‘Indeed. All lives should have some beauty about them. But love is the thing of greatest beauty, Jane. Do you really not love Doctor Ross?’

‘No,’ said Jane. ‘I have tried to love him. For a while I thought I could. But now I feel that I do not even like him.’

Clorinda Morrissey was silent for a moment more and then she said, ‘I cannot help but remember the day, soon after I opened my tea rooms, when you … when you arrived a little late and Doctor Ross was all of an agitation waiting for you, and then you got up and went away with your cake uneaten. And I could see, even from my distance, that Doctor Ross was very unhappy …’

‘Yes. He proposed to me that day, and I turned him down. And it should all have been left like that, in a state where nothing more was possible between us. But while you and my father were in Dublin I went to his bed.’

‘You went to his bed?’

‘Yes. You’re not shocked, are you, Clorinda?’

‘No, no. Things of that kind have never shocked me.’

‘He made love to me, but I didn’t enjoy it – hardly at all. I know we are meant to enjoy this ritual, but I did not. Yet after that, there did not seem to be any way of distancing myself from the idea of marriage. I am to blame in this, Clorinda, I am to blame …’

Seeing that Jane might be about to start weeping again, Clorinda reached out and held her tightly. If she struggled to think of words to comfort her, it was only because she felt afraid. Perhaps nobody knew better than she, whose eye was so accurately attuned to the joys and sorrows of her tea room clientele, how desperate was Ross’s longing to make a life with Jane. What he would do now that he was to be sent back to a solitary existence without her, Clorinda could not predict, but the certainty that something ugly would occur clutched at her heart.

‘What we must do,’ said Clorinda at last, ‘is to try to protect you from Doctor Ross’s anger. What I suggest, dear Jane, is that you leave for Paris as soon as you can and that you write to him from there to tell him of your decision, but do not send your address. Would your friend Julietta be able to arrange matters in France?’

‘Yes,’ said Jane, ‘but it will take a little time. Somewhere for us to live must be found and I have more business to attend to on behalf of Emmeline’s legatees and papers to sign for the house …’

‘So when were you planning upon telling the poor man?’

‘I don’t know, Clorinda. All I knew until today was that I had to tell someone and I’m sorry for your sake that I chose you. But now that I’ve burdened you with news so heavy, please say you will accept the brooch?’