‘Yes, sir. On consideration, I’m afraid I do.’

‘What d’you mean, afraid? We’re not going to have this absurd argument all over again I hope. Damn it, Dikon, you’re no better than a croaking old woman. Why the devil I put up with you I don’t know.’

‘Perhaps because I try to give an honest answer to an awkward question, sir.’

‘I don’t propose to make a pass at the girl, if that’s what’s worrying you. You’ve allowed yourself to become melodrama-minded, my friend. All this chat of spies and mortgages and sacrificial marriage has blunted your aesthetic judgement. You insist upon regarding a charming episode as a seduction scene on a robust scale. I repeat I have no evil designs upon Barbara Claire. I am not a second Questing.’

‘You’d be less of a potential danger if you were,’ Dikon blurted out. ‘The little fool’s not besotted on Questing. Don’t you see, sir, that if you go on like this the resemblance to King Cophetua will become so marked that she won’t know the difference and will half expect the sequel? She’s gone all haywire over you as it is.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Gaunt. But he stroked the back of his head and small complacent dints appeared at the corners of his mouth. ‘She can’t possibly imagine that my attentions are anything but avuncular.’

‘She won’t know what to imagine,’ said Dikon. ‘She’s in a foreign country.’

‘Where the alpine ranges appear to be entirely composed of mole hills.’

‘Where, at any rate, she is altogether too much i’ the sun. She’s dazzled.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Gaunt, ‘that you are dressing up a very old emotion in a series of classy, and, if I may say so, rather priggish phrases. My good ass, you’ve fallen for the girl yourself.’ Dikon was silent, and in a moment Gaunt came behind him and shook him boisterously by the shoulders. ‘You’ll recover,’ he said. ‘Think it over and you’ll find I’m right. In the meantime I promise you need have no qualms. I shall treat her like porcelain. But I refuse to be deprived of my mission. She shall awake and sing.’

With this unconvincing reassurance Dikon had to be content. They said goodnight and he went to bed.

II