‘Things haven’t been going too well.’ How clearly she remembered that ominous, lowering phrase. It was the classic warning shot in his armoury, signifying trouble with tradesmen, trouble with his job, trouble with a woman, a senior executive, a horse, or a cheque. What he did was never completely outside the law – not so far outside, that is, that she could not buy him free of entanglement. There was never an open scandal, simply a moment when he had to confide his embarrassment (“I’m down to the bones of my arse, Belle”), when she paid the bill, and he swore to start afresh.

It was accompanied always by protestations of love and innocence, explanations which would have strained the credulity even of a very stupid woman (which Mrs Bannister was not), and a display of impudent charm which served only to recall to her why she had been fool enough to marry him in the first place.

He still had the charm, she observed now, with a fresh return of misgiving. Covertly she watched him, while he sat at ease by her fireside. He had worn well, as she had already noticed: the clipped moustache, square tanned face, and grey temples were all as she remembered. Only the lines round the eyes, and the professional seller’s smile, had hardened and deepened. He must be over fifty now – fifty-two or three, in fact. He looked younger: he looked attractive still: he looked spry, confident, at ease with himself and the world. The fact that he was shabby and down-at-heels as well would, with most women, only serve to increase his attraction.

There was still that endearing English accent, too. It was one of the things she had fallen in love with, twenty years before, though it had palled at least as swiftly as his other assets. “Dahling, I a-dawe you!” was one thing, particularly on a honeymoon: “Dahling, lend me a fivah!” was, particularly on a honeymoon, something else again.

That alternative phrase, borrowed from his army days: “Dahling, I’m broke – I’m down to the bones of my arse,” had never really charmed.

Now, uncertain and ill at ease within his remembered orbit, she asked: “What have you been doing? Were you in the war?”

“Of course I was!” He sounded astonished, even hurt: it was very well done. “What did you think?”

“You know damned well what I thought.”

He chose to ignore this. “I was in the Dunkirk show, naturally. Then North Africa and Italy. Then across the Rhine.”

“Fighting?”

“Intelligence … I was in the Army of Occupation for a bit, too. That was a really grand show.”

“What happened?”

His face clouded. “There was a bit of a mix-up, actually,” he confessed, as if he could hardly credit the fact. “Some young fellow made a hash of the mess accounts. I had to straighten them out.”

“You did?”

“Yes. The trouble was, I took the responsibility.”

“What happened, Charles?”

“They moved me on.”

They moved me on - That was another phrase straight out of the past. With Charles Bannister, she had found, one was bound to keep moving on, always travelling away from some crisis or near-scandal, towards the certain horizon of another. They had moved on from America, soon after the honeymoon, because of some quarrel (not fully explained) with the broking firm for which he worked. They moved on from England, not once but many times: they were kept moving particularly briskly on the Continent – moving from houses, from hotels, from casinos and bridge clubs. There was nothing blameable about these crises, naturally: it was never anyone’s fault; there was just some sort of misunderstanding, never clearly defined, followed by a bleak session with an estate agent, a bookmaker, a club secretary, a firm-faced hotel manager – and they moved on once more.