Collis didn’t move. He didn’t know whether to embrace her or not. Maybe she felt the same way her father did, that he was a pauper now, and not suitable for a girl like her. After all, he had no way of knowing what Senator Stride had actually told George Spooner, or what unpleasant embellishments he might have added to the tale.

‘Thank you for coming down,’ said Collis quietly. ‘I was afraid for a moment that you wouldn’t want to see me.’

She came across the room and stood close to him. Her eyes were as wide and as entrancing as the day he had first met her in Taylor’s, and the gown, charged with its own static electricity, clung to the curves of her figure. She reached out her hand and held the grey sleeve of his coat, as if he were a possession that she didn’t want to relinquish. ‘I heard what happened,’ she said, almost inaudibly. ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else I can say.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Collis. ‘It wasn’t even Alice’s fault. In any case, everyone seems so determined to blame me that it doesn’t matter whose fault it was.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. I was going to stay with a friend of mine, but I’m not sure about it now. When you’re flat busted broke, you suddenly realise that you’re an imposition on your old friends.’

‘Isn’t that what friends are for?’ she asked him.

He took her hand between his, pressing it gently. ‘There are some good things in life which I would rather not put to the test.’

‘Sit down for a moment,’ she said. ‘Just here, on the chaise longue. Don’t worry about Mother. We’re having the Cheesmans for dinner tonight, and she’s flapping about in the dining-room.’

Collis, awkwardly, sat; and Delphine sat beside him, her knee pressed against his. She took his hand again, and stroked each finger as she spoke, her own little fingers caressing the knuckles, the joints, and the dark hairs that grew around his rings. She kept her eyes lowered as she spoke to him, so quietly that he had to lean forward, until his cheek was almost touching her curly hair, so that he could hear. On the wall behind her, a very pompous-looking portrait of her father in a blue military-style coat looked down at her with unceasing disapproval.

‘Are you going to leave New York?’ Delphine asked him.

‘I’m not sure. I suppose I’ll have to.’

‘I’m going to miss you, you know. I’ve been dreaming about you every night.’

He touched her hand.