They all thought they had found something new. It had not been thus at my last exhibition in these same rooms, shortly before my going abroad. Then there had been an unmistakable note of weariness. Then the talk had been less of me than of the houses, anecdotes of their owners. That same woman, it came back to me, who now applauded my virility and passion, had stood quite near me, before a painfully laboured canvas, and said, ‘So facile’.

I remembered the exhibition, too, for another reason; it was the week I detected my wife in adultery. Then, as now, she was a tireless hostess, and I heard her say: ‘Whenever I see anything lovely nowadays – a building or a piece of scenery – I think to myself, “that’s by Charles”. I see everything through his eyes. He is England to me.’

I heard her say that; it was the sort of thing she had the habit of saying. Throughout our married life, again and again, I had felt my bowels shrivel within me at the things she said. But that day, in this gallery, I heard her unmoved, and suddenly realized that she was powerless to hurt me any more; I was a free man; she had given me my manumission in that brief, sly lapse of hers; my cuckold’s horns made me lord of the forest.

At the end of the day my wife said: ‘Darling, I must go. It’s been a terrific success, hasn’t it? I’ll think of something to tell them at home, but I wish it hadn’t got to happen quite this way.’

‘So she knows,’ I thought. ‘She’s a sharp one. She’s had her nose down since luncheon and picked up the scent.’

I let her get clear of the place and was about to follow – the rooms were nearly empty – when I heard a voice at the turnstile I had not heard for many years, an unforgettable self-taught stammer, a sharp cadence of remonstration.

‘No. I have not brought a card of invitation. I do not even know whether I received one. I have not come to a social function; I do not seek to scrape acquaintance with Lady Celia; I do not want my photograph in the Tatler; I have not come to exhibit myself. I have come to see the pictures. Perhaps you are unaware that there are any pictures here. I happen to have a personal interest in the artist – if that word has any meaning for you.’

‘Antoine,’ I said, ‘come in.’

‘My dear, there is a g-g-gorgon here who thinks I am g-g-gate-crashing. I only arrived in London yesterday, and heard quite by chance at luncheon that you were having an exhibition, so of course I dashed impetuously to the shrine to pay homage. Have I changed? Would you recognize me? Where are the pictures? Let me explain them to you.’

Anthony Blanche had not changed from when I last saw him; not, indeed, from when I first saw him. He swept lightly across the room to the most prominent canvas – a jungle landscape – paused a moment, his head cocked like a knowing terrier, and asked: ‘Where, my dear Charles, did you find this sumptuous greenery? The corner of a hothouse at T-t-trent or T-t-tring? What gorgeous usurer nurtured these fronds for your pleasure?’