On the other hand, she didn’t want to assign the topic too much importance. If she walked out now, she’d never hear the end of it from Adila. Were she to bide her time, the matter might be quietly buried. She distracted herself by going to close Ebba’s bureau.

‘How fascinating, dear,’ Ebba was saying to Adila; her smile had turned somewhat fixed. ‘So what exactly is your, er, background?’

‘Our father was half Hungarian aristocracy and half Jewish, and our mother was Polish with Italian and Danish roots. And she spoke beautiful French.’

Jelly knew that her sister – as ever, tougher than she was – responded to fight-or-flight situations by blazing into battle with a full arsenal of verbal grenades, while Jelly simply fell silent, let her talk, or fled. ‘And by the way,’ Adila declared in her most vibrant baritone, ‘our Jewish grandmother was the sister of the great violinist Joseph Joachim, who was a friend of Brahms and Schumann and was my own marvellous teacher. He taught me everything I know! Zo… ’

Jelly, fiddling with the bureau lock, felt the key slip out of her hand; it clunked onto the floor and caused a distraction, which she hadn’t intended while Adila was fighting the good fight. Why wouldn’t her fingers obey her?

The baron had hired a dance band for the evening, and from the drawing room the cheerful rhythm of a foxtrot on saxophone, piano and bass breezed out to the parlour. Dancing would solve everything. Dancing always did. Saved again by music, Jelly led the way.

The other women quickly dispersed to find their partners, or new partners. She, for the moment, lingered on the landing. Watching the dancing, she had the odd sensation of looking back at a world that might at any moment slip through her fingers like the bureau key. In front of her passed her sister and the baron, perfectly in step, Adila’s arm relaxed across Erik’s; they seemed able to maintain a conversation and dance in serenity at the same time. As the quickstep ended, the baron and his psychic sensitive embraced at what seemed to Jelly inordinate length.

‘Jelly!’ Erik called out to her, one arm still around Adila. ‘Please may I have the pleasure of the tango?’ Jelly’s tango was legendary. Adila let him go, laughing, and crossed the room to join Alec, who was waiting a safe distance away, in conversation with Lord Chiltington.