“I hate meeting old school friends,” she was saying. “I can never think of what to say to them, and I can never remember people’s names . . . .”

After a few unpunctuated sentences Mary broke in to suggest that Sophy must be an actress; it was the first time she had mentioned the theater since she had arrived. With this opening, Sophy proceeded to tell her all about The Clandestine Marriage, the tea in the green room, Wyndham Farrar, drama school and what she referred to as “Emma’s fabulous sensational super husband.” When I arrived with the tray and was officially part of the conversation, she said to me in a gaily broad Welsh accent:

“And where has he got to, that wicked husband of yours? I know he’s not at the theatre because I’ve just come from there myself, indeed I have.”

“I think he’s at Peter Yates’s,” I said. “I think they’re going over the Flamineo-Brachiano scenes together.”

“My God,” said Sophy, and I wished she wouldn’t, “they do go at it, don’t they. Talk about a hive of industry, I’ve never met anything like it.”