He gives a short bark of laughter. ‘Lovely? Is that what it is? Well, I’ve never heard the Angel described as lovely before. I adore it. Perhaps I’ll use it on my advertising – “Come to the Angel: it’s lovely.”’

She blushes, grateful for the low lighting, and sips her champagne.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease. You shouldn’t be here, though. It’s a good thing I know Ralph so well, or he would black my eye for allowing it.’

She regards him, safely behind her glass. He is an attractive man, forties or thereabouts, judging by the flecks of silver at his temples. He keeps himself fit, and his face is unlined, despite the nightclub hours. He is a charmer, as she had already decided in the Savoy, with his lazy smile and soft voice.

‘Does Ralph ever come here?’

It is a gauche question, and she regrets it immediately. She should know the answer, surely, as his fiancée.

‘You might bring him.’ Peter’s answer is diplomatic. ‘Now that you know where it is.’

‘I’m not sure it’s really his scene either,’ she says. ‘He’s much more comfortable in a place like the Savoy or his club – or, better still, in the House of Commons. He says he hates dancing. He would always prefer to sit and talk politics over whisky or port than drink champagne in a room where dancing might be expected.’

‘That’s terribly dull of him,’ Peter says. His eyes crease a little in the corners as he smiles. ‘Then it will be up to you to liven him up when you marry, even if you can’t drag him to my dancefloor.’

He is distracted for a fraction of a second, looking beyond her, towards the dancers. She turns instinctively to see what he is looking at. One young woman has thrown her arms around a man’s neck and sways, draped against him like a long scarf. They look so peaceful and carefree – as though, in the dancing, they have shaken off the sadness of the last few years. She decides she might write an article for the Gazette about dancing, and turns back to share this thought with Peter.

‘Do you normally write about dancing?’ he asks, his focus half on her, half on the dancefloor.

‘Oh, I write about all sorts of nonsense,’ she says, taking another mouthful of the champagne. ‘I write of hats and gloves and what the best-dressed Kensington lady might expect to find in the stores. Mr Pickford – that’s the editor of the Gazette – he says this is what his female readers want to read.’

‘You don’t agree?’