A great realization just hit her: Beauty was having tea with an angel. She beamed when he looked across the table at her.
"Most of the people in France during my time," she said easily, "Were good Catholics. So am I, now that we come to it, though I suspect you know that the last time I went to confession was..." She paused and again looked at the date on the paper, her brow wrinkling.
"I just returned from a world with dinosaurs and not a church in sight," she said, "And I have no idea how much time has passed. It feels like a year, perhaps -- but the date on this paper is the same date as when I was pulled away from the City and onto that dinosaur-infested island."
Beauty set the paper down gently, her fingertips running slowly across the side margin beside the headline. Then, if the City pulled people from different times - and it did this often - perhaps it was no small thing for it to fetch her back on the same day as when she left -- but also a year after it.