‘Not — that — that it makes much differesh,’ said Marion with something like a good-natured laugh. ‘Why not you, when there’sh sho many? At least you aren’t an insult.’

‘But I’m not anything.’

Marion now lifted her chin, and let the tea and whisky mixture go down her throat in three big gulps. ‘I needed that,’ she said with solemnity, holding out the glass so that Anna could refill it. Anna did not take the glass. She said: ‘Marion, I’m glad you’ve come to see me, but really, you are making a mistake.’

Marion winked, horribly; and said with drunken roguishness: ‘Oh but I think I’ve come because I’m envious. You are what I want to be - you’re free, and you have lovers and you do as you like.’

‘I’m not free,’ said Anna; heard the dryness in her tone and understood she must banish it. She said: ‘Marion, I’d like to be married. I don’t like living like this.’

‘It’s easy to say that. But you could get married if you want. Well you’ll have to let me sleep here tonight. The last train has gone. And Richard’s too mean for me to hire a car. Richard’s awfully mean. Yes he is.’ (Anna noted that Marion sounded much less drunk, when railing at her husband.) ‘Would you believe it, that he could be so mean? He’s as rich as hell. Do you know, we are among the one per cent of people as rich as - but he examines my accounts every month. He boasted that we were among the top one per cent, but I bought a model dress and he complained. Of course when he examines my accounts he’s finding out how much I spend on liquor, but it’s the money as well.’

‘Why don’t you go to bed?’

‘What bed? Who’s upstairs?’

‘Janet and my lodger. But there’s another bed.’

Marion’s eyes lit with a delighted suspicion. She said: ‘How odd of you to have a lodger. It’s a man, how strange of you.’

Again Anna translated, and heard the jokes that Richard and Marion might make about her when Marion was sober. They made jokes about the man lodger. Anna suffered a sudden revulsion, much rarer these days than once, against people like Marion and Richard. She thought: It might be a strain, living as I do, but at least I don’t live with people like Marion and Richard, I don’t live in that world where a woman can’t have a male lodger without spiteful jokes being made.