New to all of this, knowing nothing of the ‘beauties’, when Julietta’s tongue touched the place she knew men dreamed of discovering in her, and she felt a white, pulsing delirium go through her, Jane cried out so loudly in wonder that Emmeline heard the cry two floors down, stopped in her work of tidying her studio and said to herself, ‘now I know something more of who Jane is’. But Jane no longer knew who she was, only that she had found Julietta and that she wished to make love to her for all eternity.

When Jane and Julietta at last descended to Emmeline’s studio, Julietta’s hair once more neatly put up by the tortoiseshell comb, Jane’s hand pressing against her lips, to conceal the small wound on them made by Julietta’s kisses, they found a note from Emmeline saying that she had gone out.

The two young women sat down by the fire and Julietta said, ‘I must leave very soon. Ashton will be home from his office and he likes to find me there.’

Jane got up and knelt down by Julietta’s chair and clung to her skirts and to her slim body beneath them.

‘What am I to do?’ she said.

‘Jane,’ said Julietta. ‘We must live in the world. We must conduct ourselves as though there was nothing between us.’

‘But how am I to do that?’ Jane asked. ‘I’ve never known love of this kind before. People will only have to glance at me to know what I feel.’

Julietta stroked Jane’s hair. ‘We are lucky,’ she said. ‘Your Aunt Emmeline has defied society in her life and she will understand, I think, how you might now wish to defy it – just a little. She may allow me to come here from time to time.’

‘From “time to time”! And what am I to do in the days and hours in between?’

‘You will live them. You will take walks along the river and go riding in the park. You will play bezique. You will read. You will sit quietly for your portrait.’

‘But I will scream out for you day and night.’

‘And I will sometimes scream for you. For your great height. For your strong arms. For your ankle which I first touched on the stairs. Then, I will come to Tite Street.’

‘Come tomorrow. Or come back tonight, in the middle of the night.’

‘You would ask me to leave Ashton’s bed in the early hours.’

‘Yes. You cannot love Ashton. You love women.’

‘I love both.’

‘You let Ashton make love to you?’

‘Yes. He’s my husband. And I would like to have another child.’

‘You have a child already?’

‘Yes. My son, Marco. He is four years old.’

Jane looked up at Julietta’s perfectly arranged features. Her thought was, I would like to be this little Marco, held in his mother’s arms, the object of her adoration, flesh of her flesh, the living manifestation of her future, her only boy, the one she will never leave until her death.