Henrietta, who could not help watching them together, felt overwhelmingly jealous. It would have been all too easy to act the hurt child and cry out, ‘But he is my friend, not yours.’

Mr Newbold watched, and if his heart knew a pang for her pain, it knew stronger beats that told him his chance had come. What he offered was not the adoring lover, but the sympathetic listener, one who could make her feel better about herself, which was the step before feeling more inclined to him. He saw her at a ball three days after the argument, fanning herself, and looking across the room.

‘You are not a lady who copes easily in stuffy heat, Miss Gaydon.’

She turned, and for the briefest moment he thought she was too lost in a world of her own to respond.

‘I … alas, Mr Newbold, you have found me out. I confess to wilting yet again. You must promise not to reveal this weakness. It must be our secret.’

‘I think I can be accounted safe with secrets, Miss Gaydon.’ His slight smile invited trust, but did not demand it.

Henrietta frowned very slightly. Was he hinting at something more? No, she was being silly.

‘It is not, I think, such a secret whose revelation would bring down empires, though, would it, Mr Newbold.’ She sighed. ‘“Young lady is not at her best in hot rooms” is very ordinary.’

‘But you, ma’am, are a little out of the ordinary, if I might be so bold. You are not the simpering sort whom one naturally assumes “fades” in heat. You are more confident, brighter …’ He halted, as her lip trembled. It was a very alluring lip.

‘Confident? Bravado, Mr Newbold, would be the word, and it is there merely to conceal the reality.’

‘Are you telling me that it is an act?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that is another secret I shall keep, Miss Gaydon. One is bound to wonder why you feel the act is needed?’

‘Because … I do not really understand all this, sir.’ Henrietta indicated the assembly at large.

‘That, ma’am, is because you assume there is something deep to understand. It is simply social interaction upon a large scale.’

‘Perhaps that scale has overawed me.’ She spoke in a softer voice than normal, and he felt she was immensely vulnerable. In response, he was struck by a desire to protect her.

‘Ignore the scale, then, and treat it as just so many versions of what we are doing here, exchanging thoughts.’ His voice was gentle, and Henrietta knew the urge to unfold her sorrows to him, as he wanted. Yet she held firm.

‘But there is more, Mr Newbold, and it is blinkered not to see it. Talking together is not the same as this, for between friends, real friends, one may say anything’ – she sounded wistful – ‘and here one must be mindful of every word.’