‘It’s a very calming and good little book, the one you gave me,’ she told him. ‘And it’s because of the rhythm of the sentences more than because of what they say, just as I thought it would be. Like music. I was going to be disagreeable and because I had been reading it I was not. Not very, anyway.’

‘Art makes us better, of course. It’s the sort of flat truth one’s supposed to be too sophisticated to acknowledge. Why were you going to be disagreeable?’

‘I was going to be airy and whimsical and superior, and fail completely to understand the fact that if things which don’t mean anything to one do mean something to someone else, it is not necessarily the someone else who is at fault. More than that I couldn’t possibly tell you because of the unutterable banalité of it.’

‘I feel certain you’re being too hard on yourself, but without more of the facts of the case I can’t prove it to you.’

‘What about your fraud case – was it a fraud case? Is every little wicked twist of it securely stored away in your brain now?’

‘I suppose so. I shan’t be sure until next week when I try to call it all out again for the benefit of the astonished and admiring Court. I didn’t spend much time on it. I found myself writing a very long and pointless letter to a friend.’

‘Pointless?’

‘Because I knew I should never send it.’

‘Then perhaps it was a pity to make it so long.’

‘I had so much I wanted to say to her.’

Olivia found herself unexpectedly moved at the thought of Lionel caring for someone – she had somehow never considered him in that connection.

‘Does she love you?’

The concern with which she asked the question, softening the directness of it, made it all the harder to answer.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘If you had so many things you wanted to tell her I’m sure she would have wanted to hear them.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Why don’t you tell them to her instead of writing? Though of course it is nice to get letters.’

‘I shall one day. One day I shall have to. Will you be walking with the guns tomorrow?’

‘I suppose I shall. In the afternoon anyway.’

‘Will you stand with me?’

‘I should like to. I feel rather proud when I stand with you.’

‘I feel very proud when you stand by me.’

That look Minnie caught. She caught it as it started from Olivia’s eyes and as it was reflected back there again from Lionel’s, and it seemed to spread with Minnie’s own glance as she looked round the table at the candelight and the faces and the silver and the crystal (they had champagne with the fish) and said to Gilbert Hartlip, ‘In spite of everything, one manages to enjoy oneself, don’t you think?’

Osbert was dreaming of a great black lake surrounded by trees. Between the trees snow had fallen onto the banks by the water and in the snow he could see the footprints of prowling foxes; he knew he must be careful.