The unpunctuality of Wally Collins, and it seemed to increase, the number of pellets, the number of glances at the door, gave her the opportunity to remind herself: My lover is a saxophonist. It was both terrifying and comic. It sounded like a popular song, one of the numbers that Wally hummed into the chromium shaving mirror at Godiva Mansions. My lover is a saxophonist. She tried it on her tongue, then before some invisible jury, to explain to the attentive faces that waited, when there were no explanations forthcoming, that is, nothing so rational as the arguments to which juries respond. She could only offer her own unsatisfied face. She could suggest her horror of an empty room, of the nights in empty rooms, counting the clocks across the square. Quite apart from the physical aspect, I must have something to think about, she said, even a saxophone. This is recompense enough for a collapse in dignity, for the defection of the interesting Mrs Catherine Standish, who was always more or less a lay figure, so many acquired conventional poses that people labelled Dignity.

In a way she now felt freer. She told herself this, crumbling the bread in a Soho restaurant. You rested when and where you chose in the world in which she now drifted. When she went home, the house was no longer personal. She looked inside her drawing-room, at the snug if somewhat shabby cocoon, which no longer belonged, or she no longer belonged. She belonged only to the clothes she stood in. Reality was the particular current emotion that disturbed or eased her mind. It is better like this, she told herself doubtfully, it is also something of a triumph at my age to live, well, passionately.

Mrs Standish looked up from a chequered Soho tablecloth and watched the approach of a fawn hat. Pushed like a halo, it left the forehead bare to glisten.

Hiya, toots, Wally said.

She gathered herself for a blow, his words, his smile, all of them unconscious and benevolent. But Wally frequently made her wince. Habit, she said angrily, I am a fool and a snob. My lover is a saxophonist. But her mouth remained wry, she had to probe a little deeper at her own wound.

Late, eh? Gee, that’s too bad, he said.

Late? she said, surprised. I hadn’t noticed. Or, oh well, just a few minutes. But I’ve only just arrived myself. Really, Wally, she said.

This was part of a ritual. And you couldn’t afford a scene. She had reached the age where you put your money on diplomacy. It was necessary, if sometimes a strain, the muscle that never dared relax. But she appeared easy-going. Wally said she was a good sort.

He began to tell her about a pal, his name was Tiny Martin, he was in the fur trade, Wally said, he was also in a hole, there was a girl, a blonde, one of the cheap, brassy bits that Tiny liked, well, she had him on a string, that dame, and there was a guy, a guy called Gallagher who was sort of messed up in it too, a bookie or something, anyway, to cut the story short, the blonde said a girl had to live, and it’s only natural if Gallagher, not that she wasn’t fond of Tiny, but it was like that.