“Do you think they’re only flirting?” she said eventually. “Or is it love?” The band had finished and were preparing to start again. The couple were still holding each other, smiling and talking, his head sunk toward hers, hair hanging lankly, sipping at her forehead.

“Oh, one or the other, I expect,” Edmund said, his eyelashes beating, and his Adam’s apple dipping in his throat.

The band started, and the couple whirled away. Violet followed the woman’s red wrap as it licked around the man, like a flame licking at meat.

More people were coming to watch, and Violet was now standing at the edge of the wooden floor. She and Edmund were very near together. They were both aware of it, both watching the couple, not daring to take their eyes off them. Their hearts were fast, as though it were they who were dancing. The red wrap flew about, and the man and woman laughed as they whirled, their hands clamped tight together, disappearing behind other dancers and then appearing again.