He had assumed that all women were maternal. It was, he thought, their natural instinct. It was strange indeed to him, therefore, that even after she had recovered, Vanessa did not seem to care for her son. To outside eyes, she was a perfect mother, but she was going through the motions, and in her attentions to the child, there was little warmth. Once, with the little boy on her knee, she gazed at Weston’s face and remarked to James: “He looks just like you.”

“He’s the image of my father, actually,” James replied.

“Oh,” she said sadly. “Is that it?” And she put little Weston down, without enthusiasm, so that James could only wonder whether she had affection for either him or for his son.

It was shortly after this incident that James encountered Benjamin Franklin in the Strand. When he introduced himself and explained who he was, the great man was friendly. “Come back to my lodgings,” he said, “and let us talk.”

As always, Franklin was enlightening. They spoke of the Patriot cause, and James related the conversation he’d had with young Hughes.

“I confess,” he told Franklin, “that I have often pondered his words since, and wondered whether he may be right. Perhaps a fundamental agreement between the British government and the American colonies can never be reached.”

But Franklin was more sanguine.

“I cannot fault your young friend’s logic,” he said cheerfully. “But the political art uses negotiation and compromise rather than logic. The question is not whether the British Empire makes sense, but whether men can live together in it. That’s the thing. I am still hopeful that we can, and I trust you will be too.”

It was in a happier mood that James walked back from the Strand to Piccadilly. Turning up into Mayfair and arriving at the house, he was let in by the butler, who informed him that his wife had a lady visitor, and that they were in the small drawing room. Ascending the stairs, James came to the drawing-room door, and was just about to let himself in when he heard his wife’s voice.

“I can scarcely bear it. Every day under this roof has become a torture.”

“It cannot be so bad,” he heard the visitor say gently.

“It is. I am trapped in a marriage with a colonial. A colonial who wants to drag me to his cursed colony. I tremble that if we go there he might want to stay.”

“Stay in America, when he has the chance to live in London? I cannot think it.”

“You do not know him. You cannot imagine what he’s like.”

“You told me that as a husband he is …”

“Oh, I do not complain of his manhood. For a time I even loved him, I think. But now … I cannot bear his touch.”

“These things are not so uncommon in a marriage. They may pass.”