These anarchic thoughts are all that is left of Jomier’s youthful ideals. Little by little he became part of the system. Like his father and grandfather before him, he has both benefited from, and worked to perpetuate, the ascendancy of the middle class. The fees he has been paid by the state for defending thieves and swindlers were spent on a private education for Henry and Louisa so that, like him, they should be better educated and more articulate than their peers from comprehensives. He owns property – a freehold in Hammersmith – shares, corporate bonds, a Dell computer, a Volkswagen Golf. He is a ‘have’ who, through his council tax pays policemen to protect him from the ‘have-nots’ and, through his income tax, funds social benefits which ensure that the ‘have-nots’ become ‘have-a-littles’ and so are not driven to a dangerous desperation.

‘You are a cynic,’ says Judith.

Jomier does not deny it. He remembers from his youth a pensée of Pascal’s: ‘We cannot enforce justice so we justify force.’ The state is a bourgeois mafia, a protection racket, that camouflages its self-interest and extortion with high-minded rhetoric. The rich grow richer. The poor remain poor. Politicians and civil servants feather their own nests. Today’s statesmen would no more forgo their large inflation-proofed tax-funded pensions than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson would have liberated their slaves.

Will Judith be able live with Jomier’s cynicism? Will Jomier be able to live with Judith’s faith in the perfectibility of mankind? Is either convinced by the other’s stance? Jomier suspects that Judith suspects that his cynicism is a cover for Thatcherite reaction. Jomier suspects that Judith’s progressive views are a matter of fashion rather than reasoned conviction. There are little inconsistencies. Even hypocrisies. Judith’s carbon footprint is greater than Jomier’s. She travels a great deal – to Devon, to India, to Italy, to Spain, to France. Every year, she holds her yoga retreat in Andalusia: half a dozen disciples must fly to Malaga. ‘But sometimes they take the train which is powered by electricity.’

‘Generated by nuclear power!’

Judith is silent for a moment: she does not quite know where she stands on nuclear power. Then: ‘The warmer weather saves on the central heating!’