‘Let me go to New York,’ cried Mrs FitzArthur. ‘Give me a few extra weeks. Time sets things right.’

‘You have had your weeks, Blanche. There is writing on a wall and it is up to me to read it. Someone will be in touch with you.’

At this, Mrs FitzArthur flung herself upon her husband and held him firmly in her arms, pinning his to his sides. She placed her head upon his breast and wept. Placed thus, she thought of Septimus Tuam. She wondered what he thought of her as he walked away from his house, as he had so many times, to catch a 93 bus. He must see her surely, in that calm moment, as a fluffy, silly thing, mutton dressed as lamb? Thinking of that made her weep the more; and then she reflected that she was fifty-one years old and that soon she could not even claim to be middle-aged. The lines would chase themselves all over her face, her nose would probably redden, her limbs would creak, and exercises become more difficult. ‘Juices?’ some wretched medico would cry. ‘Woman, you need bread with butter on it, eggs, meat, and green things.’ And she would protest, and he would laugh, telling her sharply that she was beyond her prime: what use where juices now?