you were to try to walk through this mad city on your own. I promise to deposit you safely before your front door, and that will be all.”
They parted ways with Remy and LaSalle outside of the café, walking east along the Seine. In the late-summer evening, the light from the lanterns along the quay shimmered off the river’s glassy surface like a thousand diamonds. They strolled slowly, side by side, in silence. André looked up at the stars and sighed, relishing the happy awareness that he was in Sophie’s presence. He let the gentle evening breeze add to the already pleasant, dizzying feeling in his breast, the warm flush of his face.
When they reached the old wooden bridge, André paused. “We should go up, have a look out over the river.”
“All right.” She looped her arm in his as André guided her onto the narrow little pedestrian crossing.
There was only one other person on the bridge at this late hour, a man. From the way he stood—shoulders slumped, chin tucked—he appeared to be either deep in thought or deeply troubled. He glanced up when he saw André and Sophie approaching. In the thin light of the cityscape he appeared only a few years older than André, and dressed like a professional sort—perhaps a professor or a lawyer. His hair, brown with just a few traces of gray, was pulled back in a ponytail, and his facial expression was serious. He accidentally grazed André’s shoulder as he passed by on the narrow bridge, so lost was he in thought. “Excuse me, if you please. Good night.” And with that greeting, spoken with an accent that seemed to place him as from somewhere outside Paris, he skulked off.
“Oh, excuse me,” André said, taken aback by the abrupt encounter. He saw, as he watched the retreating figure, that a small card had slipped from the man’s pocket. André bent over, eager to pick it up and return it to its rightful owner. “Pardon me, sir, you dropped your card.”
André took a few steps after the man, but either he didn’t hear or he didn’t care to turn back around. In another moment he was gone, vanished into the dark street where the light of the lamps did not reach.