It had been a strange thing to do, but Matthew had been touched, and when he looked out of the window the next morning – he was up early, to bring her a cup of tea in bed – India Street itself seemed transformed, as a lover’s eyes will do to any landscape; will do to any company. The prosaic, the quotidian are infused with a new gentleness, a new loveliness, by the fact that one senses that there is love in the world and that one has glimpsed it, been given one’s share.

The taxi driver, looking in his mirror, said, “So, where are we off to today?”

“Australia,” said Matthew, and turned to smile at Elspeth.

“Oh yes,” said the driver. “Honeymoon?”

Neither Matthew nor Elspeth replied immediately. They were passing a large computer shop, painted in garish purple, a building of great aesthetic ghastliness, and their eyes were drawn to that. The taxi driver glanced into the mirror again. “Yes,” he said. “People come in along this road – visitors – and they’re thinking I’ve heard Edinburgh’s one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and what do they see? That place.”

“Then, when they get to town they see the St. James Centre,” said Matthew. “Who inflicted that on us?”

“Oh well,” said the taxi driver. “At least they’re trying to disguise it now. So it’s your honeymoon. We went to Florida, you know. Six years ago. That’s when we got married.”

“Florida is very…” began Matthew, and then stopped. What could one say about Florida, particularly if one had never been there?

The driver waited for a moment, but when the sentence was not completed merely added, “Yes, it is. It’s a great place for golf. They have these highly manicured golf courses, the Americans. They go round them with nail scissors.”