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But I did sleep and I dreamed that Hartley was a ballet dancer and was circling a huge stage sur les points dressed in a black tutu and a head-dress of sparkling diamonds and black feathers. Now and then she would leap, and I would say to myself, but she stays in the air, it’s uncanny, it’s like le…

‘Oh God—’ So cunning and vile is the human soul that I felt instantly glad that Hartley had this understandable cause of grief and had told me about it and was weeping about it in my presence. Suddenly there was sympathy, communication.

‘Hartley, please, stay here please, I must go on talking to you, tell me—oh—tell me, what did your husband do, sell, before he retired?’ I must just keep on asking questions.

‘Fire extinguishers. He was in fire extinguishers.’ She added, ‘He was always so tired in the evenings.’

This sudden v…

‘You got married, didn’t you—are you still—I mean is your husband still—have you got a—husband—now—?’

‘Yes, yes, oh yes. My husband is alive—he’s with me, yes—we live—we live here.’

I was silent while a whole world of possibilities gradually folded themselves up, like some trick of stagecraft…

‘Look here, just stop this, will you. I forget what I said exactly but it was momentary emotional nonsense, as you perfectly well know. One can’t bind oneself like that and I’m not bound. Those were just words, not a promise.’

‘Promises are words. You are bound, Charles. Bound.’ She repeated the…