“How lucky we are,” said Kate, still staring back, “that we should each think each other so wonderful.” And she got up, and started to wipe the table, sweeping the crumbs carefully into her open palm, and Hugo, watching her, thought that sublime was indeed the word, for at such moments something in Kate seemed to shimmer just beneath or above the surface, sub limen, a breaking light, and she had this knack, this gift, for catching a little of it and bringing it, but just, but just within range, like an astral halo flickering on the sight, calling from him a corresponding gleam: a bright person, an angel in the house, among the crumbs and dustbins and fish heads. Ah, folly, thought Hugo, as he watched, she is just a woman, and a rather gullible, foolish, self-centered, vain woman at that: and Kate, washing her hands under the rubber swizzle tap, looked back at Hugo, his delicate, intellectual, ascetic features, so elegant, so precise, so finely drawn, and thought, After all, Hugo is only a man, and rather a selfish, dangerous, and self-deluding one at that; with something effete, cruel even, in the turn of his lip: a poseur, a monkish poseur, and who knows what he has repressed and mutilated to achieve this nice balance? And she felt the spikes of her rocky expensive boot biting into the heel that she had still not found time to take to the cobbler, as the water splashed onto the cuffs of her shirt, and she turned to smile at Hugo, and said, “Ah, well, at least we stay upright.”

“Yes,” said Hugo, “indeed we do.”

“Though,” said Kate, sitting down again across the table from him, “I sometimes think that if so many people weren’t leaning on me, from different directions, I might fall over. Why ever did I invite so many people to this party?”

“You ought to come away with me. They’d manage without you.”

“Yes. I’m afraid they might.”

Hugo laughed.

“In five years,” said Kate, “let’s go to Timbuctoo.”

“I’ve been to Timbuctoo,” said Hugo. “It’s not very nice. But I’ll take you there, if you like.”

“I expect it’s just like home, really,” said Kate. “I expect I’d manage to find a perfect replica of Dacre Road, even in Timbuctoo.”

“Yes,” said Hugo. “Maybe you would. And now I must go home, you must go to bed early, and get some sleep.”

“I’ll ring for a cab,” said Kate, reaching for the phone from the dresser.

“I wonder,” she said, as she helped him into his coat, “what a psychoanalyst would make of our relationship.”