“Of course, I was an undergraduate here myself once upon a time and I took a degree in the classics, so I had a slim but essential qualification for the post,” Wells was explaining. “The surprising thing, Redfyre, is that I’ve grown to quite enjoy what I’m doing. Hard at first to armour oneself against all that ‘But, sir, you may not! Tradition allows . . . The previous master would never . . .’ nonsense, but I’m making headway. My regret is that my daughter is sacrificing a year—it may, despite my best efforts, amount to more than a year—of her young life here at my side. I know she misses her London life.”

Redfyre was touched to see Miss Wells nip around the table and kiss the top of her father’s head.

“Who else would employ me, Pa?” she asked him. “At least I’m finding a practical use for my qualifications.”

Her father answered Redfyre’s enquiring look. “Clever girl, Rosa—”

“Oh no!” she interrupted, “Pa! Please don’t give John a false impression! I’m no Philippa Fawcett to outshine the male top-wrangler in finals! Never think it!”

“Perhaps not,” her father resumed, “but too sharp and active to spend her days darning socks and doing good works. She has successfully completed a course at the Lilian Carstairs college here in Cambridge. She’s a shorthand typist and a secretary. They’re not the same thing, she tells me, and she is both. She can do shorthand, as you saw for yourself, type at a rate of knots, organise an office—organise me. I couldn’t manage without her. And, Redfyre, it’s a portable skill. Rosa could walk into any office and take it over. As long as we men are too lazy to learn the skills for ourselves, she could have access to the highest and most powerful departments in the land,” he concluded with paternal pride and—Redfyre thought—a dollop of ulterior motive. The man seemed to think like a spy. “Trouble is, here, surrounded as she is by pasty-faced scholars, day in, day out, life’s a bit dull for a girl.”

“I had understood that you were planning to go to the Trinity May Ball, Miss Wells, to relieve the tedium?”

“Oh yes. But not with some dashing Trinity sportsman! One of our own men has acquired tickets and has invited me to accompany him. One of the young readers. Digby Gisbourne is rather sweet, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a very energetic quickstep, let alone a tango.”

“What a coincidence! I shall be there, too. With a friend of yours—Earwig Stretton. I’m sure Earwig will insist that we swap partners when they strike up a tango, and I will happily step my way through it with you.”