‘I propose,’ he said, ‘that we breakfast together as a general rule. A light breakfast and supper are included in the arrangement. You will hand me your ration book and I shall shop with discretion. Undoubtedly I am a better cook than you and will therefore make myself responsible for supper. For luncheon you may return if you wish and forage ineffectually for yourself or make what other arrangement seems good to you. Approved?’

Martyn said carefully: ‘If you please, Jacko, I’m so grateful and so muddled I can’t think at all sensibly. You see, I don’t know what I shall be earning.’

‘For your dual and unusual role of understudy and dresser, I imagine about eight pounds a week. Your rental, demi-pension, here, is two.’

‘It seems so little,’ Martyn said timidly. ‘The rent, I mean.’

Jacko tapped the side of the coffee-pot with a spoon.

‘Attention,’ he said. ‘How often must I repeat. You will have the goodness to understand I am not a dirty old man. It is true that I am virile,’ he continued with some complacency, ‘but you are not my type. I prefer the more mature, the more mondaine, the—’ He stopped short, the spoon with which he had been gesticulating, still held aloof. His eyes were fixed on the wall behind Martyn. She turned her head to see a sketch in watercolour of Helena Hamilton. When she faced Jacko again, he was grinning desperately.

‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘you are in no danger of discomfort from the smallest whisper of scandal. I am notoriously pure. This morning there are eggs and therefore an omelette. Let us observe silence while I make it.’

He was gay, in his outlandish fashion, from then onwards. When they had finished their admirable breakfast she helped him wash up and he gave her what he called her orders for the day. She was to go down to the theatre with him, set about her work as a dresser and at three o’clock she would be given a formal rehearsal as understudy. At night, for the second dress-rehearsal, she would again take up her duties as Miss Hamilton’s dresser.

‘An eccentric arrangement,’ Jacko said. He groped in the bosom of his undervest and produced a somewhat tattered actor’s ‘part’, typewritten and bound in paper. ‘Only thirteen sides,’ he said. ‘A bit-part. You will study the lines while you press and stitch and by this afternoon you are word perfect, isn’t it? You are, of course, delighted?’

‘Delighted,’ Martyn said, ‘is not exactly the word. I’m flabbergasted and excited and grateful for everything and I just can’t believe it’s true. But it is a bit worrying to feel I’ve sort of got in on a fluke and that everybody’s wondering what it’s all about. They are, you know.’