He spoke in the same voice that he had used all the evening, quiet and clear, with just a faint note of cynicism that made everything he said seem somehow impersonal.

He stopped speaking and realised that Thalia was looking at him incredulously and then she said,

“Is that – all?”

“All?” the Earl questioned. “What else would you like me to add? Jewels? A box at Covent Garden?”

“I did not mean it like that,” Thalia said. “It’s just impossible to believe that what your Lordship is saying is not some strange jest.”

The Earl frowned.

“Jest! Why should you think that?”

Thalia linked her fingers together and, sitting up very straight, looked at him.

“Unless I am mistaken, my Lord – and perhaps I am – I think, although it seems highly – improbable, that you are inviting me to become your – mistress.”

“That was my intention,” the Earl said.

“Do gentlemen really make such suggestions in the same businesslike way that you have approached me?”

“Did you expect something different?”

“But of course!” Thalia answered. “I imagined that a man would burn with a fiery passion – and address the object of his fancy with heart-rending eloquence.”

She paused to add,

“Alternatively he could threaten her with a closure of the mortgage – or whatever else is traditionally held over women on such occasions.”

Looking at Thalia, the Earl saw the two dimples he had noticed before at the corners of her mouth and was aware that she was laughing at him.

“I have a feeling,” he said, “that you are not taking me seriously.”

“How could I?” she asked. “I have never heard such a ridiculous proposition in my life! If that is the reason you brought me out to dinner, my Lord, all I can say is that Hannah need not have been afraid of what might happen to me.”

“I thought, perhaps wrongly,” the Earl said, “that, before we entered into an agreement together, you would wish to know what to expect.”

“I have told you what I expect.”

“A fiery passion?” the Earl questioned. “That, of course, comes later.”

“I am glad you have warned me,” Thalia replied, “but now, my Lord, I really must go home.”

“You have not yet given me my answer.”

“Do you expect one?”

“But of course. I am not in the habit of asking questions and receiving no answers.”

“Then let me make it plain, my Lord, so that it is impossible for you to misunderstand me – the answer is an unqualified ‘no!’”

“Can you really be so foolish?” the Earl asked. “Have you thought of the advantages I can offer you?”

“It may come as a surprise to your Lordship, but nothing you have said so far seems to offer me in any way an advantage over what I have already.”

“And what is that?” the Earl asked.

“My self-respect,” Thalia replied, “and that, my Lord, is something that is not in your power to give me.”