His adoring mother, who had grown vaguer and more withdrawn, her eccentricities losing their charm as Philip was abandoned for spirituality and she declared herself a saint and a bride of Christ. There had been that miserable Christmas at Saint-Cloud when Alice took herself off to a hotel in Grasse, leaving his father, his sisters, and Philip to fend for themselves.

But it was fine, Philip reminds himself hastily. He was an energetic child, easily distracted. He had a bicycle he had saved up to buy for himself and there was plenty of fun to be had at school and mischief to be got into with his best friends the Koo brothers. He still winces at memories of steeplechases organised at the Chinese embassy where they lived, shouting and tussling between the precious china artefacts. No wonder Madame Koo had been glad to see the back of him when he went home!

‘Everything happened about the same time,’ he tells Elizabeth carefully. ‘My mother was unwell, my father went to live in the South of France, and my sisters all married. So that was the end of family life, I suppose. I just had to get on with it. You do. One does.’

One thing about Elizabeth, he realises, is that she is not going to gush or probe or be excessively sympathetic. Her restraint is obscurely restful, and in a perverse way only makes him want to tell her more about his unsettled childhood.

‘My parents wanted me to have a British education so I was sent to Cheam and my Mountbatten uncles stood as guardians while I was over here. Uncle Georgie – David’s father – was the one who came to sports days and prizegivings. He and Nada had a pretty colourful and tempestuous life together,’ he says, thinking wryly how that must be the understatement of the year. A Russian princess, Nada shrugged off scandal and her unconventional outlook is just one of the reasons Philip loves her.

‘They were wonderful to me,’ is all he tells Elizabeth, whose knowledge of sex is, he guesses, limited, to say the least. ‘I spent most of my half-terms with them, which is why David and I are so close.’

‘You still saw your family, though?’

‘Oh, yes. I’ve got relatives all over Europe, so we’d have big family meet ups with my sisters and my father, and various uncles and aunts and cousins. I never knew where I’d be spending the holidays. Someone would write and tell me to get myself to Wolfsgarten or Panker or Bucharest or wherever and I’d pack my trunk and catch a train.’

‘You must have been a very self-reliant child,’ Elizabeth comments.

He shrugs. ‘I thought it was normal, just like your childhood was normal for you. And those holidays were always fun, with everyone descending on a particular relative, and various cousins to play with. We had no shortage of places to stay and it’s not as if there wasn’t plenty of room. You know what those palaces and castles are like.’