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admired four years ago. He still did not know how she had found a way to convey in a pair of eyes, in the tilt of a head, in the rendering of flesh, an inner life of such profound sorrow and tenderness that he had felt envy upon looking at it. That she and the woman before him were one and the same seemed an impossible gift from the heavens, heavens he would never paint and didn’t believe in, but a gift all the same, one he uttered silent thanks for now in case he was mistaken. Today, instead of the simple blouse and skirt she had work at the Salon, Mademoiselle Cassatt wore a viridian green dress of elegant cut and line; not a Worth, as far as Degas could tell, but an excellent copy nonetheless, one that highlighted her heavenly posture. Standing in her doorway, she held herself with the grace of a dancer onstage, an attitude so appealing that his hand instinctively searched his pocket for a pencil to sketch her.
    â€œHere is my surprise for you, my dear,” Tourny said, taking Mary’s hands and kissing her cheeks. “May I present Monsieur Degas? Monsieur Degas, Mademoiselle Cassatt.”
    Rarely did such moments of pleasure occur for Tourny anymore. His age had crept up on him. He had met Mademoiselle Cassatt a few years ago in Antwerp, where she had spent several months copying Rubens in the museum there. Madame Tourny and Mary’s mother, who had come to Europe to accompany Mary to the Belgian city, had become fast friends while Mary and Monsieur Tourny spent time in the museums refining their touch and sight. Then, he had felt young, but just a few evenings ago he had reached for a glass of wine and discovered that his hands, with decades of granite and marble flecks wedged into their crevices and cracks, were no longer deft but frail. Overnight, this had happened. He hadn’t been paying attention to the wicked passage of time, its selfish stealth. So it was a pleasure now—a lark, really—to introduce these two artists, a moment reminiscent of his youth, when whim and not deliberation had connected lives. At dinner the other night, how alive he had felt when Degas insisted that he introduce him to the American artist. Yes, Tourny said, he would be thrilled to, and told Degas where Mademoiselle Cassatt lived, even as his wife glared at him across the table. His wife was fond of saying that Degas growled like a bear. They had known Degas since he was nineteen and lived with them while he copied the masters in Italy. That boy was now a man in his forties, more than capable of deciphering his wife’s look, but Degas graciously ignored it and instead ruminated at the dinner table that it was odd that he and Mademoiselle Cassatt hadn’t met before, considering that they lived so close, just a block apart. And Paris was a city of artists, he said; on the streets in the morning, wasn’t it true that one saw nothing but art students in their rough blue suits hurrying in the dawn chill to their glass-roofed ateliers, their easels and paint boxes clasped under their arms, a kind of starving eagerness about them?
    â€œMonsieur Degas?” Mary said now, her hand lingering in Monsieur Tourny’s. “Monsieur Degas is my gift?”
    â€œMademoiselle Cassatt.” Degas dipped his head in an aristocratic bow. He would not reveal that he had seen her at the Salon. He would summon discipline; after a certain age, it was all one had left. “Monsieur Tourny says you are an admirer.”
    â€œAs am I,” Tourny interjected, wishing Degas could have at least said something more courteous, even if it was only a dull recitation of his pleasure at meeting her.
    Outside, the clopping of the omnibus horses on the Boulevard de Clichy funneled down the narrow Rue de Laval. Mary tried to reconcile this commonplace noise with the surprise of Monsieur Degas in her living room. Degas was nothing like Mary had imagined. He had a narrow face, round, droopy eyes, receding brownish hair