I leave the canvas on my easel for several weeks. Something in me is reluctant to let it go. I find myself returning to it, stopping and staring, sometimes for an hour at a stretch. I am drawn by the figure’s stillness, as well as the contradiction between the enveloping potential of the tub’s contours and the unyielding chasm at its heart. I am intrigued that whereas the silvery gray I used for the sides initially invited contemplation, the tints now have an iciness to them caused by the opulent gold of the floor. At length I take the canvas down and parcel it up to send to Roger to sell. I write him a letter, telling him I think my composition balances realism with abstraction. I do not confess how true I think it is.

“You’ve no right to be jealous!” Roger’s words are addressed to Duncan, who has pulled a stool up close to the fire and is staring miserably into the flames.

“I agree. It’s the attraction of the sexes. Bunny and Barbara. What could be more natural, after all?” Clive lounges on the sofa, puffing at his pipe. I am in the armchair, knitting. I cock an ear to the conversation.

“Are you saying that love between men isn’t as strong as the love between men and women?” I hear the fraught note of anguish in Duncan’s voice. Clive waits a moment before he replies.

“What I think is that the differences are important. Love flourishes in the gap.”

“That isn’t love!” Roger leans forward in his chair. “Anyway, why shouldn’t another man constitute sufficient difference from oneself? If difference is the magic ingredient.”

“Different or not, I wish I’d never set eyes on him!” Duncan’s tone now is petulant. He reaches for a log from the basket and tosses it on the fire. The flames leap.

“I remember the first time I fell in love. I was seventeen, eighteen, perhaps.” We settle to hear Roger’s story. Even Duncan looks round from the blaze. “It was a woman I had seen many times before, without incident. Then one day, as I passed her in the street, I noticed a curious expression on her face. Her eyes were lit up, almost belligerent. She looked both pleased with herself and as if she were searching for something—as if she had just eaten a delicious meal and was still famished. After that, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I kept imagining those devouring eyes turned on me. By the time I saw her again it was too late, she was veiled in my fantasy. I could no longer see her as she was. I was hopelessly in love, yet it was my illusion about her that made me fall, rather than anything she said or did.” Roger’s words tail into silence. We each sit thinking about our experiences of love. Clive is the first to speak.