‘So,’ she said. ‘He stirred us up against each other.’

I said, ‘It’s obvious that he’s in love with you, but he won’t say so. If he’d been able to say to me, “Listen, I love X and I want to leave you and go with her,” I would have accepted it. I would have been hurt and angry and sad but I would have accepted it. Instead he keeps saying he still loves me, and that he’s extricating himself from you and wants us to get through this.’

‘Do you mean to say,’ she said in a faint voice, ‘he never told you how he felt about me?’

‘No. I found out by snooping. All he’s ever said is that he likes you, that you’re a close friend that he likes to see.’

Enormous, endless pause.

At last she said, ‘So—all we’ve learnt is what each of us most feared.’

I said, ‘To me, the most destructive part of all this is how he denied and kept on and on denying—and is still denying—what I instinctively knew the truth must be. He’s damaged my faith in my own instincts.’

‘Oh,’ she said at once, ‘but that is what men always do to women. And I wonder if they have any idea of the damage it causes.’