Already a little tipsy after the first couple of glasses, Henriette drank more and more to get herself in the mood. Paul, whose eyes were shining with the excitement of so many memories the place brought back to him, kept kissing his wife’s hand. She in turn was beginning to feel the atmosphere of impropriety delightfully, wickedly exciting. They were swiftly and quietly served by two solemn, silent waiters accustomed to seeing all and immediately blanking it out. These men knew when to make an entrance and when, if interrupting moments of passion, discreetly to retire.

Halfway through dinner Henriette was more than a little drunk. In fact she was decidedly tipsy and Paul, also very merry, was by this time squeezing her knee hard. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and sparkling and she was talking animatedly now, with no inhibitions.

‘Come on then Paul. Tell me everything. I want to know.’

‘About what, darling?’

‘You know … don’t make me spell it out.’

‘Spell what out?’

‘Did you have lots of women … before you met me?’

He hesitated, undecided whether to brag about his conquests or cover them up.

She continued: ‘Oh, please! Tell me. Lots?’

‘A few, yes.’

‘How many?’

‘I really don’t know. Never thought about it.’

‘You mean you never counted how many?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So … a lot, then.’

‘Of course.’

‘Roughly how many? Just roughly.’

‘I really don’t know, darling. Some years lots, some years a lot less.’

‘So. How many a year, about?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Twenty or thirty one year, four or five another.’

‘Oh! So over a hundred all told.’

‘I suppose about that.’

‘That’s disgusting!’

‘What do you mean, disgusting?’

‘Precisely that, disgusting. When you think of all those women … naked … for the same reason. That really is disgusting, that is, more than a hundred women!’

He was shocked that she should find it so and replied with the arrogance men use to persuade women they are talking nonsense.

‘What a ridiculous thing to say! There’s nothing more disgusting about having a hundred than there is to having one.’

‘Oh yes there is!’

‘How?’

‘Because with one woman, you’re in a relationship, you have a bond, through love. Whereas a hundred women, that’s just plain immoral. Plain filthy lust. I don’t understand how a man can be intimate with a lot of dirty tarts.’

‘I can assure you, they’re extremely clean!’

‘They can’t be, considering what they do.’

‘On the contrary. It’s precisely what they do that requires them to be clean.’

‘Oh come off it. Just think … yesterday, they were doing the same thing with some other man. It’s indecent.’

‘Look. It’s no more indecent than drinking from this glass – who knows who was drinking from it this morning? And which was washed a darn sight less carefully, I’m sure!’

‘Oh do be quiet. You’re revolting.’