Meg had finished her brandy and gone to the phone. She called a man, someone called Reggie, and spoke briefly. When she hung up she looked coldly at Blade, still at the bar, naked on his stool, hating himself and the world and wondering what had happened to him.

Meg put on a robe. «You had better dress and leave,» she told Blade. «I'm expecting someone. He'll be here soon.»

«So I heard.» He began to dress.

Before he left, Meg patted his cheek and kissed him. She smiled. «Richard, dear, don't be so glum. I'm sorry if I was nasty. But try to see my side-I'm one of those women who just have to have it once I get started. I like you a lot, you're very sweet and we can be good friends, but if you're impotent, incapable of satisfying me, then we had better know it, have it right out in the open and-«

He had almost struck her. Not a slap nor a backhand of contempt or insolence, but a blow of fury.

«I am not impotent,» he had yelled. «I am not incapable. I don't know what has happened, I do not understand, but I am neither of those things. I am not, goddamn it, I am not!»

Meg did not guess how near she was to harm. She put her fingers on his mouth. «Richard, please. The people across the hall-and anyway you may be right. I'll tell you what, darling. We'll try again, shall we? Once more, Richard, and then if nothing happens, at least we'll know that we are not for each other. Now you really must go… my friend will be here soon.»

Blade had slunk away, there was no other word for it, humiliated and disgusted. He drove down to Dorset, to his cottage on the Channel, and spent a night with booze and agony….

A taxi nearly struck Blade as he crossed Davies Street. The driver leaned to shake a fist at the big man. «Why the bleeding 'ell don't yer look where yer going, guv! The bloody effing street ain't no place to go dreaming.»