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wait.   She will be back before dawn, won’t she?”
    Staring at the locked door, Caroline tried to open it with sheer force of will, but then gave up.   “After all the times I turned a blind eye to her secret meetings, why should she have to ruin mine?”
    With a smile, Nemo had led her toward the Church of St. Martin.   “I wouldn’t say she’s entirely ruined it.”   They sat together in the deserted courtyard of the old church, resting under the sweet-smelling magnolias.  
    She talked about her own dreams -- and he listened, without once suggesting that, because she was a woman, she could not achieve her goals.   Nemo had shared some of his hopes, too, brash enough to believe he would succeed in everything.   “I want to see the world, beat the odds, become something I choose, Caroline.”   He stared up at the endless sky between the fluttering, dark-green leaves of the magnolia.   “And I will.”
    He surprised her by stealing a kiss.   It was the first time she had ever been kissed by a man, and she responded awkwardly -- but insisted on practicing until she got it right. . . .
    There in the churchyard, all alone except for God and the midnight stars, they promised each other they would do the impossible, beat the odds.   Though still young, Caroline understood the importance of her words when she said, “My heart will always be yours, André.”
    “My heart belonged to you from the moment I saw you in front of the silversmith’s shop.”   Somehow, they both understood they would keep this moment between themselves, would not even tell Jules Verne about it.
    The pastel colors of dawn came much too soon, and Nemo escorted her back to her house, where a frantic Marie waited for Caroline beside the half-open servant’s entrance.   “My lady!   I thought you’d been murdered, or kidnapped!   You could have been robbed, killed --”
    Caroline had given Nemo a warm glance.   “I have never felt safer than tonight, being with André.”   Then she chided her maidservant, “And you should pay more attention to the time and keep the door unlocked, as you promised.”   Marie ushered her inside in a flurry of clothes, ready to hurry Caroline into bed before anyone noticed.
    Before the door closed, Caroline had flashed a last glance at Nemo, already eager to see him again. . . .
    But that was all before the disaster of the Cynthia .   Now, penniless and fatherless, André Nemo and his enthusiastic future had been cut off at the root.   Unless Caroline could talk with her father and secure for him an alternative.
     

    vi

     

    The landlord waited several days, giving him time to grieve -- but Nemo knew the squint-eyed man would soon come to insist on payment.
    All morning long Nemo ransacked the two rooms his father had rented, gathering scrimshaw combs and snuffboxes, colorful seashells, and exotic trinkets Jacques Nemo had collected as a sailor.   Unfortunately, with the death of his wife and the raising of his son, Jacques had already sold the most valuable items, keeping only sentimental ones.  
    Dry-eyed but sick at heart, Nemo stared at the worn deck of playing cards he and his father had used on long candlelit evenings.   On a shelf sat a wooden ship model the two of them had made together.   Building the model had taught him the basic structure of the vessels tied to the docks of Ile Feydeau.   But the model was worthless, other than the memories it held.
    On the day after the Cynthia disaster, Nemo had awakened at dawn to find a small basket wedged against his doorstep, a package that contained hard bread, cheese, boiled eggs, and flowers.   Even without smelling the faint trace of her perfume, he knew that Caroline Aronnax had stolen these items from her family’s kitchen and sent her maidservant Marie out through the midnight streets to deliver it, unseen.
    “I will talk to my father, André,” she had written in a note tucked into the basket.   “Perhaps I can