‘All you seem to have learned at school was how to make smart remarks,’ Andy riposted.

‘I learned geography, my friend, which was more than John Frémont seems to have done, for all his Army Topographical Corps. I learned that North was North, and South was South, and that West was west of East.’

Collis led Andy through into the main reception room again, excusing himself and smiling indulgently as he pushed his way past inquisitive society matrons in dresses like wedding cakes, and their starch-fronted, wax-whiskered husbands. He peered over the heads of the dancing couples, but he couldn’t see Sarah Melford at all, and he was worried that she might have left. He asked Andy if he could spot her, but after craning his neck and looking all around, Andy shook his head. ‘All I can see is a whole damn lot of heads bobbing up and down, like a pondful of pintail ducks.’

Quite suddenly, though, Sarah appeared at the door from the outside veranda, accompanied by a tall, broad-shouldered young man who could only have been her brother, Grant.

She was wearing a low-cut evening gown of gleaming dark blue. Her hair was pinned up, and her huge eyes were emphasised with cosmetics. She was even more beautiful than Collis had remembered, and she walked through the room with a sensual poise that turned everybody’s head. He heard somebody say, ‘That Melford girl is too pretty for her own good, if you ask me.’

Grant, on the other hand, was a rangy, big-boned boy, with all of his father’s physique and not very much of his composure. It was only because he shared a striking sibling likeness with Sarah that they looked attractive together. He had thick, unruly hair and deep-set eyes, and his nose curved up like a gold panner’s sluice. His collar was too tight for him, which made his neck bulge, and the sleeves of his tailcoat were too short. He probably hadn’t worn it since his last vacation.

‘Well,’ said Andy, with resignation, ‘there she is. You’d better go do your worst, and get it over with.’

The string quartet were bringing a cotillion to a scrapish sort of an ending, as if the music were a fish which they were required to fillet, and which had nothing left on it now but grey skin and untidy bones. Collis took the opportunity to cross the floor between the dancers, pardoning himself as he trod rather heavily on a small woman’s toes, and to approach the younger Melfords from behind. They were talking politely to an elderly South Park duchess with a withered neck and strings of diamonds and pearls, and they didn’t see Collis until he was right up next to them.

‘Mr Melford,’ said Collis, in his correctest tone. ‘Would you permit me the pleasure of dancing with your sister?’

Grant Melford turned around, and so did Sarah. Grant was a good head taller than Collis, with black bushy eyebrows and cheeks that were ruddy with youthfulness, rather than drink.