And then, mercifully, we were silent for a moment, sitting in the sun looking down at the distant view beyond the terrace. She was smiling a soft, abstracted smile. Crippled with shyness. I had made her shy, had made myself shy. She really was, in spite of her girl’s frock, amazingly unprepossessing. Her nose was sharp; notwithstanding a blush of light make-up here and there, it succeeded in being very much like that of a vole, pink, wrinkling in the light. The pebble glasses glinting. Her lipstick, very lightly applied, had smudged, giving her the appearance of a hastily, and badly, painted wooden spoon. Millie, I couldn’t help thinking, was a very fortunate woman. Whatever her problems.

Suddenly she turned towards me, her eyes wide, one fist clutched firmly to her breast. ‘Did I say something? I was dreaming away there, looking at the view, thinking how I’d miss it in Paris, and then you were nodding at me! Agreeing with something. Did I say anything? No. Surely not?’

‘No. Not at all, Mrs Millar. I was just nodding, if I was nodding, with pleasure at the view myself. That’s all, really.’

‘I am so glad it pleases you too. I love to share it. I seldom do. And – do you mind? – could you just call me Millie? Mrs Millar is so formal. It’s so stiff. Don’t you think? I mean, I know you British are very much more formal than we Americans and so on, but, look, it’s such a lovely day, so let’s be happy. Right?’

‘Right. Of course. Then I am William.’

‘And I am Millie. Millicent, but everyone just says Millie, so that is done.’

She clapped her hands with pleasure, her eyes beaming behind the thick glasses and at that same moment the youngish-looking man in the apron whom I had seen in the hall the evening before arrived on the terrace as if summonsed. He carried two plastic buckets.

‘Why, Martin! I clapped and you arrived,’ Millie said in French. He just shrugged, looked about for somewhere to set his buckets. He was about thirty-two or so. Not bad looking, muscular, dark.

‘Mr Caldicott here is longing for a refreshing drink. Do you have the white wine?’ And, turning to me, she said that everyone preferred the white wine at noon. Rather than spirits. Didn’t I agree?

I agreed. Martin set down his buckets, which were filled with bottles. Vodka, whisky, gin, vermouth, cognac, and, mercifully, I saw the slender neck of a Hock bottle. This he grabbed and held out to me like a dead goose.

‘Bernkasteler Graben Riesling Eiswein. Eighty-three. Is German.’ His English was thick, heavy.

Millie said it was just fine, told him to pour it, placed a tentative hand on my sleeve and said she had to tear away for just a moment; she left flopping across the terrace.