On the other hand he had been a good husband. There had been no other woman in his life… except for the one occasion years before: the love affair that had begun, and had lasted almost a year until he had ended it resolutely, before his marriage could be imperilled. But sometimes guilt nudged him there… nervousness, too, that Margaret should ever learn the truth.

'We'll talk tonight,' he said placatingly. 'When we get back.'

The car stopped and the near-side door was opened. A Mountie in scarlet dress uniform saluted smartly as the Prime Minister and his wife alighted. James Howden smiled an acknowledgement, shook hands with the policeman, and introduced Margaret. It was the sort of thing Howden always did gracefully and without condescension. At the same time he was well aware that the Mountie would talk about the incident afterwards, and it was surprising how far the ripples could extend from a simple gesture of that kind.

As they entered Government House an aide-de-camp – a youngish lieutenant of the Royal Canadian Navy – stepped smartly forward. The aide's gold-trimmed dress uniform looked uncomfortably tight; probably, Howden thought, the result of too much time at a desk in Ottawa and too little at sea. Officers had to wait their turn for sea duty now that the Navy was just a token force – in some ways a joke, though a costly one for taxpayers.

They were led from the high pillared entrance hall up a rich red-carpeted marble stairway, through a wide, tapestried corridor and into the Long Drawing Room where small receptions such as tonight's were usually held. A big, elongated, shoe-box shaped room, high ceilinged, with crossbeams plastered over, it had the intimacy of a hotel lobby, though with rather more comfort. So far, however, the invitingly grouped chairs and settees, upholstered in soft shades of turquoise and daffodil yellow, were unoccupied, the sixty or so guests standing, chatting in informal knots.