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customer for that pathetic head of lettuce?”
    Before Mason had time to answer, Lisette had attacked the vendor in a hand-waving tirade of French, snatched some coins from Mason’s hand, and exchanged them for the lettuce. “You need someone to take care of you,” she’d pronounced contemptuously.
    Over the following weeks, their acquaintance entered a new stage. Not quite a friendship, but something more than the indifference Lisette had previously extended. Several times she dropped by with no warning and took Mason out shopping for food and clothes, and once she led her by the arm to the building’s concierge and told her in no uncertain terms that the American would no longer be paying such an inflated rent for her “miserable hovel.” Another time she gave Mason a ticket to the Cirque Fernando where she was performing. Mason had marveled at the ease, agility, and breathtaking charisma with which she’d flown through the air on her trapeze. But Lisette still didn’t give herself in real friendship. Mason assumed she never would. She kept most people at an emotional distance and reserved most of her affection for her dogs.
    Several months later, however, Mason stopped by Lisette’s apartment on the Boulevard de Clichy, intending to borrow a cloisonné vase she’d given Lisette and wanted to use for a still life she was painting. Lisette was out of town, on a long tour with the traveling circus that was taking her all over France and into Italy for most of the summer, and couldn’t be reached. When she went to the concierge to ask admittance to Lisette’s rooms, she discovered that the old woman, a friend of Lisette’s, had passed away a week before. The building had been inherited by her son, a worthless brute whose unwanted advances Lisette had rebuffed time and again in no uncertain terms. In revenge, the new landlord was in the process of transporting her beloved ménage of dogs, which the late concierge had been caring for, to the Paris dog pound, where they would soon meet their demise.
    â€œYou can’t do that!” Mason insisted.
    â€œI certainly can. She didn’t pay her rent in advance.”
    â€œI’ll pay her rent,” Mason told him.
    â€œIt’s too late. I’ve rented her rooms to someone a little more appreciative, and those mongrels are on their way to the meat grinder.”
    Mason raced to the pound and managed to rescue the seven animals just in time.
    A month later, at the end of her summer tour, Lisette appeared at Mason’s door utterly distraught with tears streaming down her face. She’d been to her apartment where she’d been gleefully informed by the new landlord that her darling brood were long gone. After flying into the man in an attempt to scratch his eyes out, she’d gone to see Mason. “That beast sent my babies to their execution.”
    Mason was about to reassure her when, behind them, there was a bark of recognition. A light came to Lisette’s eyes. She rushed past Mason into the room, dropped to her knees, and the seven dogs attacked her joyfully, jumping up on her, licking her face, as she screamed in delight. She kissed their faces, crying uncontrollably, and as she did, she noticed that they’d been freshly bathed and each had a bright red ribbon tied about its neck.
    Slowly, Lisette disengaged herself and rose to look at Mason in bafflement. “You…You saved them!”
    â€œJust in time. That bastard really had it in for you.”
    â€œBut you don’t even like dogs.”
    Mason smiled. “I didn’t think so. I’ve never had one. But I’ve sure grown fond of these guys.”
    â€œBut…you kept them for a whole month. Walked them, fed them, bathed them…all that time and trouble…What made you do it?”
    â€œI couldn’t very well let them die,” Mason told her. “They’re part of you. ”
    Lisette