Liversidge laughed melodiously. “I’ve been saving a bit lately. We had a long run in Town with the show, didn’t we? A windfall this morning, too.” He gave Meyer a quick sidelong glance. “Courtney paid up his poker debts. I didn’t expect to see that again, I must say. Last night he was all down-stage and tragic.”

“Shut that door,” said Mr. Meyer. “I want to talk to you.”

Carolyn and Hambledon faced each other across the murky half-light of the star dressing-room. Already, most of the wicker baskets had been unpacked, and the grease-paints laid out on their trays. The room had a grey, cellar-like look about it and smelt of cosmetics. Hambledon switched on the light and it instantly became warm and intimate.

“Now, listen to me,” he said.

Carolyn sat on one of the wicker crates and gazed at him. He took a deep breath.

“You’re as much in love with me as you ever will be with anyone. You don’t love Alfred. Why you married him I don’t believe even God knows, and I’m damn’ certain you don’t. I don’t ask you to live with me on the quiet, with everyone knowing perfectly well what’s happening. That sort of arrangement would be intolerable to both of us. I do ask you to come away with me at the end of this tour and let Alfred divorce you. Either that, or tell him how things are between us and give him the chance of arranging it the other way.”

“Darling, we’ve had this out so often before.”

“I know we have but I’m at the end of my tether. I can’t go on seeing you every day, working with you, being treated as though I was—what? A cross between a tame cat and a schoolboy. I’m forty-nine, Carol, and I—I’m starved. Why won’t you do this for both of us?”

“Because I’m a Catholic.”

“You’re not a good Catholic. I sometimes think you don’t care tuppence about your religion. How long is it since you’ve been to church or confession or whatever it is? Ages. Then why stick at this?”

“It’s my church sticking to me. Bits of it always stick. I’d feel I was wallowing in sin, darling, truthfully I would.”

“Well, wallow. You’d get used to it.”

“Oh, Hailey!” She broke out into soft laughter, that warm soft laughter that ran like gold through every part she played.

“Don’t!” said Hambledon. “Don’t!”

“I’m so sorry, Hailey. I am a pig. I do adore you, but darling I can’t—I simply can’t live in sin with you. Living in sin…Living in sin,” chanted Carolyn dreamily.

“You’re hopeless,” said Hambledon. “Hopeless!”

“Miss Dacres, please,” called a voice in the passage.

“Here!”

“We’re just coming to your entrance, please, Mr. Gascoigne says.”