‘My dear,’ he said, laying a hairy, long-fingered hand over her pale plump hand. ‘I am only twenty-five, am more than moderately wealthy, and have most of my life ahead of me. There are wagers to be wagered, drinks to be drunk, ladies to be courted, dances to be danced. There are scores of saloons in New York in which I have yet to fall over. There are dozens of whorehouses whose ill repute I have yet to put to the test. There are oysters to be tasted, champagne to be poured, races to be run. When all these things are done, I shall probably think about taking a wife, but not before, and certainly not you.’

Kathleen Mary reached out and stroked his forehead, pushing the dark curls away from his eyes. She said, in her sorrowful Irish lilt, ‘You never meant a word then. What you said about loving me, and wanting to take me away from the streets, you never meant a word of it.’

‘It was meant at the time,’ Collis put in. ‘But you know what it’s like when you’re … happy.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t. Happy’s just a word as far as I’m concerned. Happy is what other people feel.’

He turned away, discomfited. ‘I’m sure nobody’s life is that bad. You must have some happy times.’

‘In two rooms, in a building on Delancey Street they should have burned down years ago, with a father who drinks anything from whisky to lavender water, and a brother of thirty who can’t even tie his own shoelaces?’

‘I’m sorry.’

Kathleen Mary knelt up in bed, a pale fat Aphrodite rising from a seagreen comforter. ‘You’re sorry,’ she wailed, her breath all herrings and brandy. ‘Well, think how sorry I feel.’

Collis grimaced. He tried to get up from the bed, but Kathleen Mary forced him to sit down again, and he was uncomfortably aware that she was as strong as she was large, and determined, too. He was already beginning to have visions of climbing out of the hotel window in his Bon-Bons, his arm raised against the whipping rain, in a futile attempt to escape from her clutches.

‘You lay in my arms last night, and those were your very words. “I love you,” you said. “I want you to be my bride,” you said. And now it’s morning, you’re treating me cruel and offhand as can be.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Collis, in a tight, strained voice. ‘But I really don’t think it’s any use your going on about it.’

Kathleen Mary was visibly saddened, and hurt, and she turned away when she saw how much he really disliked her, and stood by the half-open drapes, staring out at the dribbling raindrops that clung to the window.

‘I’ve no right to press you,’ she said. ‘It isn’t your fault, what I have to suffer.’