‘Now in Hungary,’ she said to Tibor Rakassyi, who was sitting next to her, ‘there is always snow, I suppose?’

‘Always snow? My dear Miss Cicely, it is not Siberia.’

Minnie and Aline Hartlip had Harry Stamp sitting between them, but they were old hands at keeping boredom at bay. They had invented an infatuation. Maisie Arlington, they said, adored him. Maisie, the most up-to-date and generally admired of young London hostesses, had stayed a night or two with her husband at Nettleby in September on their way back from Scotland and had been taken by Minnie to see the gardens at Corston.

‘She told me about it,’ Aline cried, clasping her hands excitedly as if she were recognizing the description. ‘She told me a divine man had shown her round and been too fascinating for words.’

‘There you are,’ said Minnie. ‘That’s exactly how it happened. I’ve never seen her so bouleversé. Maisie of all people. It was a coup de foudre.’

‘Oh I say – really? Do you mean it?’ Harry Stamp turned from one to the other in high excitement. ‘I must say I did think she was most charmingly – well, responsive, if you know what I mean –’

‘Responsive? She was mad for you, mad for you, Harry,’ said Minnie quite throatily. ‘And she has all London at her feet. What a conquest for you.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, I’m not sure you two ladies aren’t pulling my leg.’

‘How could you think that?’ Aline looked hurt. ‘I’m not at all that sort of person, am I, Minnie? Don’t I simply hate ragging and all that sort of thing?’

‘Of course, my dear, Aline would never tease. No, no, it’s love at first sight. The truest love of all, I always think. Of course, you will have to follow it up. She will be in despair if you don’t.’

‘Follow it up? You really think so? You think I ought to follow it up? What, send flowers or something?’

‘My dear man, not yet,’ drawled Aline. ‘Flowers come after, not before. You must call.’

‘Call?’

‘Of course. She’s always at home in the mornings. About twelve is the best time. And if she says she’s not at home you must persevere.’

‘Call again the next day sort of thing, what?’

‘And the next and the next and the next,’ said Aline, knowing that her friend Maisie simply detested being called on before 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

Minnie laid one soft, jewelled hand on his.

‘I am so happy for you, Harry. Some people go all through life without it happening to them. The real thing, I mean.’

‘Yes, but look here you know, I’m a happily married man and all that.’

‘So is she, so is she. But we are all of us helpless before the storms of passion. The real thing, Harry, the real thing cannot be denied.’

‘It can’t,’ he cried, quite persuaded. ‘It can’t be denied. But I don’t know when I’ll next be in town, dash it.’