“Not,” said Sophie carefully, “as far as I can remember.”

“Then you must,” he said. “I insist on it. It’s quite an experience, I assure you.”

There was another pause, during which he continued to look at her.

“Okay,” she said, after a moment. “I’ll, um, bear it in mind.”

“Do that,” said Marcus. He was still watching her, Sophie noticed, and with what she now realized to be a faintly disturbing degree of attention. “Has anyone ever told you, Sophie,” he asked then, “what an unusually attractive young woman you are? When I look at you, I can quite see how your aunt must have been when she was your age. She’s told me a lot about you, you know.” He smiled, appreciatively. “It seems you’re one to be reckoned with.”

“Oh.” Sophie grimaced. Family anecdotes, she thought, were one thing; it would not do, however, to be thought difficult to get along with. “We’re a bit of a feisty family, I’m afraid,” she said. “It sort of runs in the blood. But I can put it aside if I have to.”

“Never apologize.” Marcus raised his hand again. “I adore a feisty girl. Some men like the meek-and-mild sort, but that’s not for me and never has been. Give me a touch of the spitfire, please, and I’m a happy boy, and if the spitfire comes with blond hair, well, what more could a chap ask for, really? Now let’s see. What shall we talk about if we’re not to talk about the theater?” He paused, narrowed his eyes, and raised his chin, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “I know!” he said then. “Let’s talk about … love.”

“Love,” said Sophie. Marcus Wickham or not, she was beginning not to like the way the conversation was going.

“Love,” agreed Marcus. “‘Why love?’ you ask. The answer is, quite simply, because love is everything. It is the beginning and it is the end and it is everything in between. It has impelled poets and playwrights and writers of songs. It has created tragedy—look at poor little Juliet and her Romeo—and the most ecstatic pinnacle of happiness—think of darling Cinderella living happily ever after with her prince. The Beatles said it was all you need, and it was, let us face it, an act of love between our parents that brought about our very existence in this world in the first place. The question we should be asking ourselves, Sophie, is not, ‘Why love?’ but ‘Where on earth would we be without it?’” Reaching across the table, he tilted Sophie’s chin with a finger, and fixed his piercing blue gaze deep into her eyes. “Are you in love, pretty blond Sophie?” he asked softly.

“Um.” Sophie tried subtly to extricate herself, but his finger was surprisingly firm. “Not right now. Not really, I mean no.”

“You mean not yet,” he corrected her gently. Grimacing regretfully, he loosed her chin and sat back. “And I shouldn’t have expected you to be, yet, because the young are so hard-hearted, bless them. Darling Emma Thompson, wonderful woman, always says that a heart’s no use as a heart unless it’s been broken a few times, and she’s right; of course, she’s right. But you will be in love, one day, I hope. I hope, one day soon. You’ll meet someone special, or maybe in a week or a month you’ll take a look at a chap you already know and think, I say! He’s rather splendid! It can happen just like that, you know.” He snapped his fingers, producing a surprising volume of sound. “Just … like … that.” Still gazing at her with that unsettling intensity, he leaned back across the table to her. “I’m in love now, Sophie,” he whispered to her. “I’m in love, and it happened just … like … that.”