“Of course there’ve been expenses,” she said defensively. “Esther needs all sorts of things, all the time – food and clothes and medical treatment. There were the training fees at the blind school, as well as all these operations and tests, for months and months, when we first arrived. I’m entitled to deduct for that sort of thing.”

Even as she spoke, she heard an echo of his own wheedling voice, out of the past, saying: “But dahling, I only borrowed it …”

“Of course you’re entitled.” Swiftly he changed his ground. “You’re entitled to a suitable standard of living, and a decent return for all the trouble you’ve taken with Esther. That’s only fair … The question is, of course” – he hesitated, delicately – “how much you’re entitled to, for all you’ve done for her, and the way it’s changed your whole life. I maintain” – here he sounded incredibly honest and fair-minded – “I maintain that you’re entitled to a hell of a lot. Why, you’ve given up everything for her!”

“I don’t want a hell of a lot.”

“But you haven’t exactly stinted yourself, even now, have you?” He looked round the room, touched the arm of his chair, sniffed at his drink, all in one appraising gesture. “All this is snug enough, Belle.”

“I’ve had ‘all this’ for years,” she said scornfully. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have married me.”

“You mean there’ve been no improvements?” he countered. “Are you telling me you haven’t stepped things up since Esther came along?” Mrs Bannister was silent. “Of course you have! You lost quite a bit of money during and after the war, didn’t you?” he went on, maddeningly shrewd. “I don’t say you went broke, or anything like it, but things certainly weren’t what they used to be – wrong stocks – investments in the Far East – that sort of thing. Now you’re building up again – and good luck to you, I say. But what I maintain is that you could do a lot better – and you deserve to.”

“How?” She knew she should never have asked him such a question, which seemed to make her an accomplice with one single syllable; but she was intrigued by the idea he had produced. She honestly did not think that she had done so badly …

He brightened. “It just needs organizing, that’s all. We want to make Esther a world figure, not simply a hometown celebrity. Just think what we could do with national and international publicity, with world tours instead of just local ones. There’s no limit to it. She’s a winner, that girl – a real winner! But she needs handling properly, on a really big scale.”

She said: “Freshen up my drink again, will you?” And then: “No, Charles – I don’t like the idea and I don’t want to do it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too much trouble, for one thing.”

“I’ll look after that.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of … Hell!” she exclaimed, annoyed, “why should I agree to any of this, just to give you an easy living? That’s all it amounts to.”