‘The same as Eleanore Dumont, or any other lady who has visited Denver and Nevada City and Kansas. The same as Martha Jane Canary, or Carla Amorata.’

‘You’re a parlour-house girl?’ asked Collis, although the flat tone in his voice made it more of a statement than a question.

‘Does that upset you?’

He looked at her and shrugged. ‘It’s your life. Why should it?’

‘You don’t feel responsible for my tragic downfall?’

‘I don’t think so. The crash of ’fifty-seven was your downfall, wasn’t it? That, and your forward behaviour, and Senator Stride.’

‘You, of course, only used the fact of my downfall for your personal benefit,’ said Delphine. ‘You weren’t actually so gross as to contribute to it.’

Collis finished his champagne and handed the glass back to Mrs Pangborn. ‘Whatever you say,’ he told Delphine sharply.

‘Collis,’ said Delphine.

‘What?’

‘I might as well be frank with you. I don’t think I’ve ever been as restrained, or as moral, as a girl ought to be. It’s always been in my nature, something I’ve been fighting against. Well, you must have noticed it yourself. Degradation — sexual degradation — somehow that’s always held a strange fascination for me.’

Collis didn’t move. Delphine stood there with her head slightly on one side, her hands up under her breasts as if she were about to sing in opera. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, and Collis had the feeling that she was intoxicated either with champagne or with opium.

‘Well,’ said Collis, ‘I think I have to be going.’

‘You’re not going to listen to me?’ Delphine wanted to know. ‘You’re not going to hear me out?’

‘Delphine, there isn’t any point. I’m not the same man you met in New York. I have responsibilities now. I have business partners to protect. I’m a widower, still in mourning.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Delphine. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you for your sorrow. If you want my regrets in return — if you want my abject apologies — then you can have them.’

Collis turned to Mrs Pangborn and said, ‘Thank you for the champagne. And thank you for arranging this reunion. I’m afraid it wasn’t quite what I expected.’

‘C’est la vie,’ said Mrs Pangborn, in an appalling French accent.

Collis went to the door. Delphine stayed where she was, her eyes fixed on the place where Collis had been, or perhaps on the past. At the door, Collis paused, and then said softly, ‘Delphine?’

She didn’t look at him.

‘You grow to learn that the West is a small place,’ Collis went on. ‘You can easily find old friends or old enemies just by asking after them. Everybody knows almost everybody, in spite of the distances, and the wildness of it.’