‘I want to marry you, Norman. I want us to be together. I don’t want just going to a bathroom in some hotel.’

‘I know; I want to marry you too. But we ’ve got to work it out. You know we’ve got to work it out, Marie—getting married.’

‘Yes, I know.’

It was a familiar topic of conversation between them. They took it for granted that one day, somehow, they would be married. They had talked about Hilda. He ’d described Hilda to her, he ’d drawn a picture in Marie ’s mind of Hilda bent over her jewellery-making in a Putney flat, or going out to drink V.P. with the Fowlers or at the Club. He hadn’t presented a flattering picture of his wife, and when Marie had quite timidly said that she didn’t much care for the sound of her he had agreed that naturally she wouldn’t. The only aspect of Hilda he didn’t touch upon was her bedroom appetite, night starvation as he privately dubbed it. He didn’t mention it because he guessed it might be upsetting.