An English party had just then come from the waterfront, made for a table near us, and then suddenly moved to the other side, where they looked askance at us and talked with their heads close together. ‘That is a man and his wife I used to know when I was in politics. A prominent member of your church, Sebastian.’

As we went up to bed that night Sebastian said: ‘He’s rather a poppet, isn’t he?’

—

Lord Marchmain’s mistress arrived next day. I was nineteen years old and completely ignorant of women. I could not with any certainty recognize a prostitute in the streets. I was therefore not indifferent to the fact of living under the roof of an adulterous couple, but I was old enough to hide my interest. Lord Marchmain’s mistress, therefore, found me with a multitude of conflicting expectations about her, all of which were, for the moment, disappointed by her appearance. She was not a voluptuous Toulouse-Lautrec odalisque; she was not a ‘little bit of fluff’; she was a middle-aged, well-preserved, well-dressed, well-mannered woman such as I had seen in countless public places and occasionally met. Nor did she seem marked by any social stigma. On the day of her arrival we lunched at the Lido, where she was greeted at almost every table.

‘Vittoria Corombona has asked us all to her ball on Saturday.’

‘It is very kind of her. You know I do not dance,’ said Lord Marchmain.

‘But for the boys? It is a thing to be seen – the Corombona palace lit up for the ball. One does not know how many such balls there will be in the future.’

‘The boys can do as they like. We must refuse.’

‘And I have asked Mrs Hacking Brunner to luncheon. She has a charming daughter. Sebastian and his friend will like her.’

‘Sebastian and his friend are more interested in Bellini than heiresses.’

‘But that is what I have always wished,’ said Cara, changing her point of attack adroitly. ‘I have been here more times than I can count and Alex has not once let me inside San Marco even. We will become tourists, yes?’

We became tourists; Cara enlisted as guide a midget Venetian nobleman to whom all doors were open, and with him at her side and a guide book in her hand, she came with us, flagging sometimes but never giving up, a neat, prosaic figure amid the immense splendours of the place.

The fortnight at Venice passed quickly and sweetly – perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless. On some days life kept pace with the gondola, as we nosed through the side-canals and the boatman uttered his plaintive musical bird-cry of warning; on other days with the speed-boat bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sun-lit foam; it left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands and cool, marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone, reflected in a dapple of light on painted ceilings; of a night at the Corombona palace such as Byron might have known, and another Byronic night fishing for scampi in the shallows of Chioggia, the phosphorescent wake of the little ship, the lantern swinging in the prow, and the net coming up full of weed and sand and floundering fishes; of melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning; of hot cheese sandwiches and champagne cocktails at Harry’s bar.