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second glass of champagne. Phryne did not know what would become of Rose. But if someone didn’t step in to protect and educate her, it might be for the worst.
    On that dark thought, dessert arrived. Jean-Paul laid it down with a flourish. Madame, who had been an apprentice in the Anatole kitchen, specialised in cold puddings. Glace Alhambra was a heavenly pile of strawberry mousse with cold sweet vanilla ice cream at its heart. All of her ice creams were superb. Phryne intended to spend the summer working her way through them, from glace à l’abricot to glace aux poires and all the glaces composées . Even Berthe, Anatole’s very severe sister, thought that Elise Bertrand, nee Lizzie Chambers, made a promising pouding froid .
    Champagne might have been a strange new experience but ice cream was not, and the girls fell on the glace with squeaks of delight. Phryne told them to eat all of it and excused herself to go to the kitchen and greet her ex-clients, Lizzie and Bunny Jenkins, aware that she might receive a flung ladle for her pains. Cooks at lunch peppered more than the soup.
    Lizzie was floury and hot and gave Phryne a floury, hot, pleased hug. Mr Jenkins brushed her floured front. He was wearing a cook’s overall and now looked like the White Rabbit happily exiled from Wonderland.
    ‘Nice lunch?’ asked Lizzie, a trifle anxiously.
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    KERRY GREENWOOD
    ‘Beautiful lunch. Wonderful lunch. Pity about the company. I really don’t have a lot of fellow-feeling for girls of that age.’
    ‘Yes you do. Just not those girls. Who have you got?’
    Lizzie allowed herself a peep through the swinging doors.
    ‘Ah. Well, Diane lunches here once a week with her aunt, who is just like her. Solid. Marie comes here with her father. That man is such a good musician, and he flirts with his daughter all the time—no wonder she sticks to music. Joannie is a dear. You must have liked her. She’s the one who found that starving kitten in the alley, persuaded Anatole—and he was in a mood, too, the oysters were late—to compound a special dish of fish for it, and carried it home in the bosom of a dress which must have cost her mother ten pounds. Of course, she does speak very good French, or she might have been donged with a pot, customer or not. Her children are going to be polyglots. So I suppose—oh dear, yes. Well, that’s Rose for you. Poor girl.’
    ‘What about Rose?’ asked Phryne.
    Jean-Paul slammed into the kitchen, sniffed at the sight of the cook leaning on the sink and gossiping in the middle of lunch, and slammed out with a tray full of soups. Mr Jenkins twitched his pink nose anxiously.
    ‘You get on with the salads,’ Lizzie told him. ‘I can talk while I work. Most of the orders are in now, anyway. I just have to watch this bifteck on the charcoal grill. You know, Phryne, I’m so happy and I owe this all to you. Mon cher mari is the kindest of men and I get to cook as much as I like. I’m learning such a lot! And I’m going to be a very good dessert chef. But you’re busy and it’s nice of you to come in and say hello. You don’t want to hear all this stuff. Look at me, gossiping like an old woman.’
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    QUEEN OF THE FLOWERS
    ‘I’ve got a reason for asking,’ said Phryne. Lizzie’s strong wrists turned the steak, slapped it on the plate, cleaned the edges and spooned out the bearnaise sauce which had been keeping warm on the edge of the grill. Her movements were all decided, skilled and complete. The young woman was robust and alive with purpose—the very thing which Rose lacked.
    ‘Oh well, it’s just that she’s been in here rather often. At night. With gentlemen. If you can call them gentlemen. I only say that because I met your friend Mr Bert at the Vic Market recently and pointed one of them out and he said that they were bad men, and he told me that their money’s as good as