“It was good to meet you,” she said finally. “It was good to talk to you.” She stood up. I felt that she had trapped me into talking like that, and that I would never be able to speak to her about Señor Canetto and the help we needed. She shook my hand at the door of the hotel. There was a car waiting for her.

SHE TELEPHONED TWO days later to find out if I was free for dinner. It was the first of many such phone calls, her tone brisk, ironic, humorous.

“Formal? Informal?” I asked.

“You mean: what should you wear?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.” I smiled as I spoke, and I could hear her smiling too.

“Something green that will go with your eyes.”

“My eyes are blue.”

“Something blue then.”

I WORE A blue jacket and a light blue tie, and once more I took a taxi to their house. The uniformed guard was at the gate this time. He held an Alsatian by a lead, and nodded to me as he opened the gate. The taxi drove through and stopped in front of the house; there were no other cars. The taxi driver looked at me carefully as I paid the fare as though I must be someone important coming to such a big, imposing, and secure house. It was almost dark and I waited for the floodlights to come on as I stepped onto the gravel, but nothing happened. I could hear the bell sounding through the house as I rang. I stood and waited until a uniformed servant, a woman, opened the door, and led me up steps to a large room at the back of the house, with windows the same shape as those in the reception room where I had been four nights earlier. I went to one of the windows and looked out over the vast gardens. I could see the red clay of a tennis court behind a hedge across the grass, and over to the right a swimming pool behind a fence. It struck me then that I did not know whether my hosts had any children or not, but it seemed unlikely. I don’t know why; there was something about them, some way in which they directed their complete attention at the world around them that seemed to preclude private responsibilities. I listened, as though half-expecting the cries of children telling me how wrong I was.

I was standing with my back to the room when Donald came in. He was dressed in a striped suit of light material which crumpled easily and a bow tie. He shook my hand warmly and then walked over to a table in the corner.

“I think I should mix the martinis before my wife comes down. She thinks I make them too strong. I hope you like them strong.”

“How strong?”

“Let me show you.”