“I thought this was the kind of place you like.”

“Oh, David.”

“Well, you chose it.”

“Yes, but I hadn’t seen it. Anyway, it’s not the house, it’s the furniture.”

“What’s wrong with the furniture? It all looks jolly good stuff to me.” And he gave the wardrobe an approving slap.

“David,” I said, neatly folding up my head-square into smaller and smaller triangles, “can’t you see how frightfully ugly it is?”

“Ugly? Yes, I suppose it is quite ugly. But it’ll do to hang clothes in, won’t it? It’s clean, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s new,” I said, and he opened it again and looked inside. It smelled of sawdust.

“Yes, it’s new,” he said.

“Well then, whoever would buy an object like that? Whoever would buy one, with real money? You realize it probably cost four times as much as ours at home with the shells on? Think of somebody going into a shop and deliberately choosing a thing like that. Who could do it, what kind of person could do it?”

“Well, people like me, for example,” said David, who had sat down at a dressing table and was admiring his reflection once more. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I would probably buy if you left me to buy you your furniture. And you married me, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t marry you for your taste in furniture.”

“What I meant was, there’s no need to condemn whoever bought that just because they bought it. Bad taste isn’t a crime, is it?”

“But, David, can’t you see what it’s like?”

“I suppose I can, now that you point it out.”

“And it’s totally valueless. That kind of thing has no value whatsoever. You couldn’t resell it for five bob, not even the day after you bought it, although it must have cost fifty pounds.”

“Why worry about that? The place’ll look a lot different when you’ve unpacked our stuff. It just looks a bit bleak at the moment. It’s not yours, you haven’t got to do anything about it but live with it for a bit. People live in places much worse than this, you know. You should see the places I’ve stayed in when I’ve been in rep. This place is bloody marvellous, if you ask me.”

“I can’t live here,” I said feebly.