He had a certain caustic preoccupation with money, Nick could see; and when he told Leo that his father was an antiques dealer the two words, with the patina of old money and the flash of business, seemed to combine in a dull glare of privilege. Among his smart Oxford friends Nick managed to finesse his elbow-patched old man, with his Volvo estate full of blanket-wrapped mirrors and Windsor chairs, into a more luminous figure, a scholar and friend of the local aristocracy. Now he felt a timid need to humble him. And he was wrong, because Leo's long-time boyfriend, Pete, had been an antiques dealer, on the Portobello Road. "Mainly French work," Leo said. "Ormolu. Boulle." It was the first clear thing he had said about his private past. And then he changed the subject.

Leo was certainly quite an egotist-Catherine's graphological analysis had been spot on. But he didn't expound his inner feelings. He did something Nick couldn't imagine doing himself, which was to make statements about the sort of person he was. "I'm the sort of guy who needs a lot of sex," he said, and, "I'm like that, I always say what I think." Nick wondered for a moment if he'd inadvertently contradicted him. "I don't bear grudges," Leo said sternly: "I'm not that kind of person." "I'm sure you're not," Nick said, with a quick discountenancing shudder. And perhaps this was a useful skill, or tactic, in the blind-date world, even if Nick's modesty and natural fastidiousness kept him from replying in the same style ("I'm the sort of guy who likes Pope more than Wordsworth," "I'm crazy about sex but I haven't had it yet"). It added to the excitement of the evening. He wasn't here to share quickly matched intuitions with an Oxford friend. He loved the hard self-confidence of his date; and at the same time, in his silent, superior way, he thought he heard how each little brag was the outward denial of an inner doubt.

With the third drink Nick grew warm and half-aroused and he looked undisguisedly at Leo's lips and neck and imagined unbuttoning the shiny blue short-sleeved shirt that cut so tightly under his arms.