‘Daddy! You must know. You saw him in Jane Eyre last time we went to the pictures in Harpoon. He’s wildly famous.’ Barbara paused with her left cheek bulging. ‘He was exactly my idea of Mr Rochester,’ she said ardently.

‘Theatrical!’ said her father distastefully. ‘We don’t want that sort.’

‘Just what I say,’ Simon agreed.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Claire, ‘that Mr Gaunt would find us very humdrum sort of folk. Don’t you think we’d better just keep to our own quiet ways, dear?’

‘Mummy, you are…’ Barbara began. Her uncle, speaking with a calm that was really terrifying, interrupted her.

‘I haven’t the smallest doubt, my dear Agnes,’ he said, ‘that Gaunt, who is possibly a man of some enterprise and intelligence, would find your quiet ways more than humdrum, as you complacently choose to describe them. I ventured to suggest in my reply to Forster that Gaunt would find few of the amenities and a good deal of comparative discomfort at Wai-ata-tapu. I added something to the effect that I hoped lack of luxury would be compensated for by kindness and by consideration for a man who is unwell. Apparently, I was mistaken. I also fancied that, having gone to considerable expense in building a Spa, your object was to acquire a clientele. Again, I was mistaken. You prefer to rest on your laurels with an alcoholic who doesn’t pay his way, and a bounder whom I, for one, regard as a person better suited to confinement in an internment camp.’

Colonel Claire said: ‘Are you talking about Questing, James?’

‘I am.’

‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘May I ask why?’

Colonel Claire laid his knife and fork together, turned scarlet in the face and looked fixedly at the opposite wall.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘I am under an obligation to him.’

There was a long silence.

‘I see,’ said Dr Ackrington at last.

‘I haven’t said anything about it to Agnes and the children. I suppose I’m old-fashioned. In my view a man doesn’t speak of such matters to his family. But you, James, and you two children have shown so pointedly your dislike of Mr Questing that I’m forced to tell you that I—I cannot afford—I must ask you for my sake to show him more consideration.’

‘You can’t afford…?’ Dr Ackrington repeated. ‘Good God, my dear fellow, what have you been up to?’

‘Please, James, I hope I need say no more.’