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His closeness to Archie puzzled and hypnotised her.
    Lettice was near; clasping the hand of one of her daughters, a plain girl of nineteen. She drew her towards a smartly dressed young man.
    ‘I don’t believe you two have ever met.’
    They stood face to face until Lettice’s eyes were fixed elsewhere.
    Archie collected them together. Lettice, Victoria and Harold.
    ‘Lettice. This is a wonderful party. I am delighted to see Victoria again and especially pleased to see her so well. She is such a new acquisition for your family that I fear it would be presumptuous of me to ask if I might be placed next to her at dinner.’
    Harold turned away as Lettice bridled.
    ‘Hasn’t Archie got an uncanny instinct for learning one’s secrets? Victoria, you mustn’t be cross with me. I shall have to tell Archie the reason why you have decided to go straight home to bed after the party.’ Brushing his face with a part of her head gear, Lettice whispered news into Archie’s ear.
    Victoria went to where Harold stood.
    ‘I think I could hate Archie.’
    ‘Yes. Oh dear yes. I understand – but he would never do anything bad enough to make you hate him. I have a great deal of experience to draw on and I know that he would never do anything bad enough for that.’
    She stayed by Harold until the party started to disband.
    Archie suggested that they sit down together for a few minutes on the step of the staircase that led to the upper gallery.
    ‘You ought not to have been angry with me. I was teasing Lettice. It doesn’t do her any harm. I don’t believe she even notices.’
    ‘You were teasing me, too – and Harold.’
    ‘Was I?’
    Guests walked past them and out into the street.
    When eleven people remained, Lettice went to the step.
    ‘Archie. We must make haste to the Ritz.’ She wasn’t sure if he listened to her.
    ‘Did you hear me? We must go to the Ritz. It’s getting late.’
    Archie and Victoria were planning a future meeting.
    ‘You shall come and stay with me in Cambridge. Harold and I will show you the sights.’
    What was to be seen of Lettice’s parchment face from under her floppy, flowered hat, was strained and angry. On the verge of blasphemy, she cried, ‘Archie. You must come to the Ritz now whether you like it or not.’

Chapter 8
    R oland and Lettice, Archie and Harold, Alice (the nineteen -year-old daughter), the prosperous young man, the celebrated figure from the world of art and his inebriated wife, a minor poet and a famous composer of quartets walked, one behind the other, into the magnificent dining room at the Ritz Hotel.
    Archie sat between the minor poet and the teenage daughter.
    Lettice warbled, ‘It’s awful how I always seem to know more men than women.’ She explained to the composer of quartets, ‘I’m afraid I find men more interesting. Although I say it, I have never been a one to suffer fools gladly.’
    Then, straining every muscle of her face, she turned to the famous fellow from the world of art who was placed on her right. She had rubbed up on her knowledge of the offerings of cultural London that morning as her hair was being twisted into coils. Her chirpy hairdresser took an interest in art and had given her some tips.
    ‘I gather there’s a new print of
Le Jour Célèbre
at the Academy.’
    Roland, sharp of hearing, called across, ‘
Le Jour Se Lève
, Lettice . I imagine that’s what you are talking about.’
    Her daughter, talking to Archie, asked, ‘Are you interested in psychoanalysis? I think it’s fascinating. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many problems stem from having been misunderstood as a child.’
    Roland, on her other side, said, ‘I hope none of you are going to start believing that you were misunderstood.’
    Months of Lettice’s plotting had led to this occasion.
    Alice went on. ‘Freud was fantastic. Did you know that it was him who said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes”. Don’t you think that’s