“Yes … I thought we might take Esther down to the restaurant. People like to see her.”

“She’s tired,” objected Mrs Bannister. “And we’ve got that farewell meeting at the end of the week, before we sail.”

“She doesn’t look tired,” said her husband. “She never does. Wonderful girl.” His tone was dwelling. “I’d like to take her down to dinner. It makes me feel twenty years younger, just to look at her.”

Mrs Bannister stared at him, speculatively. “That would make you thirty-five, Charles.”

“A man is as old as he feels,” he answered largely. “Wonderful girl,” he repeated. It was the brandy talking. “Best-looking girl in London. No wonder people stare at her.” His voice, unguarded, slurring, had a lickerish edge to it. “In fact, I stare at her myself.”

I stare at her myself … Mrs Bannister, strolling in Hyde Park in the late afternoon sunshine, pondered the remark, and all its implications. She knew that it was true, and she knew it could be disastrous.

There was no room for ambiguity, in at least two things. Esther was lovely – now, nearly twenty, she was in the full tide of her glowing beauty. Charles was a completely unprincipled man, accustomed to taking whatever he wanted. Put the two of them together … It would not matter to him that Esther was defenceless. It would not matter to him that she was as innocent as air. It would not matter that, at his age, such a liaison would be especially degrading, even apart from its grotesque cruelty. If Charles felt like it, he would do it.

She knew now that he did feel like it. There had been many indications, some faint, some strong, all of them conclusive – if one knew Charles Bannister.

It was a pity they were in London. She looked around her at the green of the Park, the red buses and the traffic through the trees, the lovers and the children lying on the grass. It should have been wonderful, but all it meant was that they were now in Charles’ own setting – he was securely at home in this town, and he grew in stature and authority with every day they stayed there. Already, he was quite beyond her control: he drank far too much, he lived (as they all did) at a pitch of extravagance which endangered their reputation. (She remembered an item in his expense account, ‘Car Hire, Ascot: £46’. They were collecting money for the blind.) But there could be no argument with him: this was his own homeground, where he felt he could do as he liked. He had been poor here, now he was rich: it meant that he would take whatever he chose. Part of what he chose was going to be Esther.

Mrs Bannister stood stock-still, miserable, jealous, and afraid. She had come a long way with Esther: a loving way, a tiring way, a triumphant way. Now the whole thing was in fearful danger – because she had been so successful, because Esther, her own creation, was so lovely and so vulnerable. Now the girl was likely to be destroyed, for the second time.