32Rex Ford, longtime professor at L’Institut Degas, loitered outside Marie-Claire Levy’s office, hoping to run into her as though by chance. His most promising student had been absent for the last two classes, and he wanted to ask Marie-Claire if the boy had called in with an excuse. An everyday sort of task, familiar to teachers of all levels—but Rex was famous for taking a simple thing and making it a thousand times more complicated: a useful trait in an artist, potentially, but one that made being his superior at work often tiresome.
Marie-Claire’s assistant left to have lunch, but still Rex stayed in the corridor, pretending to study something in a notebook as the older woman passed by. Finally Marie-Claire herself emerged, looking well turned out as she always did, her hair in a neat
