Tom was looking at her as if she was the only person in the great golden quadrangle.

‘And I love you for it,’ he whispered.

With a final reverberating chord that hung on the motionless air the music stopped. Under the pavilion the sweating musicians bowed and grinned at the applause.

‘I’m going to find Darcy,’ Helen said. She was certain now, implacably certain, and it gave her the vital courage that she needed for Darcy.

Tom stepped back, hands in his pockets, detached once more.

‘I won’t be far away, if you need me.’

Helen began her search. He wasn’t among the crowds beginning to ebb out of Tom Quad in search of supper, nor was he already at the candelit tables. At last she found him under the pink and white ruched lining of the marquee in Canterbury Quad. Another, noisier band was playing here and the dancing was uninhibited.

Helen saw Pansy first. She had the rose-pink folds of her dress caught up in her fists like a little girl going paddling, and the ribbons amongst the silvery points of hair flew as she danced. The dipping hem of her dress showed pink silk stockings. Darcy was partnering her. He was jigging up and down, alternately frowning with concentration and then beaming with delight. He was flushed, and his hair looked darkened with sweat. Helen had never seen him drink more than a couple of pints of beer, but she thought that he looked tipsy now, jovially and intentionally so. A few steps away Chloe was dancing with Dave Walker, whose red bow tie had come undone to dangle in frayed points down his shirt-front. At one of the small tables that fringed the floor, Scot Scotney was sitting with a bottle at his elbow, watching, entertained in spite of himself.

Everyone having a good time, Helen realised with a dull pang.

Darcy saw her and immediately put a heavy arm around her shoulders.

‘Where have you been?’ he exclaimed. ‘We come to the Ball to celebrate our engagement and I don’t see you all evening.’

‘With Oliver, and Tom,’ Helen said quietly.

Pansy, Chloe and Dave were crowding around them. They were exhilarated, laughing and jostling.

‘Can’t think when I’ve ever had such a good time,’ Darcy was saying. ‘Perhaps Oliver’s got the right idea after all.’