Janis got up and left the room. Those remaining stunned at the table could not have known that she was unable to maintain her cruel charade for a moment longer. Or what it had cost her to lie as she had with Kurt’s hurt gaze riveted to her.

Jake poured himself some water and drank it. Suddenly his throat felt parched. This is just like the time we found out what was going on with Bessie, and that Jeremy knew and he hadn’t told us, he wanted to say to Laura.

They exchanged a glance and he knew that she too was recalling that traumatic occasion. Did anyone know their own kids? What went on inside their heads? Nathan had somehow set Bessie on the road to recovery. Janis though – well, where would she go from here? Hers wasn’t a sickness, it was a newly-discovered thirst for life.

Meanwhile the casualty of that discovery looked as if he might break down if one more word were said to him. It would have to be a careful word.

Jake cleared his throat. ‘All Laura and I can do, Kurt, is apologize to you for our daughter’s behaviour. On the good side, and it will be some time before you’re able to believe there is one, there’s an old saying with a lot of common sense to it: Better before than after.’

‘We don’t want you disappearing from our lives,’ Laura added kindly. ‘We were looking forward to your being our son-in-law, and girls have been known to change their minds. Whatever comes or goes, though, you and I are cousins. The day you appeared out of the blue was a happy one for me.’

‘For me also, Laura. But if we are to see each other after I have graduated, you must come to Vienna. I shall never return to London. Janis will not change her mind. And if she were to say that she had, how could I ever again believe in her?’

Kurt rose and managed to smile politely. ‘If you would now to excuse me, I have not the appetite for finishing my dinner and shall take myself for a walk on the Heath.’

Laura and Jake went with him to the front door. On the hall table was the aquamarine engagement ring he had given Janis.

Kurt paused for a moment gazing down at it. ‘When I put that ring on Janis’s finger, I told her that I had chosen it because it matched her eyes. But who is to know what truly lies behind the eyes of their beloved? Nor, as poets would have us believe, are the eyes the mirror of the soul. That I now do know.’

He departed with the ring in his pocket, leaving behind him a couple again confronted with the unseen hazards of parenthood.

‘He’ll get over it,’ Jake said heavily.

‘But will we?’