“The worst part is that he’s using what I taught him on others. You didn’t know that, did you? I can see from your face you didn’t. We’d only been married two years when he got himself a girlfriend. Once they start, even when they’re late starters, there’s no stopping them. Of course, that time I did stop him. I said he couldn’t go on like that when I’d spent everything I had on his home. Beautifying his home. Basically he hadn’t a bean. Twenty thousand, our drawing room cost me, you should have seen it before, a real ratbag. There were moth grubs crawling in the upholstery, I mean worms. I had it all ripped out and burnt. The carpet fitters were here, laying that top-quality Wilton carpet, the ‘vibrant veridian,’ it’s called, and he was off somewhere with that woman.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, all other comments failing me.

“But I stopped it. And he’s been faithful to me ever since, at least I suppose he has. Well, he has, if you don’t count ogling people and sort of half-baked flirting, and you can’t really count that, can you? Until now, that is. Until this one. I didn’t dream till Beryl let it drop she’d seen them. Unintentionally, I mean, in all innocence, she’d no idea I wasn’t fully aware. What am I going to do? That’s what I ask myself. I can’t spend another fortune on his home, I’ve just done the dining room in ‘ebony’ and ‘papaya leaf,’ as you’ll have noticed, and even if I redid the morning room, I expect it would be to no avail.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“So you should be, darling,” she said inexplicably. “Though I’ve no doubt it was as unintentional on your part as it was on Beryl’s.” She got up and flung out her arms in an actressy gesture that wasn’t very good acting. “The trouble is, I love him, fool that I am. I’m his slave.” I thought of Liv and Jonny, though it wasn’t at all the same thing. “I try to make myself lovely for him and the upshot is that he goes overboard for scruffy academics.” A rueful smile followed this. She was absurd but I really did feel sorry for her. “I must go, darling. It’s been a help to me talking. Talking always helps, don’t you think? Like crying.”