This brought peals of jollity from the Baroness. She floated expertly and laughed up and down the scale and then, when he persisted, suddenly adopted an air of gravity. Her voice deepened and she explained that though she was sure Alleyn would not believe her, she and the Baron were in fact quite puritanical in their outlook. They came, she said, of Lutheran stock. They did not at all fancy, for instance, Roman nightlife as portrayed by Italian films. Had Alleyn ever heard of the publishing firm of Adriaan and Welker? If not, she must tell him that they took a very firm stand in respect of moral tone and that the Baron, their foreign representative, upheld this attitude.

‘In our books all is clean, all is honest and healthful,’ she declared and elaborated upon this high standard of literary hygiene with great enthusiasm.

It was not a pose, Alleyn thought, it was an attitude of mind: the Baroness Van der Veghel (and evidently her husband, too) was a genuine pietist and, he thought, with a sidelong look at the Etruscan smile, in all probability she was possessed of the calm ruthlessness that so often accompanies a Puritanical disposition.

‘My husband and I,’ she said, ‘are in agreement on the—I think you call it “permissive” society, do you not? In all things,’ she added with stifling effrontery, ‘we are in absolute accord. We are sure of ourselves. Always we are happy together and agreeing in our views. Like twins, isn’t it?’ and again she burst out laughing.

In her dancing, in her complacency, in her sudden bursts of high spirits she bore witness to her preposterous claims: she was a supremely contented woman, Alleyn thought; a physically satisfied woman. Intellectually and morally satisfied, too, it would appear. She turned her head and looked towards the table where her husband sat. They smiled at each other and twiddled their fingers.

‘Is this your first visit to Rome?’ Alleyn asked. When people dance together and there is concord in their dancing, however alien they may be in other respects, they are in physical agreement. Alleyn felt at once a kind of withdrawal in the Baroness but she answered readily that she and her husband had visited Italy and in particular, Rome, on several previous occasions. Her husband’s publishing interests brought him there quite often and when it was convenient she accompanied him.

‘But this time,’ Alleyn mentioned, ‘it is for fun?’ and she agreed.

‘For you also?’ she asked.

‘Oh absolutely,’ said Alleyn and gave her an extra twirl. ‘Have you made any of the II Cicerone trips on previous visits?’ he asked. Again—it was unmistakable—a withdrawal.

She said, ‘I think they are of recent formink. Quite new and of the greatest fun.’

‘Does it strike you as at all odd,’ asked Alleyn, ‘that we none of us seem to be particularly bothered about the non-appearance of our cicerone?’