‘I simply mean that I don’t want you telling her that I’m soft about her, or anything of that kind. “This is my son — he’s been admiring you from afar for years.” That kind of thing.’

‘A mother has to try her best to save her son from complete dissipation,’ retorted Ida.

The waiter brought their coffee, setting the pot down on the walnut table with an insolent clatter. Collis sipped at his cup dejectedly and decided he had never felt so much like a beer in his whole life.

It wasn’t long, though, before Ida suddenly seized his arm and almost made him spill the whole cupful on his cream-coloured pants. He looked up, and there, through the glass doors, appeared a plump middle-aged woman in a grey dress and shawl, and just behind her, a short young girl whose face was hidden by the brim of her yellow bonnet. Collis felt a surge of panic. He just knew this was going to be a disaster. If Ida hadn’t been clasping his arm so firmly, he would have excused himself from the table and rushed out. He suddenly felt suffocated by all the women around him, asphyxiated by their perfume and choked by their feathers, and tied and trammelled by their fussy female schemes.

‘Winifred! My dear!’ Ida called. ‘What a surprise!’

Winifred Spooner came through the tables with a beatific beam on her face, like a mother superior on a holy errand. Delphine followed obediently behind. Collis rose to take the ladies’ hands, and found that he was towering over both mother and daughter, although he was only just six feet in height himself. Embarrassed, he clasped Mrs Spooner’s grey-gloved fingers and said, ‘It’s an enormous pleasure, ma’am,’ but then immediately regretted having said ‘enormous’.

Winifred Spooner, with an obvious smirk that Collis was quite sure could be plainly interpreted by everybody in the saloon, Delphine included, brought her daughter forward and announced, ‘This is Mr Collis Edmonds, my pet. I expect you’ve heard of him.’

Delphine kept her head lowered, so that all Collis could see of her was the semicircular rim of her lemon-yellow bonnet, and the yellow satin daisies that decorated it. She wore a dress of the same colour, with a silk facing on her bodice, and white lace trim around her skirts. She was very small, there was no question about that, but Collis noted with some relief that her arms, which may have been plump with puppy fat when he first saw her, were now quite slender, and her wrists were attractively childlike.

Collis held out his hand. For a moment, Delphine remained where she was, her head down, and then she reached her own hand out, in its small lemon-coloured glove, and placed it in his. She looked up and whispered, ‘I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.’