“You’re always trying to get me to do things,” he said with some exaggeration. “I don’t know anything about fuses, it’s got nothing to do with me at all. That’s not my province, fuses. I remember now, one of the nastiest evenings of my life was to do with a fuse box. I was with this girl in a flat in Paddington, just after the war it was, and there was some kind of crisis going on, her career, or my career, or something like that, and we were just getting through to the other side when all the light went out on us. She was running an electric fire and a toaster off the light switch. Anyway, like a flash she got out a screwdriver from somewhere or other and told me to go out in the hall and find the fuse box and mend it, so off I went, out into the hall and straight down the stairs and out into the street and home. I’ve never seen her since; she did quite well in America, I think. I’ve still got that screwdriver, I was really crazy about that girl. I’d have done anything for her, anything I could do, but what she wanted was always the impossible: fuse boxes, to look like Marlene Dietrich, all that kind of thing. It’s a long time since I thought about her. And then you say you don’t believe in providence.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said. “I believe in providence. And in coincidence.”

“Do you really? So do I. It’s one or the other, for instance, that you should be telling me to go off and mend that fuse. Women don’t understand how complicated fuses are.”

“I can do them myself,” I said. “They’re quite easy, once you know.”

“I bet you couldn’t deal with one this size,” he said. “It’s probably a national electricity cut, and nothing to do with me at all.”

“Not at this time of night, surely.”

“Why not? A very sensible time to have a power cut, I’d have thought. I wonder how much all this is costing us in overtime.”

“You’d better go and find out,” I said. “You’re wasting your lighter fuel.”

“Yes, I am. I was thinking, Mrs. Evans, perhaps it might be a good idea if I took you out to dinner. Sometime when your husband is working. You must be left alone a lot. I was going to ask you next week, when these plays have opened, but since you’re here I’ll ask you now. Next Wednesday they’ll all be busy running through The Clandestine Marriage. What about next Wednesday?”

“Out to dinner?”

“Yes, out to dinner. What’s wrong with that? Don’t you eat?”

“Oh yes. I eat.”

“Next Wednesday then.”