He winced.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said at once. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘There’s nothing more important than being with my family,’ he said emphatically.

‘It means the world to the children.’

‘What about you, Corinne?’

‘Never mind about me. This is their time.’

‘But I do mind about you. It’s ours too, isn’t it?’

‘Well, it’s a chance for us to be civilized with each other. We haven’t done much of that lately.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Yes, that’s all. I’m not your wife any more-’

‘The hell you aren’t!’ he said with the swift anger that sometimes overtook him these days. ‘We’re not divorced yet, and maybe we never will be.’

She regarded him with a quizzical air that was new to him. ‘You have to win every negotiation, don’t you? But you won’t win this one, Alex. So why don’t we just leave it there? I don’t want to spoil this holiday.’

‘Is there someone else?’

The question jerked out of him abruptly, without finesse, tact or subtlety.

She sat silent.

‘Tell me,’ he insisted.

‘No, there’s nobody else. I don’t want anyone else. That’s not why I left you.’

‘Just to get away from me, huh?’

‘If you care to put it that way-yes. But why must we put it that way or any way? It’s Christmas, Alex. Let it go.’

‘All right,’ he said hastily.

As she set coffee before him she said, ‘How about you?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Do you have someone else?’

‘Do you care?’ he growled.

‘If you can ask, so can I,’ she said lightly.

‘Except that you broke up this marriage. That hardly gives you a stake in the answer.’

She shrugged. ‘You’re right. Do you want a drop of brandy in that?’

‘Thanks.’

As she was pouring the brandy he said, ‘The answer’s no.’

She didn’t answer directly, but she took his cup and carried it and her own into the next room, where the tree glowed.