‘Look at this place,’ he said, staring out at the carved panelling, the ranks of portraits and the arched windows where the intricate glass was blackened now by the night sky beyond. The waiters were lighting the candles down the lengths of the tables, and as the flames steadied the reflections from the polished tables made twin points of light.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Helen said. She was already aware of how much she would miss the privilege of living and working in buildings like these.

Oliver turned his head away. ‘You think so? I shall be glad to get away from it. It’s far too uncomfortably reminiscent of home.’

Helen seized gratefully on the laughter, however cynical it sounded in her ears. Oliver helped her to her feet and then spun her around in his arms so that the candlelight blurred in front of her eyes. In a flash, wild gaiety seemed to have replaced the grimness.

‘Dance with me,’ he begged. ‘Just one more time.’

‘As many times as you like,’ she promised him.

Tom Quad was a blaze of lights and colour. Couples were spilling off the oval of the dance floor and on to the grass under the ribbons of silver, green and blue. Oliver took her firmly in his arms and drew her into the crowd. For an instant she held herself stiff, and then she relaxed and let the music take hold. Her forehead sank against the velvet pile of Oliver’s shoulder and she felt the smooth satin facings under her fingers. For just a little while, she would go on dancing like this.

Then she would go in search of Darcy.

And somewhere here, under these interwoven ribbons of light, Tom was waiting for her. A sudden smile irradiated her face.

She shivered between the intense extremes of feeling.

As they danced, the eyes of other women flicked enviously over her. A girl in the arms of romantic Lord Oliver Mortimore, a girl in a white dress with a light flush over her cheekbones and a dazed smile. A lucky girl, so obviously lost in the magic of an evening.

Helen was blind to it all. In all the kaleidoscopic crowd there were only two faces that she could have had eyes for.

Oliver’s mouth moved against her hair. ‘Dreadful of me. I’m so caught up in my own enthralling whirl that I never asked you about your Schools. A formal First, I hope?’

Helen drew back a little, wanting to meet his eyes.

‘Whatever it is, I owe my degree to you.’

Oliver stopped dancing. ‘To me? Whatever do you mean?’

Helen began to say You gave me the money so that I could stay, didn’t you? Then, over Oliver’s shoulder and through a long tunnel of extraneous noise and movement, she saw Tom.