‘Mon petit ami,’ she wrote. ‘You make me very unhappy by being unhappy – it is not at all what I expected of you. You were to be gay and carefree, always laughing, and a little bit unkind – don’t you remember? We used to wonder if you were ever going to be capable of True Feeling. Mon petit soldat bleu, what happened to the hardness of your heart? As to the injustices of which you complain, I don’t in the least understand you. I had not said I would be at Rumpelmeyers at four o’clock, I had said I might be there. You did not call, I received no message, I did not go. Where is the betrayal? I stayed at home. George C. called and bored me to tears with his effusions. Voila tout. If you wish to be forgiven call on me next week when I am back in London – but no horrid moods – I cannot bear them. Your misjudged friend …’

She sighed as she folded the letter and put it into an envelope. Younger admirers were very sweet of course, but so tiring – they were so serious, so easily offended – really sometimes she thought she only kept up with some of them because it seemed to be expected of her. It was part of what she represented to her small but devoted circle that when distinguished statesmen called, or foreign ambassadors, or young politicians with their way in the world to make, there should be a young man with her looking serious and offended. It was part of the background against which her pale beauty stood out at its most exotic and treacherous; it was what her world required of her.

‘Dear Mr Van Fleet,’ she wrote – she had small firm writing and covered the page quickly – ‘I am very disappointed in the performance of the shares which you recommended to me. I understand from a source very close to the company concerned (I cannot say more) that shares in Hergesheimer Gold Mines are likely to rise sharply within the next few weeks. Please sell the shares you put me in and buy Hergesheimer Gold instead. I intend to take the profit on some at least of these and to finance the dealings thereby – meanwhile please ask your Accounts Department to desist from sending me begging letters.’

She screwed up her face as she folded the letter. It annoyed her to be reminded of the necessity for money: Gilbert as a financial provider was as correct as in every other way, Charles was occasionally generous, others too, but an existence so exquisite as Aline’s needed unlimited finance, nor was she at all clever at remembering what she had spent or where. She was too often reduced to having to concern herself with affairs she thought would have more properly been dealt with by a man, largely because to have secured this happier state of affairs would have involved explanations she preferred not to make: apart from anything else, neither Gilbert nor Charles had any idea of the extent of her gambling losses.