‘I am a fastidious man, as you know … don’t try not to listen, I shan’t say all this again, you know. In any case the “urges”, or whatever they call them, are fading. You must have been aware of that for some time now: I no longer have the energy, or the desire … the stimulus has died. Dried up, I fear; the juices have gone along with the muscle. I detest it, and I hate to make you sad … but there it is. I’ve said it, and it is fact. It is not your fault, not at all, you are as delightful, maddening, ravishing as you always were but I feel I can no longer be a husband to you in the accepted sense of fulfilling all my duties: I am no longer capable.’

Cuckoo sat stunned with shock. Then very slowly turned back to the dressing-table, automatically found her rings and twisted them on to shaking fingers.

‘This is the most dreadful morning of my life,’ she said and burst into tears which caused the mascara to run down her cheeks in long ragged lines, and sting her eyes cruelly.

‘I think it is a dreadful morning too,’ said Archie still at the window with his back to her, ‘but I realize that it is easier for me than for you. All passion spent for me.’

She was wiping her eyes desperately with a paper tissue. ‘And what about me? What am I to do? You make me feel like a leper!’

‘That is unforgivable of me. I intended no such thing. It is I who feel the leper, not you. But you know I have come very seldom to you in the last few years; it has not been a passionate relationship, has it, my dear? For many years now.’

‘That has not been my fault, Archie! Not mine! You have grown away from me more and more and gone into your beastly books, your researching, all those damned toy soldiers and bits and pieces of someone’s old battles!’ She had cleaned her eyes and surveyed the wreckage of a morning’s intensive work on her haggard face.

‘It’s nothing to do at all with toy soldiers or old pieces of somebody’s battles, as you call them. But it had to do with the war. Our war.’ He moved away from the window and sat down on the corner of the bed again.

‘Five years of separation. A long time. We were strangers when we met again. Nothing worked after that. Nothing. Oh …’ He looked hopelessly into some middle distance of his own. ‘Oh, there was the old affection, familiarity, habit. But the fires had died. You knew that too. It had all been too long: too far away, too exhausting and we’d changed for ever. It happened to so many people.’

‘Don’t!’ she wailed. ‘Don’t say another word. You make it too cruel.’