‘Couldn’t you simply have gone along with the chatter? Wasn’t it convivial enough for you?’

‘It was convivial, but I was asked my opinion.’

‘Must you always give it?’

‘Yes. That is what it is for.’

‘He’s an influential man at the Daily Mail. We need to keep him on side.’

‘I didn’t mean to offend. I’m quite certain I didn’t. He struck me as the sort that could take it as well as he dished it.’

Warrington’s bonhomie, which Howard had carefully galvanised through the exhaustive morning rehearsals, disappeared under a dark cloak of unreasonable panic. ‘I hope you are right,’ he snapped. Bullish and bullying, he added, ‘Because young playwrights are easier to come across than sympathetic reviewers, you know.’

Howard nodded, understanding completely. His job was eternally precarious; he always had to be grateful, careful. He put on his hat and stepped out into the street. The first glow of dawn showered the city with a hint of silver light. He took a deep breath and walked away.

APRIL 1914

7

THE DAYS DRAGGED into weeks and she heard nothing from him. He did not call by, or send anyone in his stead; he did not write. Not a line to explain or apologise. Her mother laughed when she expressed her dismay and surprise that this was the case. It was a bitter, sharp and knowing bark of laughter. She muttered under her breath about Vivian’s stupidity. Furious, she asked how she could have hoped differently.

‘You were incredibly foolish to trust him in the first place; you are a complete imbecile to continue to do so. You are nothing to him, Vivian. He probably looks blank when your name is mentioned.’

Her mother’s irritation and his indifference were formidable enemies. Mrs Foster thought she was destroying him for Vivian; she thought she had to. She didn’t have to. Vivian saw it as it was.

He did not want her.

She was not to be his wife.

She was just a delicious diversion to him.

These thoughts were so bleak that they cut, but Vivian repeated them to herself over and over so that no one else had to. She wondered exactly when they had become engaged. Was it before his visit to her house? Was that what he had come to tell her? That the flirtation must stop. Or was it that very evening, and if so, when: before or after they had . . .? It didn’t matter anyway. Whenever it had happened, it was a betrayal, a crime. There was no point in hashing over the timings. Already Vivian was not the fool she’d been just a few weeks ago. She was, at least, a fast learner. Or was she? She felt a century older. Maybe it had taken a hundred years to accept his betrayal. She would never be young again. It was all gone.

The last she remembered of him was that airy smile, a slight shrug, not even a wave of the hand as he sauntered down the stairs towards the ballroom. She had been very casually dismissed, she saw that now. She became conscious of the fundamental difference between the sexes. They were so apart. He simply didn’t care. An impossible, impassable gulf had opened up between them. He had moved on.