"So what do you think of the house?" said Catherine, coming across the lawn.

"Well… obviously, it's amazing… " He was tingling to the point of fatigue with the afternoon's impressions, but was cautious as to what to say to her.

"Yeah, it's fucking amazing, isn't it!" she agreed, with a bright, brainless laugh. She didn't normally talk like this, and Nick supposed it was part of the persona she was showing to Russell. Russell wasn't actually present (he was busy with his camera somewhere) but it would have taken an unnecessary effort to get out of role. Other elements of the performance were a strange dragging walk and a stunned, vaguely cunning, smile. Nick assumed these were meant to convey sexual satiation.

"How was your journey?"

"Oh, fine-he drives so dangerously."

"Oh… We were held up for ages by the roadworks. Your dad got in quite a state about it."

Catherine gave him a pitying glance. "He obviously went the wrong way," she said.

They wandered on among the formal gardens, where rose scents were mixed with the cat's-piss smell of low box hedges, and the round ponds reflected a summer sky now faintly scrimmed with high white cloud. "God, let's sit down," said Catherine, as though they'd been walking for hours. They went to a stone bench supervised by two naked minor deities. Marvellous the great rallies of the undressed that rich people summoned to wait on them. Lord Kessler at home must be almost constantly in view of a sprawling nymph or unselfconscious hero. "Russell should be finished soon, then you can meet him. I wonder if you'll like him."

"I've already told everyone how charming he is, so I rather feel I've got to."