'I've been in England for holidays quite often, yes. Not often as early in the year as this, though.

'You haven't seen England at all unless you have seen it in the spring.

'So I've heard.

'Did you fly over?

'Just from Paris, like a good American. Paris is fine in the spring too.

'So I've heard, she said, returning his phrase and his tone. And then, finding the eye he turned on her intimidating, went on: 'Are you a journalist? Is that how you knew Cooney Wiggin?

'No, I'm in the same line as Cooney was.

'Press photography?

'Not Press. Just photography. I spend most of the winter on the Coast, doing people.

'The Coast?

'California. That keeps me on good terms with my bank manager. And the other half of the year I travel and photograph the things I want to photograph.

'It sounds a good sort of life, Liz said, as she unlocked the car door and got in.

'It's a very good life.

The car was a two-seater Rolls; a little old-fashioned in shape as Rolls cars, which last for ever, are apt to be. Liz explained it as they drove out of the square into the stream of the late afternoon traffic.

'The first thing Aunt Lavinia did when she made money was to buy herself a sable scarf. She had always thought a sable scarf the last word in good dressing. And the second thing she wanted was a Rolls. She got that with her next book. She never wore the scarf at all because she said it was a dreadful nuisance to have something dangling about her all the time, but the Rolls was a great success so we still have it.

'What happened to the sable scarf?

'She swopped it for a pair of Queen Anne chairs and a lawn-mower.

As they came to rest in front of the hotel she said: 'They won't let me wait here. I'll go over to the parking place and wait for you.