Collis reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were limp and yielding, but he still held on.

‘You’re as giddy and confused as any woman I’ve ever met,’ he told her, as warmly as he could manage.

She kept her eyes down. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said. ‘But I have my sensitivities, too. And what I saw this morning out on deck — well, it hurt my sensitivities considerably.’

‘You mean you were considering taking me as a lover, and now you don’t know?’

‘Collis, it was that dreadful girl—’

‘That girl was nothing! That was the most absurd thing that has ever happened to me! She just — popped herself out for no reason at all!’

‘I see,’ said Hannah disbelievingly.

Collis held her hand for a moment longer, then released it. It dropped by her side as if it were artificial. She really was the most frustrating woman. It was entirely in character for her to tell him after he had failed to seduce her that she had been willing at least to entertain the possibility of their becoming lovers, given the right approach. But why hadn’t she told him before?

A muleteer came up, dragging behind him a wet, bedraggled mount with a worn leather saddle. ‘This one is for you, señor,’ he said. ‘Better get up. We have to go now.’

‘Is it far?’

‘Just down Front Street, señor. A few hundred metres.’

‘Then I’ll walk.’

‘No, señor, ride.’

‘Just so that I’ll have to pay you?’

‘No, señor. The street.’

‘The street? What’s the matter with the street?’

The muleteer tried to think of the English words. Finally, with very careful enunciation, he said, ‘Human doings, señor.’

Collis looked around the puddly railroad yard. Already most of the Virginia’s passengers had settled themselves in the traps or sat themselves astride single mules. In the mist of a rainy Aspinwall evening, they looked like refugees from some eccentric military campaign, the remnants of a disreputable regiment of cavalry. The Virginia let out a long hoot, and a mule, with great solemnity, dropped dung on the railroad tracks.

‘Let’s talk again later,’ Collis said to Hannah. ‘There’s no need for us to be enemies, is there?’

‘Who said we were enemies?’

‘There’s no need for us not to be friends. Even lovers, if that’s what you will, and if that’s what the Lord God wills.’

‘The Lord God never wills immorality,’ said Hannah.

‘I don’t believe He wills unhappiness, either.’

Hannah opened her purse and took out a handkerchief. It wasn’t very clean, but then most of the Virginia’s passengers were running low on personal laundry. ‘I’d rather you didn’t take His name in vain,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t need to if you told me how you really felt.’