Her arrival had been unheralded by anything more than her reservation of the Windsor Suite, yet somehow it was mentioned in Maggie Nolan’s well-read English-language society newsletter. Her purchase of one of the last of the beautiful houses of the Ancien Régime that had remained in private hands merited a small squib in the International Herald Tribune. Billy suspected that Denise Martin and probably someone at the reception desk at the Ritz were a key station on the underground circuit of Parisian gossip.At first the bulk of her invitations came from the established business and social leaders of international society to whom Ellis had introduced her on former visits, and from the American Ambassador to Paris. Each party she went to brought more hospitable people into her life until the mantel of her fireplace was piled with “stiffies,” as Billy had once heard an Englishwoman call engraved invitations. She was frequently engaged for lunch, during which no work took place at the house in any case, for the workmen all consumed a serious picnic, complete with much red wine, at an improvised table in her future kitchen.The French version of the ladies’ lunch serves the purpose of bringing eight or ten close friends together to engage in close inspection of all attractive newcomers.
