‘I didn’t want to let you in on it until it was all done,’ he replied, ‘it’s as simple as that. Your being the incentive for the whole thing makes that kind of weird, I guess, but it was how I felt. If the book doesn’t get published and you still don’t marry me, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I tried. Will you, or won’t you, Marianne?’

‘I’d be a fool if I didn’t. Come and sit beside me—’

Tears were stinging Marianne’s eyes. Simon not worthy of me? Few men would have bared their soul to a woman as he had, nor found the grit at his age to try again. Minutes slipped by while they held each other close, passion firing the kiss that followed but the thankfulness for each other in that first embrace still there.

‘My sister’s loft was where I spent the whole time,’ Simon afterwards resumed his story. ‘Norma, like you, is a sucker for her family – but let’s not get into that again! The loft was her daughters’ playroom when they were young kids and later Norma had it adapted as their private apartment.

‘Each of them had her own telephone up there,’ he added dryly, ‘one between them wasn’t enough! Also there’s a house line to the kitchen. If the girls felt hungry, they’d ring down and Norma would load up the dumb waiter that was part of their American dream set up.’

‘Was their father still alive then?’

‘If he had been his daughters might not have grown up thinking the world owes them a living, an idea they got from how their mother has always been with them.’

Simon paused reflectively. ‘Norma’s husband was a bit like Jake Bornstein. The sort who doesn’t see his children go short, but makes sure their feet are kept on the ground.’

‘That’s an accurate assessment of Jake, but you hardly know him, how did you sum him up so well?’

‘Evidently my vision had begun to undergo a change before I went to New York. How could it not with you at my side, though you weren’t when I realized it?’

Simon straightened Marianne’s hair, awry from their lengthy embrace. ‘Remember me telling you you’d changed my life? What I’m now saying has to be included in that. My perceptions have heightened, it seems, along with the rest of your effect upon me! Where was I?’

‘Discussing your sister and what you evidently consider her folly.’

‘Which in a nutshell is that Norma inherited her husband’s business, put in a high-powered manager, and is still spending the dollars that continue to roll in on her daughters, not to mention on their kids. Our parents sure didn’t spoil Norma and me, nor would they have if they’d been well off,’ Simon added.