“Oh, not so much these days,” said Hugo. “But then, I realised I’d finally grown up when all I was interested in getting through the letter box was cheques.”

Kate laughed.

“Anyway, Kate,” said Hugo, “you ought not to complain about a post like that. It’s a tribute to your Social Class B Economic Status.”

“I’m not really complaining,” said Kate. “I’m perfectly complacent, as you know. But it’s my social conscience at work. I ought to be worrying about everyone else, oughtn’t I?”

“All those women who didn’t have your peculiar advantages?” said Hugo: again provocatively, for Kate’s past advantages would have taken some subtlety to discern.

“Oh, shut up,” said Kate. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t, as a matter of fact,” said Hugo. “But I know we’re not likely to agree, on this particular subject.”

“Shall we talk about something else? Shall I light you a cigarette?”

“You are so solicitous, dear Kate, you will ruin my health. But yes, please. Have one yourself. Help yourself.”

Kate lit a cigarette, and handed it over.

“Did you know the statistics for women smoking have risen by some horrific proportion?” she said. “Smoking women, violent women, what is the world coming to? Freedom is very bad for people.” She started to stack up her letters again, casting a look of lingering regret at the fake leopard and mink.

“Anyway, I’m too old and fat to model a fur coat,” she said.

“Of course not,” said Hugo, gallantly, while thinking that in fact she, marginally, was.

“You know, it’s all very well,” she said, “but I’ve been thinking lately, every single bad thing that’s happened to me happened to me because I’m a woman. There’s no point in pretending it’s not so. Even my illnesses. Apart from tonsils when I was ten.”

“And colds, and chickenpox, and measles, and mumps, and flu.”

“I’ve never had flu. I don’t believe in flu.”

“You could argue that all the bad things that have happened to me happened to me because I was a man.”

Kate took this suggestion seriously, reflected on it, and nodded, blowing out smoke.

“Well, that all goes to show that I must have been mad to try to pretend that the sexes were much the same; if that’s what I used to say. Is that what I used to say?”

“How should I know?”

“I don’t suppose I ever had what you might call an ideology. But I certainly used to believe in freedom. And progress.”

“Yes, I do seem to remember a few columns of newsprint on those topics. But I hadn’t noticed that you’d abandoned them.”