She went into the white kitchen and scrubbed drying blood from her face and hands. When she stepped into the living room, she felt as though she were seeing it for the first time. The bleached floor, the gilt frames and cut-velvet upholstery of the Louis XVI chairs, the Cubist backdrop of a Valmier. Like Hilton's wardrobe, she thought, contrived by talented strangers. Her boots tracked damp sand across the pale floor as she went to the stairwell.