I believed him: perhaps not because I trusted his intentions but because he sometimes looked so tired. I could see that settling down would come as a relief. Married men did not have to prove themselves capable of attracting women—not, that is, until they grew rather older than Syl and in need of a further dose of reassurance. That had been Jack’s trouble. When he was really quite old he had begun to strut in the presence of women. He had always fancied himself as a bit of a lad, as they say, but he grew silly, especially when there were younger men present. He could not resist the temptation of cutting out younger men, even if it was only by hogging the conversation. He was entirely predictable, and after a while I didn’t go out with him if I could help it. It was boring. Besides I had enough residual fondness for him not to enjoy watching him make an idiot of himself. I could not, naturally, remonstrate with him because that would have been construed as jealousy and have led to long passages of misunderstanding. I don’t suppose there’s a man in the world who would believe you had only his interests at heart if you asked him not to flirt with other women. I had sometimes wished he would take a mistress, particularly after he retired and was at home more. Luckily the golf course was just behind the house and he spent a lot of time there, but it wasn’t the same as when he had to spend weeks away and I knew I had the place to myself—and Syl of course.

I have often noticed that when a man takes a mistress it greatly improves his demeanour in the marital home. Whether this is because of guilt or satisfied desire I do not know, but I have always remarked it. It is important for the wife that the mistress should be a serious, responsible sort of person, and luckily they frequently are. Men tire quite soon of the dizzy gold-digger of legend, and a surprising number of ‘other women’ are more homely and steady than many wives. These excellent creatures help to ease the pressure put on a couple by the exigencies of married life; they uphold the man’s self-esteem so that he does not need to wear himself out demonstrating his virility, and they enable the wife—if she is capable and prepared to do so—to uncover an identity of her own, to escape, to some degree at least, the stifling confines of wifehood. Jack unfortunately had not enough self-confidence to take a permanent mistress but contented himself with ogling girls. I was painfully ashamed of (and for) him, but I could think of no formula by which I could make him understand his error. I think he believed that if his liaisons were brief, shallow and impersonal no harm could come of them. He was unaware that his loss of dignity which should have, and did not, trouble him caused me sleepless nights. I could have borne the compassion (not infrequently mixed with respect) which is accorded to the wife whose husband has another ménage, but not the pity, the mirth, to which a husband’s ceaseless, pointless, trivial dalliance exposes a wife. How does one explain such things to a man?