He wondered if this sense of otherness he felt was obvious in his behaviour. Sometimes, he was sure the only reason Florence could abide his company was that it helped to keep the beam of scrutiny away from her occasionally. At least no one could see his difference just by looking at him. The instructors’ attitude to her was plain dismissive. A faction of the boys were so concerned at being overshadowed by her, they were making smart remarks at crits: ‘Don’t mind what the tutors say, Miss Greaves. You won’t need architecture to survive. I’ll marry you right now.’ She was either wrongly scrutinized or wholly disregarded, and that made them an alliance of a sort. How she bore the strain of it with so much positivity, he didn’t know, but he admired her for it more and more each day.

Meanwhile, it was all that he could do to keep attending lectures, getting through the sessions in studio without succumbing to the feeling he’d arrived somewhere he wasn’t meant to be. Every day, he recognized the contradiction of his training and his aspirations. He feared that he was being marshalled into line with all the rest of them. The syllabus was so constraining. He wanted to begin producing schemes for social housing – buildings that would benefit real working people – but the first-year briefs were all about adherence to the classical. Modillions. Acanthus leaves. Entablatures of stone. If it didn’t have the facets of a mausoleum, it was unacceptable.

He understood that some of his ideals would have to be abandoned, over time. There were many years of nice-making and deference to come. He would have to bear the ugliness of privilege and overlook it, swallow down the small pills of disquiet, smooth out every dint his pride took on the way. And he could do that. For the sake of his own livelihood. Or so he thought. The first step was accepting the support where it was offered – an Entrance Scholarship that came with a good stipend and a weight of expectation. Getting his diploma was step two. Next, a paid assistantship at any firm that granted him a chance. And, after that, a practice of his own – even if he had to run it from the back room of a butcher’s and live hand to mouth for ever, he would do it to make sure his work had meaning, value to the world. Until last year, he could envision all of it. Then Florence Greaves had come along and he’d begun to change his view.

He couldn’t say that he regretted their discussion in the autumn, but the things he’d left unsaid had gathered so much weight they’d now become an obstacle. Every time they’d seen each other since, they’d had to step around it. One morning in December, he’d been browsing samples of cement in the materials gallery, and she’d entered, feigned some interest in a brick display and left without a word – later, she’d insisted that she hadn’t seen him, but he had his doubts. An awkwardness had already fomented. The insecurity was there.