“A man’s most dangerous moment,” he said, when his head had emerged, “is when he’s getting into his shirt. Then he puts his head in a bag. That’s why I prefer those American shirts, that you put on like a jacket.” She still stood watching him. He stepped into his short drawers, and buttoned them round the waist.

“Look at Jane!” he said. “In all her blossoms! Who’ll put blossoms on you next year, Jinny? Me, or somebody else? ‘Goodbye my bluebell, farewell to you!’ I hate that song, it’s early war days.” He had sat down, and was pulling on his stockings. She still stood unmoving. He laid his hand on the slope of her buttocks. “Pretty little Lady Jane!” he said. “Perhaps in Venice you’ll find a man who’ll put jasmine in your maidenhair, and a pomegranate flower in your navel. Poor little Lady Jane!”

“Don’t say those things!” she said. “You only say them to hurt me.”

He dropped his head. Then he said, in dialect: