Jacques de Randal, having dined alone at home, gave his manservant the evening off and sat down at his desk to write some letters. It was a custom of his to spend the last night of the year alone doing precisely this and taking mental stock. He thought over the things which had occurred since the previous New Year’s Eve, things that were now finished and done with, and said a kind of goodbye to them. As the faces of his friends rose up in his mind’s eye he wrote each a few lines wishing them a very happy new year.

Having sat down, he opened a drawer and drew from it the photograph of a woman. He looked at this for a few moments, kissed it, then placing it next to a fresh sheet of paper, he began:

My dear Irene,

You must have received by now the little token I sent earlier which I addressed to the woman in you. I have shut myself in tonight in order to write and tell you …

Here the pen stopped moving. Jacques got up and started pacing the room. For ten months now he had had a mistress. Quite unlike other women of the kind, she was no adventuress and not at all the sort who could be picked up at the theatre, say, or on the street. This was a woman with whom he had fallen in love and whom he had eventually won. Though no longer in the first flush of youth he was still young in years, took life very seriously and approached it in a practical and positive way.

Accordingly, just as every year he assessed the state of his friendships, some of which fell by the wayside while others were newly formed, he now tried to assess this passion of his. Now that the first ardour of his love had turned into a calmer sort of emotion, like a careful tradesman he tried to gauge the extent of his feelings for her and predict what they would be in the future.

What he found in his heart was great and deep love, much tenderness and gratitude, together with a thousand tiny attachments such as were likely to form a strong and enduring bond between them.

The doorbell rang, making him jump. He wondered what to do. Should he go and open it? Yes, he thought, on New Year’s Eve you should always open the door to whatever stranger might be first-footing. Picking up a candle, therefore, he crossed the hall, drew back the bolts and turned the key. As he pulled the door open towards him he saw his mistress leaning with her hands against the wall and looking as pale as death.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’

‘Are you alone?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Without the servants?’

‘Yes.’

‘You weren’t going out?’

‘No.’