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happiness.” Dominick raised his glass. “To wise happiness—the happiness of Elizabeth and Hubert.”
    We all went back to Hubert’s flat, now their home, for coffee. It was a masculine flat, heavy, dark woods, paisley-patterned curtains, leather sofas—conventional, though elegant. The handsome abode of a handsome man. He looked at me looking at the flat.
    â€œWe’ll move to Paris in a couple of years. It seemed pointless to set about furnishing a new house.”
    â€œIs that definite?” Dominick asked. I was still digesting the thought of separation.
    â€œOh yes,” replied Hubert.
    â€œThat’s why I’ll continue to paint in my studio, until we go to Paris,” Elizabeth added. “Hubert assures me that I will have a studio, high at the top of the house.”
    I envisaged a new Paris period of rooftops—grey-slated. Which cliche would she pick? Wise happiness was, I felt, going to be very boring. But if I were Elizabeth, what would I find with Hubert? If I were Elizabeth?
    â€œWell, we must leave you two. It’s a joy to see you back again. So harmonious. I’m always searching for mathematical harmonies—their beauty would astound you. The Greeks believed they were the essence of goodness, you know.”
    â€œWhy, Dominick. I’ve never heard you speak so romantically about your work before.”
    â€œNo, Ruth. Perhaps I’m afraid of mockery.” He did not say whose.
    â€œLove’s a miracle. A way of seeing someone … suffused by light. It’s like my painting, my unfashionable, light-filled painting. Love’s an extra dimension to sight. It gives a light that only the loved one seems to have. And only the lover sees. That’s how I see … Hubert.”
    Elizabeth turned away at the end of her extraordinary little speech. A speech quite out of character. In her thin, fine face there was a frightening fierceness. Had I, through my astonishment, betrayed my hatred? Had she run for cover?
    â€œPreviously, my life was a little spoiled and selfish. Elizabeth has made me better.” Hubert, handsome, happy—and humble.
    â€œAnd what is the outward sign of this improvement?” I tried to sound mocking.
    â€œThere’s no outward sign, Ruth. But I have changed. For example, I mock less.”
    I had been put in my place.
    â€œWell, Hubert, your English has certainly improved. No problem with nuance anymore.”
    He laughed.
    â€œOh, Ruth, you too will melt.”
    Dominick winced at this implication that he was ineffective in thawing my coldness.
    Sensitive as ever, Elizabeth noticed. “Dominick has, I think, already started the process. Now I’ll be very French, and give you two kisses and say au revoir.”
    The kisses were perfunctory. We waved goodbye, and left. The less harmonious couple.

NINE
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    Is it possible to seduce a happily married man in the early days of his marriage? Particularly a man who sees in his new wife qualities that have meant little to him before.
    The ordinary strategies would most certainly not work. Swimming too close to him in the discreetly hidden pool at Lexington, or over-enthusiastically leaning forward in low-cut gown, which I rarely wore anyway. Such full frontal assaults were not for such as he.
    At a celebration dinner for my parents’ anniversary I wore a perfect curve of dark, red velvet. Though it served to emphasise the ripeness of my body, I knew the effect to be of little interest from the lack of tension in his open, smiling response. And, to be truthful, I too disdained the slight vulgarity of my display.
    No, Elizabeth had not married a fool. And the light she saw around him allowed no access. Slowly I began to accept that, with Hubert, perhaps only patient malevolence might work.
    There was a day—at Lexington. We sat together in the garden. Alone, for some reason. And I tried to hold him with my eyes. I