“If it’s Conor Carrington you mean, he hasn’t asked me. Yet.”

“What age are you?”

“Twenty.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I will be, soon.”

He leaned back in the low chair, studying her. He said:

“You’re not planning to run away again, are you?”

“I’m considering going away. I’m not a child, you know. This is the nineteen fifties, not the Dark Ages. Anyway, if I can’t marry Conor Carrington, I’ll elope with you.”

He sat back and laughed and the little chair gave a cry of protest. “No thanks.”

“It wouldn’t be incest-you’re only my uncle by marriage, after all.”

Something happened in her face then, and she bit her lip and looked down and began rummaging in her handbag. In consternation he saw a tear fall on the back of her hand. He glanced quickly in the direction of the man with the monocle, who had risen to his feet and was advancing between the tables with an air of grim purpose. Phoebe found the handkerchief she had been searching for and blew her nose juicily. The monocle was almost upon them now and Quirke braced himself for a confrontation-what had he done to provoke it?-but the fellow marched past the table, displaying an equine grin and extending a hand to someone behind Quirke’s back and saying, “Trevor! I thought it was you…”

Phoebe’s face was blotched and there was an oily black Pierrot-smear of mascara under one eye. “Oh, Nuncle,” she said, a muted wail, “I’m so unhappy.”

Quirke ground the stub of his cigarette into the ashtray on the table. “Calm down, for heaven’s sake,” he muttered; he still had a headache.

Phoebe scowled at him through her tears. “Don’t tell me to calm down!” she cried. “Everyone is always telling me to calm down. I’m sick of it!” She snapped her bag shut and stood up, casting vaguely to right and left, as if she had forgotten where she was. Quirke, still in his chair, told her to sit down, for the love of God, but she ignored him. People at the tables roundabout were looking at her. “I’m getting out of here,” she said, and strode away.