Ashton laughed and led Jane to her chair. Julietta’s eyes, made large and soft by the candlelight, now rested on Jane’s face and the two women nodded politely to each other, quite as if they had been strangers, their minds unencumbered by any secret knowledge.

Jane sat down and wine was poured for her and Ashton began talking about Guy Mollinet’s novel, the translation of which he had undertaken himself.

‘I am regretting it,’ he said. ‘Not because the novel is not very fine, but precisely because it is. It is my own work that I am finding poor.’

‘Well,’ said Jane, ‘I have always supposed that translation is a difficult art. Anything which is near to perfection has great trouble in becoming something else. Does the way forward not consist of breaking up the language into shards and reassembling them in a different but poetical way?’

‘There you are, Ashton!’ said Julietta. ‘Jane has solved it for you at one stroke. Perhaps you are too afraid of breakage?’

‘Yes,’ said Ashton. ‘Jane is right. I think I am. I’m following too slavishly a word-for-word journey with it, and this is not working.’

‘Is it not possible,’ asked Jane, ‘that Julietta, with her knowledge of Italian construction as well as French, might help you?’

‘Oh no,’ said Julietta, ‘I have not the time nor the patience. I am honour-bound to spend a portion of each day on completely trivial things, such as the purchasing of table napkin rings, and the rest of it playing with Marco. Is that not so, Ashton?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ashton. ‘What you do with your day has always been your own affair. Do you not think that is the secret of a happy marriage, Jane, not prying too much into each other’s day-to-day business?’

‘I cannot say, dear Ashton,’ said Jane. ‘I am not any kind of authority on marriage, for I have no experience of it.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Julietta, ‘but perhaps you will have in the near future. This is partly why we are here, Jane, so that we can be introduced to the young doctor you talked to me about and see if he may be worthy of you. I have taken the liberty of telling Ashton all about him.’

‘So she did,’ said Ashton. ‘But she told me that you didn’t wish to consider his suit. Will you remind us what his name is?’

Jane now turned her gaze away from Julietta and looked down at the menu which had been placed in front of her. Some dishes listed there were written in French and Jane’s heart was whipped by a longing to be in Paris, eating at the Café Anglais and savouring the exquisite idea of the following morning spent in bed with her lover.

‘His name is Valentine,’ said Jane quietly. ‘I find it a foolish name. But it no longer signifies. He has gone away.’

‘Where has he gone?’ said Julietta.

‘To join his brother, who is a botanist and travels the world and who lives by procuring rare species of plants and insects for Kew Gardens.’