Sarah leaned forward and kissed Collis on the forehead. ‘It won’t do him any harm, my dear. He won’t lose any money, or any prestige, or anything. Everyone around him is so sycophantic that when he says he’s in favour of railroads, the whole business community will probably nod, and say how farsighted he is, and how adventurous, and why didn’t we think of that.’

She smiled at Collis for a moment, and then added, ‘I wouldn’t hurt him, Collis, not for anything. I love him. But he’s made me into my own woman, for better or for worse, and this woman he’s made believes that the railroad will change this city into the most exciting place on earth.’

There was a hesitant knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Collis said, and Maria-Mamuska came in with an anxious expression and two flutes of champagne on a tray.

Collis said, ‘Bring more champagne, Maria, and join us. And tell Andy and Dan and Mr Figgis to come in, too, I think we have something to celebrate after all.’

He learned during the course of that afternoon a lesson that, in time, was to change his view of women radically; a lesson that over the coming years would deepen and strengthen his marriage to Hannah, as well as his friendship with Sarah Melford. While Mr Figgis took ten or twelve calotypes of Sarah, lying sprawled on the bed in her pink-ribboned corsets with her eyes closed, as if drugged, she and Collis talked about her father, and about San Francisco society, and about the new breed of California debutantes.

‘I don’t know how our parents expected us to turn out,’ said Sarah. ‘They were made of tough pioneering stuff themselves, which most of us inherited; and on top of our fine genetic inheritance they gave us money, and influence, and a thorough education. Did they expect us to be meek, and subservient — polite little ladies who desired nothing more out of life than to flatter their daddies and go to tea parties?’

‘Your father means well, though, surely?’ asked Collis.

‘Meaning well and doing well are not the same thing,’ said Sarah. ‘He can be very understanding and lovable on occasions, but he’s bull-headed, and reactionary, and he doesn’t give me any freedom with boys. I was walking out with that delicious Francis Bret Harte until recently, until my father got to hear about it. Bret’s so witty — and you couldn’t find anyone more respectable than the secretary to the director of the mint. But no, father said he scribbles, and so he wasn’t fit company.’

‘Can you keep still, please?’ complained Mr Figgis from beneath the musty depths of his calotypist’s cape.

‘Is that why you’re helping me?’ asked Collis. ‘To make your father realise that you’re not such a pristine princess after all?’