‘Thank you, but the pleasure is all mine.’ Ginie gave Sam a dazzling smile. ‘I see that there’s a Courtauld family resemblance.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Of course! Strong, serious, responsible-looking. . .’

‘Sam is much more handsome than I am!’ Stephen cut in, laughing.

Elizabeth didn’t try and kiss Ginie; she held out a hand for her to shake.

‘Call me Lil,’ she said, smiling. ‘Welcome to the family.’ She was a fair-haired and thick-set Irishwoman, with deep creases around her blue eyes.

As they shook hands, Stephen noticed Ginie glance around the drawing room, taking in the vast chandeliers, the gilded cornicing, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Portman Square. The room was filled with antiques and Sam’s collection of French Impressionist paintings: Manet’s Bar hung above the mantelpiece. There were Monets and Gaugins on the other walls. He tried to see it all through her eyes, as though for the first time. The beauty of the art calmed him; it was a beauty that was greater than himself and it seemed to bear him up.

‘I’ve never seen a collection like this in a private house,’ Ginie said, drawing her fingers through her hair. ‘I mean, Stephen told me about it, but seeing it in person is quite another thing.’

‘Oh, Sam is passionate about his pictures,’ said Lil. She flung up her hands.

‘One day, I’m going to give this house and its contents to the nation,’ Sam said.

Sam had recently donated £50,000 to the Tate to buy Impressionist art and Stephen was immensely proud of him. The brothers had been brought up to look at money as neither a burden nor an indulgence, but as a responsibility to be used wisely. Stephen didn’t yet know what he wanted to do with his. He wished he had Sam’s passion and purpose.

‘I don’t believe that art and high culture should be confined to a narrow elite,’ Sam was saying. ‘It ought to belong to the general public.’

‘I quite agree,’ said Ginie.

‘What’s more is – the public wants art! People are searching for meaning, for a higher system of values. Just look at the sheer number of people flooding art exhibitions and classical concerts during the war.’

Roberts brought glasses of champagne on a silver tray and they moved slowly around the room with their drinks, discussing the paintings and beautiful objects.

‘Three generations of Courtaulds were silversmiths during the eighteenth century,’ said Lil, pausing in front of a table of silverware, ‘We collect their work.’ She picked up a tea caddy decorated with scrolls and leaves, amongst which reclining figures drank, rested or embraced. It was a virtuosic piece, a flight of fancy.

‘They were among the most renowned and prolific craftsmen of their day. This one’s by Samuel Courtauld: here’s his mark, see? The initials S.C. beneath a splendid sun.’

‘It’s very beautiful,’ replied Ginie. ‘I can see that our husbands’ love of art is inherited.’