‘Do you know what this is?’ asks Jomier, glancing down at the sprig of vegetal substance held on the prongs of his fork.

‘Seaweed. Judy’s into healthy eating. She’s not a vegan – don’t worry –’ hilarious laughter – ‘or even vegetarian . . . I mean, she will eat meat and fish but when it comes to a salade composée she goes for seaweed. I’m a fish and chips and steak-and-kidney pudding person myself. And the roast beef of old England! So is Gus, thank God. It’s one of the things we have in common. That and sex!’ Hilarious laughter.

The plates are cleared away. Jomier notices that Gus has not eaten his seaweed. Did he and Marion establish their shared preference for traditional English cooking over the Internet before they met? And their love of sex? He thinks of their slobbery kisses – drool mixed with gravy after a gluttonous Tom Jones (the movie)-style feast. Interests: travel, folk music, food and sex. Is sex the presumed endgame of all Internet dating? Or can you click on to a section where ‘chaste woman seeks celibate man for company, conversation, going to art exhibitions, the theatre, walks on canal towpaths on a Sunday afternoon’?

Jomier turns to Annabel who is sitting on his left. They already know something about one another from their conversation on the sofa. Now they build on these foundations. Annabel is harder work than Marion. She lacks Marion’s exuberance and interest in herself. Jomier understands this lack of interest: she is not interesting. Her husband Rupert, the tall balding man sitting next to Judith, is an art dealer. Annabel met him when studying at the Courtauld Institute: he was an MA student writing a thesis on Boucher and Watteau. They have been married for thirty years. Jomier gains the impression that Rupert has done well dealing in French eighteenth-century painting. They live in Chelsea. Their two sons went to Eton: one now works for Christie’s, another for Morgan Stanley. They have a house in Wiltshire.