Gemima led them through the drapes and then along a shadowy passage to an oak door. The music was louder now, and they could hear the gruff voices of men calling out ribald encouragement. Gemima opened the door and ushered them into a small partitioned-off room, like a private box at the theatre. It was furnished with club armchairs upholstered in purple velvet, and there was a small marble-topped table on which a magnum of French champagne was chilling in an ice bucket.

The front of the box was hung with heavy, dark drapes, so that the occupants were shadowed from the view of other boxes. There must have been five or six boxes altogether around the main room, and each gave its guests an unobstructed view of a scarlet-covered daybed, brightly illuminated by a gas bracket, and of three young lady musicians, all scantily dressed in Grecian-style tunics, who sat on upright chairs beside the daybed with a cello and a flute and a violin.

‘An exhibition has just finished,’ said Gemima in a soft whisper. ‘Please sit down, and another will start directly.’

Collis sat at the front, by the polished mahogany rail, and Nathan Hackett sat beside him. While the others drew up their chairs, Gemima poured the champagne for them in tall cold glasses, and they toasted her, with quiet appreciation, before she bowed and left them, closing the door. The girl musicians started to scrape out an uneven version of ‘Nymphs and Shepherds, Come Away’, but the audience, who were already turning the air grey with cigar smoke, were not overly critical, particularly of the young black-haired cellist, who had to sit with her legs wide apart.

‘I must say I like that violinist,’ said Collis. ‘Now, she’s quite fair.’

Nathan touched his knee. ‘Just remember our wager. The uglier you pick ’em tonight, the more likely you are to win. So you can forget the fair ones.’

Collis sipped his champagne and sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. If I don’t marry Delphine, and Father cuts off my money, I’m going to need every dollar I can win.’

‘You could always work,’ Henry pointed out. ‘There are some professions that a young fellow like you could go into without disgrace. I hear that being a speculator in railroad bonds is an amusing way to pass the time.’

‘Father believes I should exploit the resources of the earth and the ocean. He made his first hundred thousand from lobsters, and I suppose he believes that what was good enough for him is easily good enough for me.’

‘How the devil do you make a hundred thousand from lobsters?’ asked Jack. ‘Do you send them begging letters, or what?’