‘I don’t think she means to be rude but she certainly seems a bit offhand sometimes,’ he agreed. ‘Perhaps she’s just chronically shy.’

‘I can’t make her out,’ said Louisa. ‘She can be really interesting to talk to – we had such a good walk together yesterday – and then she suddenly goes off the boil again and you’re back to where you started with her.’

‘Oh well, I expect we’ll all get to know each other better as the week goes by,’ said Christopher. ‘By the way, I know exactly where it was that I met you. It was at the opera – at Garsington, at a performance of La Cenerentola. I was with Nicola Hornby and you were with Adam Winterton, whom I’ve met on business occasionally and always very much liked, though I don’t know him well. We had seats next to yours and then found we’d all chosen the same spot in the garden for our picnics and we had a drink together.’

‘Of course! When I saw the list of participants your name didn’t ring a bell, but the moment I saw you I knew we’d met somewhere before.’

Louisa’s recollection of that evening was indelibly stamped on her mind. In fact it was all too vivid a memory, because from that one, fleeting encounter she could date the beginnings of her restlessness and dissatisfaction with Adam: with Adam as her lover and partner, and especially with the idea of him as the future husband he’d always hoped he would eventually become. She had noticed Christopher as they had made their way up to their seats in the covered stand, and then, finding herself sitting next to him throughout the performance, literally rubbing shoulders with him, had been acutely conscious of his physical presence.

‘How is Adam?’ asked Christopher now, wondering what Louisa might know about the events in his own life since then.

‘He’s fine. We’re still good friends but we’ve split up now,’ she said, wanting him to know this. ‘Do you still see Nicola?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Christopher. ‘We’ve split up too,’ and they were both aware of a frisson of interest passing between them.

Nicola had not taken to Louisa at the time, he remembered, or vice-versa, he suspected.

‘Huh! That leggy blonde didn’t half fancy you,’ Nicola had said afterwards when they were driving back to London. ‘Bet you anything she and her worthy-looking escort get in touch and try to fix another meeting sometime – and it won’t be at his suggestion. But don’t you go along with it, because while she ate you up for dinner, I’d be stuck talking to him and he certainly doesn’t look my type.’ Nicola pulled a disparaging face. ‘He’s got N. but D. written all over him.’