But Diane was not to be so easily distracted. ‘And you inherited a whole bunch of shares, didn’t you? You told me that a long time ago. What are they worth now?’

‘Not all that much,’ muttered Lizzie.

‘How much?’

Lizzie did not feel that Diane had the right to know the value of her portfolio of shares that McInroy & Wood had so prudently nurtured for her. But having started this discussion, she could hardly drop it now, and so she mumbled a figure.

‘What?’ asked Diane. ‘How much?’

‘Four hundred,’ said Lizzie, looking away.

‘Four hundred pounds?’

‘Thousand.’

‘A thousand pounds?’

Lizzie was now virtually inaudible. ‘No, four hundred thousand.’

Diane sighed. ‘So that’s three-quarters of a million altogether. You realise that, I suppose? You’re almost a millionaire.’

Lizzie turned to her friend. ‘Please keep your voice down,’ she said. ‘I don’t want people thinking …’

‘So no wonder your father asked that question,’ said Diane. ‘I’d ask it too.’

Lizzie was silent for a while. It was one thing for her father to think such thoughts; it was quite another thing for her close friend to harbour similar doubts.

‘Does Bruce know?’ Diane suddenly asked. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘He knows that I’ve got my own flat,’ answered Lizzie. ‘Obviously he knows that.’

‘Does he know that you own it outright?’ asked Diane.

Lizzie thought for a moment. She remembered talking to Bruce about it once, but she did not think that they discussed mortgages. And as for the shares, she was sure that she had never mentioned … She stopped herself. He had said something once about a share tip that he had received and had told her that she should get her financial adviser to arrange for the purchase of some of the shares in question. ‘That is, if you have a financial adviser,’ he said casually. ‘Do you?’

And she had answered, equally casually, ‘Yes, I do.’ And had proceeded to mention McInroy & Wood.

Diane had been watching her. ‘He knows something, doesn’t he?’

Lizzie nodded. Suddenly she felt miserable, as if she had uncovered some unpleasant secret. And now she tried to tell herself that Diane was as little justified as her father in entertaining these doubts. They both had suspicious, uncharitable minds. They both had no reason to think that Bruce, of all people, would stoop so low.

‘But I don’t think there’s the remotest chance that he’s after my money,’ she said. ‘He just isn’t.’

Diane raised an eyebrow. ‘Prove it,’ she said. ‘Prove it to yourself.’

‘How?’ asked Lizzie.

Diane replied immediately. ‘A love test.’ She was clearly serious, even if she smiled as she spoke.

Lizzie was on the point of laughing. This was ridiculous. One did not have love tests in real life; they were the stuff of fiction – and unlikely fiction at that.