The obvious family affection they felt for each other beneath the teasing and the banter, all the in-jokes and childhood reminiscences which they shared with Christopher, brought out the very worst in her. She felt a complete outsider, and because she minded too much endeavoured to give the impression that she didn’t care at all. To make matters worse, Christopher, acutely disappointed by her apparently unfriendly reaction to his beloved family – and, as the day wore on, theirs to her – had shot her a look of extreme annoyance across the lunch table, which had not been lost on her. After tea, when they were preparing to leave, she could bear it no more and had suddenly disappeared, taking the two portly old dogs with her, and fled up the fields at the back of the house without saying goodbye.

It had not made a good impression and Christopher had made excuses for her that sounded lame even in his own ears.

After they’d gone, he went in search of her and found her sitting on an old tree stump, looking her worst.

‘Well, that was a bloody failure, wasn’t it?’ he snapped. Then he saw how red her eyes were, how blotched with crying her face, and his exasperation melted away. ‘Oh, shit, shit!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It was all too much, wasn’t it?’ He came and sat beside her and tried to put an arm round her, but she shrugged him off and they sat in silence.

‘I told you I didn’t have any social graces,’ she muttered at last. ‘Now perhaps you’ll believe me.’

‘I don’t give a damn about social graces. You were just plain bloody rude!’

‘And you wanted your sisters to like me?’

‘Of course I did,’ he said, not even trying to pretend that they’d warmed to her. ‘I wanted them to like you and you to like them – and they would have done if you’d given them half a chance. Having one’s nose bitten off is painful, especially if it’s unprovoked. But I ought to have managed to make it easier for you. You’ve got perfectly good social graces when you choose to use them but you’re like a dog that’s so terrified of not being the one to get the first bite in that it starts snarling even if tails are being wagged at it . . . and it’s become the most God-awful habit. But shall I tell you something else? Of course I’d very much rather you didn’t snarl at my family – but it doesn’t change how I feel about you one jot. It’s you I want. I knew that this afternoon with absolute certainty, even when I wanted to shake you for being so spiky and aggressive. I suppose that’s why I felt so furious. I do love you, Marnie.’