‘My name,’ he went on, ‘was not always Raymond de Guise. The name I was born with is . . .’ It felt like stripping out of his evening suit and standing naked in front of her. ‘Raymond Cohen. My family call me Ray. I was born in Whitechapel. My family are tinkers and tradesmen. No, hang that. They’re thieves and con men, pure and simple. And there was a time that I almost went that way too. It doesn’t mean there isn’t good in them. It’s just the way things were. In another world, I’d have been out there still. But I had something my brother didn’t. I could dance. I got up and I got out and . . . I thought I’d left it all behind. But you can’t, can you? You can’t outrun your past. All these years, I’ve just been dancing while the world staggers from one disaster to the next . . .’ He paused. ‘In here isn’t like it is out there. There’s order in here. You’re upstairs or you’re downstairs and you know your place. But out there it’s messy and ugly and . . . Those men who mobbed me in the Midnight Rooms, they came from the same streets where me and my brother were raised. They recognised me from the old times. They hated us then for what we are, though they didn’t show it. Only now . . .’

Nancy had listened to it all with a blank expression. Now her face developed creases and lines. ‘You lied to me,’ she whispered, in disbelief. ‘You lied to us all, to everyone here . . .’

‘Little lies,’ Raymond ventured. ‘Here and there, daily little lies. But they all add up. I’m sorry, Nancy. It’s my own fault. I’ve been a fool. I should have stayed here, in the Buckingham, in my ballroom, where everything is crystal clear. I should have known that, the moment I stepped out there, the old world was waiting.’

Nancy was uncertain what to say. She had, she decided, no right to feel aggrieved. What was Raymond de Guise to her? What was Ray Cohen? A man she’d known for scant weeks. A man who’d shown her a little quickstep, the art of box stepping, a little rhythm and poise. That’s all. Well, isn’t it?

Why, then, did it feel like so much more?

Because I told you my life, Raymond – and all the while you were lying about yours . . .

‘That life isn’t mine any more. I feel the pull of it sometimes. But it isn’t mine. This is mine. But if Maynard Charles were to find out. If—’

‘They’d cast you out.’