'Good heavens, no!' I said. 'I'm not indifferent to them now. I'm not a Child of Nature like you. No, it's not exactly that. But Palmer is good at setting people free.'

'If you think I don't worry – but never mind. As for setting people free, I don't trust these professional liberators. Anyone who is good at setting people free is also good at enslaving them, if we are to believe Plato. The trouble with you, Martin, is that you are always looking for a master.'

I laughed. 'Now that I have a mistress I don't want a master! But how did you come across Palmer? Oh, of course, through the sister.'

'The sister,' said Georgie. 'Yes, the curious Honor Klein. I saw him at a party she gave for her pupils once. But she didn't introduce him.'

'Is she any good?'

'Honor? You mean as an anthropologist? She's quite well thought of in Cambridge. She never actually taught me, of course. Anyway, she was usually away visiting one of her savage tribes. She was supposed to organize and help me with my moral problems. God!'

'She's Palmer's half-sister, isn't she? How does it work? They seem to be several nationalities between them.'

'I think this is it,' said Georgie. 'They share a Scottish mother who married Anderson first and then Klein when Anderson died.'

'I know about Anderson. He was Danish-American, an architect or something. But what about the other father?'

'Emmanuel Klein. You ought to know about him. He was not a bad classical scholar. A German Jew, of course.'

'I knew he was a learned something-or-other,' I said. 'Palmer spoke of him once or twice. Interesting. He said he still had nightmares about his step-father. I suspect he's a bit frightened of his sister too, though he never actually says so.'

'She could inspire awe,' said Georgie. 'There's something primitive about her. Perhaps it's all those tribes. But you've met her, haven't you?'