‘Well, why did you start all this business anyway?’

‘I was coming to that. Who were they? Were they all prostitutes, all hundred?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What then?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Actresses, some of them … working girls … some society women …’

‘How many society women?’

‘Six.’

‘Only six?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were they pretty?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Prettier than the prostitutes?’

‘No.’

‘Who did you prefer, the society women or the prostitutes?’

‘The prostitutes.’

‘You pig! Why?’

‘Don’t like amateurs.’

‘Oh stop it! You’re wicked, you know that? And did you enjoy flitting from one woman to another like that?’

‘Of course.’

‘A lot?’

‘Very much.’

‘What was so enjoyable about it? Weren’t they all the same?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Oh I see. Women aren’t all the same, then.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Not in any way?’

‘No way, no.’

‘How amazing! In what way are they different?’

‘Every way.’

‘Physically?’

‘Yes, of course physically.’

‘Every woman’s body is different?’

‘Yes.’

‘How else?’

‘Well … how they kiss. How they speak. What sort of small talk. You know …’

‘Ah! And it’s fun to ring the changes?’

‘Great fun.’

‘And are men different too?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘No idea?’

‘None.’

‘They must be.’

‘I expect so, yes.’

She remained pensive for a while holding her glass of champagne in her hand. It was full and she drank it off in one draught. Then placing it back on the table she threw her two arms around her husband’s neck and murmured into his mouth, ‘Oh darling! I love you so much!’

He clasped her in a passionate embrace. A waiter on the point of coming in quickly retreated, closing the door behind him and allowing a discreet interval of five minutes or so to elapse. When the maître d’hôtel reappeared bearing fruit for their dessert she had a fresh glassful in her hand. She looked deep into the clear, yellow liquid as if she might find within it things she had hitherto seen only in her dreams.

‘Yes,’ she was murmuring, ‘I bet that’s a lot of fun too!’

LOVE

Three Pages from The Diary of a Hunting Man

I have just been reading in the paper the account of a crime passionel involving a man who killed the woman he loved and then turned the gun on himself. The personalities do not matter; what counts is the passion. I was interested in the story not because it touched me or because it gave me pause for thought but because it reminded me of something that happened to me once on a hunting trip during my youth. Just as the cross allegedly appeared in the sky to some of the early Christians, so love sailed into my own view out of the blue on this particular occasion.