“I am pleased to see you,” I said, “and any other time I’d be delighted to invite you in, but I’m in the house alone, and you know what my royal relatives would say if I entertained a man, unchaperoned, even in the middle of the day, so I’m afraid . . .”

“I do understand,” he said, nodding earnestly. “But don’t the servants count as chaperons?”

“No servants either,” I said. “I’m living here alone at the moment until I can hire a maid.”

“Gosh, that’s awfully daring of you,” he said. “So modern.”

“I’m not trying to be modern and daring,” I said. “Simply lack of funds. I have to find a way to support myself.”

“Then we’re in the same boat.” He beamed again. Truly he had a most endearing smile. “Abandoned and fighting the cruel world.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Not like those poor wretches on the bread lines.”

“Well, no,” he admitted.

“And at least you have gainful employment. When you’ve finished your articles you’ll have a profession. I, on the other hand, am qualified only for marriage and I’m only qualified for that by my pedigree. My family is determined to marry me off to some awful foreign prince who is bound to be assassinated within the year.”

“You could always marry me,” he said, pronouncing it, of course “mawwy.”

I laughed. “What, and trade a freezing and empty house for a bedsitter in Bromley? It’s a sweet offer, Tristram, but I hardly think you’re in a position to support a wife, nor will be for some time.”

“I may be,” he said. “If I come into my guardian’s fortune . . .”

“What a horrid thing to say,” I snapped, my nerves close to breaking point by this time. “You almost sound as if you’re hoping Sir Hubert dies.”

“Not hoping. Good Lord, no,” he stammered. “Nothing’s further from the truth. I worship the old boy. He couldn’t have been kinder to me. But I’m only going by what the quacks have said and they have impressed upon me that the outcome is not likely to be good. Bad head injuries, you know. In a coma.”

“So sad,” I said. “If it’s head injuries, then I’d rather he died. Such an energetic man could never be a lifelong invalid.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Tristram agreed. “So I’m trying to hope for the best, but prepared to accept the worst.”

Suddenly I couldn’t stand there chatting a second longer without exploding. “Look, Tristram, I am most pleased to see you, but I have to go now. I’m . . . meeting someone for tea and I have to change.”

“Another time, maybe? At the weekend? I had promised to show you London, had I not?”